BIRD ON A BRIAR EP (2024)
Dave Malkin & Louis Campbell
TRAD / FOLK / INSTRUMENTAL
10” Clear Vinyl & DL
released 2nd August 2024
Lauded for projects expertly blending tradition and modernity, Dave Malkin (Dipper Malkin) and Louis Campbell (Owen Spafford & Louis Campbell) come together to explore and reframe their instrument, the guitar, and its role in English traditional music.
Their debut EP, Bird On A Briar, journeys through melodies from centuries-old manuscripts and the aural tradition, reclaiming arrangements from the English Pastoral School and celebrating the musical idiosyncrasies of England. Their two flat-top acoustic guitars bloom in the natural reverberance of a church hall in South East London, captured by Malkin’s long-time collaborator Tom Moore.
The title track, an arrangement of perhaps the oldest surviving English secular song with a complete lyric, dated to the late 13th century, encapsulates the record as a whole, carefully treading a path between research and imagination.
Bird On A Briar is available as a limited-edition 10-inch vinyl and digital, released on Slow Worm Records, August 2024.
Dave Malkin - Guitar
Louis Campbell - Guitar
Engineered, mixed and produced by Tom Moore
Artwork image by Liam Campbell
SLOW WORM LABEL SAMPLER (2024)
Featuring recordings from several label releases, you can grab one of these label samplers for free at any of our events/concerts this summer.
PH(R)ASE (2023)
Archie Churchill-Moss
FOLK / INSTRUMENTAL
Special Edition Hardback CD + Tunebook
Archie Churchill-Moss is one of Britain’s foremost squeezers; a 29-year-old diatonic button accordion player from Somerset who grew up immersed in English and French traditional dance music. Playing a custom layout (three-row, eighteen-bass) Vanderaa accordion, he challenges what most would think of as possible on the instrument.
His debut album, PH(R)ASE, is a collection of his own compositions which are the culmination of many years playing, writing and touring. WhilE Archie’s tunes often follow familiar northern European dance tune forms, they harbour serious harmonic and melodic exploration.
The album was recorded and filmed completely live in the studio over four days in Spring 2022. It is released on Slow Worm Records and is available on special edition CD (+ sheet music), DL and streaming on 13th January 2023.
Music written and performed by Archie Churchill-Moss
Recorded and Mixed by Tom Moore
Mastered by Nick Cooke
Filmed and edited by Graham Coe
Artwork by Kate Griffin
SPECTRES (2020)
Tom Moore & Archie Moss
FOLK / EXPERIMENTAL
10” Clear Vinyl, CD & DL
"Spectres re-kindles the musical relationship between the resolute harmony of Moss’s accordion, and the texture and flow of Moore’s Viola. Whilst intrinsically influenced by both English and European traditional dance music forms, sonically they have their heads firmly in the present. Their compositions explore minimalism, repetition, and noise. All the while - the distinct pulse, push-pull, group intuition – these ‘spectres’ of traditional music still haunt their playing "
Released October 1, 2020
Tom Moore - Viola, Electronics
Archie Moss - Accordion, Electronics
Produced by Tom Moore
Mixed by Tom Moore
Mastered by Martin Nichols
Spectres has been heard on BBC Radio 2 & BBC Radio 3
Winner of the FATEA Instrumental album of the year 2020
Featured in ambient music guide’s best albums of 2020
THE COLOUR OF AMBER (2023)
Nick Hart & Tom Moore
TRAD / FOLK
12” Amber Vinyl LP, CD & DL
Releasing on 22nd November 2023 - the album is a curation of some of Nick & Tom’s favourite traditional English songs and tunes, performed and recorded live in the room on Viol da Gamba, Viola and Voice.
Recorded and Mixed by Tom Moore
Mastered by Sam Proctor
Artwork by Alex Merry
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Airplay on BBC Radio 2 (Folk Show) and BBC Radio 3 (Late Junction)
Tom’s playing has been called “ingenious” (The Guardian) and “irresistible” (The Independent) and Nick has been described as “…probably the finest interpreter of traditional English folk songs this generation has produced…” (tradfolk.co).
“The Colour of Amber breaks new ground musically, the viola and viol combination creating a unique setting that sounds both ancient and completely fresh, capable of adding richness and depth to the songs and tunes. This first album from the duo stands head and shoulders above just about any other English traditional album of the last few years”
FOLK RADIO UK
"Whatever these two turn their hands to turns to gold. An exceptional album from two musicians at the absolute top of their game"
TRADFOLK etc
"The Colour of Amber marries the dark, woody tones of Hart’s viol da gamba and Moore’s viola with songs from morris and travelling traditions. It’s solid, hearty, medieval fare, bringing old-fashioned warmth to the winter"
THE GUARDIAN
VOLUME ONE - A CURIOUS DANCE (2023)
Paddi Benson, Grace Lemon & James Patrick Gavin
EXPERIMENTAL / FOLK / INSTRUMENTAL
Cassette & DL
releases 28th september 2023
Grace Lemon and Paddi Benson - two highly-accomplished Uilleann pipers - and James Patrick Gavin, an acclaimed fiddle player and guitarist, have joined forces to explore the interlocking sounds of two pipes and write new music underpinned by narrative threads. Their debut project, ‘volume one – a curious dance’, was recorded in summer 2022 and is now set for release in September 2023. An original composition, this project reflects a shared interest in experimental and electronic music, as well as the tradition of storytelling – and folklore – within Irish music, as where they met.
The trio’s debut project is a conceptual retelling of the patient ballroom dances that took place at Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam) throughout the 19th century. It is a blurred lines composition, in which the two sets of pipes speak to and layer upon one another almost like the right and left hand of a piano, rather than two distinct instruments. The intention is that the listener is caught between ‘who is playing what’. The result of the trio’s interest in the instrument itself – from idiosyncratic harmonics to the material resonance of wood and reeds – is a rich and unique sound that draws from both traditional and contemporary influences, moving between experimental minimalism and excerpts of self-penned reels and jigs.
Extra double bass by Tim Fairhall
Recorded and mixed by Tom Moore
Mastered by Sam Proctor
Artwork by Paddi Benson + Gordon Benson
SUITE FOR SOLO VIOLIN & SOFTWARE ABUSE (2022)
Bethany Misselbrook (featuring Kath Roberts)
EXPERIMENTAL / INSTRUMENTAL
10” Clear Vinyl & DL
In this collision of musical worlds, electronic musician and composer Bethany Misselbrook carves out enough space and light for Kath Roberts’ violin to breathe amongst influences as diverse as birdsong, musique concrète and Indonesian Gamelan.
Suite for Solo Violin and Software Abuse is a collection of nine pieces which share a bedrock of atmospheric granular synthesis. This creates fertile ground for neo-classical violin to harvest some compelling and emotive melody.
This series of recordings was conceived from microscopic analysis of musical pitches – more specifically, extracting fragments of a singular note’s harmonic series, and sewing the pieces together using software into a coherent patchwork of harmony. Due to this process, the resulting musical sequences feel simultaneously micro and macroscopic. The contrastingly natural sound of Violin provides a grounding humanity - the sound of fingers hitting strings set readily across an otherwise Sci-Fi backdrop.
In this exploratory work, Bethany Misselbrook and Kath Roberts take inspiration from iconic British electronic music pioneers such as Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire, carrying these influences into the digital world. Perhaps it is fitting that the final versions of this suite were recorded remotely via the internet, due to covid restrictions.
The album is released in May 2022.