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Press contact; promo@southern.com
For everything else; info@midwich-cuckoos.co.uk (this is also the address to subscribe to our mailing iist - just send a blank email with "subscribe" in the subject field).
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MERCHANDISE
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Strictly limited edition Owl Service merchandise now in stock. "A Garland of Song" t-shirts in 2 colours, screen printed on 100% pure cotton tees - dark red print on natural shirt or for extra feathered folkiness, light green print on "Forest Green" shirt. Available in small, medium and large, order via secure PayPal link from http://www.midwich-cuckoos.co.uk/merch
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RELEASES
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 The debut album by The Owl Service, "A Garland of Song", will be released by Southern Records on June 30th. 13 tracks, 43 minutes, a collection of traditional ballads interpersed with original compositions housed in beautiful packaging with stunning design from Dominic Cooper. Already hailed as a classic by Terrascope and "the best traditional album" of the year by Foxy Digitalis, 3 star reviews have been forthcoming from the Sunday Times and Uncut magazine and tracks from the album have been played on Radio 2, BBC6 Music and regional BBC radio in Shropshire and Scotland.
The album can be pre-ordered on CD and strictly limited edition red vinyl from the
Southern Records webstore. It's also available from a host of quality independants.
 The story of this release goes back to a brief exchange between Owl Service main man Steven Collins and Alison O'Donnell (of the legendary Irish prog-folk group Mellow Candle) on a social networking website in the Spring of 2007. "The Fabric of Folk" is a collision between two ages of folk-rock; Alison was intrigued by the sound of The Owl Service, Steven had been in awe of "Swaddling Songs" for many years and so a collaboration seemed inevitable. "Fabric..." contains two original Collins/O'Donnell compositions (one with lyrics penned by Dominic Cooper of the Straw Bear Band), a short instrumental interlude, and two traditional reworkings. The original songs bookend the EP in perfect fashion and Alison's treatment of the traditional material in between is masterful. From the ominous opening track "The Wooden Coat" to the epic finale "The Fabric of Life", the listener is taken on a journey through themes of life and death, all handled with a pathos and poignancy so rarely heard in modern folk music. "A Fabric of Folk" will be released on CD this Summer by Static Caravan and on vinyl this Winter by Midwich Records.
All Owl Service self-releases have now sold out; "A Garland of Song" is now available from a host of online retailers and can also be downloaded from iTunes.
The Static Caravan reissue of "Cine" has sold out, a sequel will be released this summer; the "John Barleycorn Reborn" compilation CD (which features our exclusive version of "The North Country Maid" with Rachel Davies) is available from our friends at Cold Spring plus the usual mail order outlets.
Coming soon... the first release from our new side-project, The Trysting Tree - a mini-album entitled "Midnight House" containing experimental, esoteric tracks inspired by WF Harvey's collection of ghost stories with Laura Hulse lending her ghostly dulcet tones to several tracks; a lathe-cut vinyl release to herald the arrival of the Hobby-Horse Singles Club (the last ever Hobby-Horse releases); the sequel to "Cine", tentatively titeld "Il Horror de Owl Service"; the second full-length Owl Service album, for which recording has just begun under the working title "The Pattern Beneath the Plough".
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FORTHCOMING SHOWS
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PRESS & REVIEWS
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"...a sure-footed debut driven by the knowledge that such close companionship with morbidity often translates into a deeply beguiling record. It certainly does here" Word magazine
"...combines the best parts of the British folk-rock boom with a sense of occult psychedelia that's never overbearing" Uncut magazine
"Icy female vocals and crystalline electric guitars thread through sinister traditional tunes, recalling Trees' 1970 classic 'On the Shore' and Fairport Convention's 'Liege & Lief'" Stewart Lee, Sunday Times
"British spooky/avant folksters whose muse is slightly more medieval than post-modern, but recalls Black Mountain and Lightning Dust as well as Vashti Bunyan and Steeleye Span" Time Out
"...we highly recommend checking out the finest “traditional folk” album we’ve heard all year" Foxy Digitalis
"...the result sounds like a lost album of '70s UK folk ...female singers who have that quality to provoke a world of a cultivated sensitivity ...all tracks flow beautifully from one perfect mood to the next" Psyche Homestead
"...pure genius" DJ Magazine
"A deeply intoxicating and alluring listening spectacle." Losing Today
"A quiet, contemplative work of art that'll warm the cockles of any cold, cold heart" Foxy Digitalis
"...wonderful and inventive but by no means contrived, ...an EP that is full of surprises and beautiful moments. As with many EPs, "Wake the Vaulted Echo" ends a little too quickly and I found myself wanting to hear more" Progressive Ears
"This is one elusive butterfly of a record: a CD you'll want to play all the way through again and again, ond pause only to wish it were longer" Terrascope Online
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