Hildaland: “Coffee & Incense”

Peghead Nation mandolin instructor plays an original tune with fiddler Louise Bichan, live in our studio.

By: Dan Gabel

May 6, 2026

We had fun hosting Hildaland for an intimate showcase performance at the Peghead Nation Studio in downtown San Rafael, California, in April. Hildaland is Peghead Nation instructor Ethan Setiawan and fiddle player Louise Bichan. They play a contemporary mix of Scottish and American traditional music, along with some originals inspired by their favorite traditions.

In this video, Hildaland plays one of Ethan’s original tunes, “Coffee and Incense,” which they recorded on their album Sule Skerry, released in 2023, and which features Ethan on octave mandolin and Louise on fiddle.

Ethan and Louise were both in the San Francisco Bay Area to teach at the venerable Walker Creek Music Camp, and to play a few other shows. Ethan also recorded several new lessons for his popular Weekly Mandolin Workout course on Peghead Nation while he was in town. And before the Peghead Nation showcase, Ethan taught a fun and helpful in-person and Zoom workshop in the Peghead studio, called Mandolin From the Ground Up. In this Peghead Nation Session, Ethan Setiawan covers his approach to the foundations of mandolin playing, including picking- and fretting-hand techniques, pick hold and angle, tremolo, cross-picking, and more. He shares practical exercises to help you develop better technique, tone, and control, and applies all of these fundamentals to playing the bluegrass tune, ”Cherokee Shuffle,” both his basic arrangement of the melody and with variations. This 90-minute Session is now available for a one-time purchase, and with that, you retain permanent access to the video lessons and materials in the workshop as part of your Peghead Nation login. Lots of Ethan’s deep wisdom to absorb on Peghead Nation, and we’re happy to have him on our instructor roster!