AS a working musician Jo Mango has plenty of time to both travel and think.

And when the Glasgow songstress started pondering just how much she travelled around the world, it led her to craft a new EP.

Wrack Lines features Jo working with four of Scotland’s top musicians, from fellow songbird Rachel Sermanni to top guitarist RM Hubbert, and will also form the centre of a Celtic Connections gig next Thursday at Platform in Easterhouse.

The proceeds from the release go towards the Creative Carbon Scotland charity, and the project features a number of reflections on travel and the environment.

“I remember being on tour back in 2006 or 2007 and getting off long flights each day and wondering about the effect it was having on the environment and if there was a better way,” says Jo, who stays in Bishopbriggs.

“Then as part of my other job (lecturing at the West of Scotland university) I was involved in a research project looking at music festivals, and how sustainable it is, and carbon emissions, and I looked at it from the artist’s perspective.

“Obviously songwriters think through issues by writing songs about them, and that’s where the EP comes from – I got together with another four artists who I thought would find it interesting.”

The rest of Jo’s collaborators included Louis Abbott of Glasgow folk-indie band Admiral Fallow and Johnny Lynch, aka the Pictish Trail, who runs his own label and festival on the Isle of Eigg.

Ironically, the travel schedules of everyone involved meant that the songs had to be written rapidly, something Jo felt helped the project out.

“It was actually quite a high pressure environment, because everyone was so busy travelling and touring it was hard to get us all in the same place,” says the singer.

“I just went up to Rachel’s house, for example, and we had two days to do it all from start to finish, but that’s a good way of writing, because you don’t faff around for ages ...

"Starting with a certain topic in mind made it easier, although I think we were worried it could be quite a dry topic or come across as preachy.

“I didn’t want to write songs just saying we should all be kind and save the world, because it’s not as simple as that.

"So we gave ourselves leeway to write about what we related to the topic.”

That means the songs look at things like why they travel so much, and how they find being on the road all the time.

Yet Jo also believes that music like this can help stir up debate, especially with climate change a hot topic at the moment.

“I don’t think music can change a mindset that’s totally set in one direction, but it can start conversations,” she adds.

“If people are already thinking about exploring those ideas then it’s an effective tool for continuing to have those thoughts.

"Artists tend to talk to each other about these things, so it can be a small spotlight on some of these ideas, and hopefully people who come to the show will think about them too.”

The gig itself will feature all five artists, playing material from the EP and their solo careers.

They’ll also be chatting, songwriter’s circle style, about how they write music and some of their songs.

“I’m actually a bit nervous I’ll be over-talking at it,” adds Jo, who certainly enjoys a good chat.

“We’ll be chatting about our thought processes and writing songs – it’ll still be like a normal gig, just with an added bit about where the songs came from.

"It should hopefully be interesting to hear a bit more about how these songs were created.”

Then it’s back to Jo’s solo work.

It was 2012 when she released the widely acclaimed Murmuration album, showcasing both her deft melodies and often haunting vocals, with Transformuration following in 2014, featuring a host of remixes of the original album.

That means the plan for 2016 is to get working on a new full-length record.

“Doing the collaborations has really spurred on my own writing as well,” she says

“When you’re writing with someone else there are other ideas that start pouring out and you want to try and catch that.”

Fields of Green: A Songwriters Circle, Platform, January 21, £12, 7.30pm. Wrack Lines is available from http://olivegrove.bandcamp.com