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7"
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VAN 339EP
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Fifteen years since The Memory Band's eponymous debut album on the Hungry Hill label (2004), this single features the voice of Nancy Wallace who made her debut on that first album. Now resident in Canada, Nancy recently reunited with The Memory Band whilst visiting Britain and recorded the title track "After Night" in London. The flipside is a cover of an Anne Briggs song entitled "Tangled Man" from her classic album The Time Has Come (1971).
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LP
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VAN 305LP
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On their fifth album, A Fair Field, The Memory Band return once more to the ghost-lit back-roads of British traditional music where digital machinery and acoustic musicians congregate to make old music from the future. The Memory Band navigate a dream landscape of fading identity, dredging up forgotten histories from old maps, half-filled diaries, government records and lists left inside magazines detailing obsolete television schedules. The music was fed by stories of magical hares and the recollections of ballad sellers bearing placards at the great fairs of times past, the fields of which now lie buried beneath leisure centers, electricity substations, and retail parks. It traces the connection between the headstone of a man killed in Norfolk by the sails of a windmill, the first observations of solar flares, incendiarism, council estates and an old man's recollection of ploughing the land by starlight in another time. Since 2002, The Memory Band has been producing their own modern recipe of traditional music with a rolling cast of contributors led by producer Stephen Cracknell. A Fair Field includes vocal contributions from Liam Bailey, Helene Bradley, Hannah Caughlin, and Nancy Wallace and features the rhythm section of Olie Brice on double bass, Fred Thomas on piano and Tom Page on drums with strings by Lucy Railton and Rob Spriggs.
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10"
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VAN 272EP
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2014 RSD release. The Further Navigations EP is a continuation of the themes which informed The Memory Band album On the Chalk (Our Navigation of the Line of the Downs) also released on Static Caravan. Featuring remixes from Belbury Poly and Grantby and a brand-new Memory Band track, the EP draws inspiration from the ancient "lost road" that is the Harrow Way. The choice of collaborators are two producers who have had a profound impact on The Memory Band sound in different ways, but both bring to the fore the cinematic elements of Stephen Cracknell's approach to traditional music. For "Hobby Horse" Belbury Poly takes the blueprint from the Memory Band's version of the traditional funeral march "When I Was on Horseback," transforms it by speeding it up, flicking the swing setting and producing something that sounds like David Munrow making music for schools on analog synthesizers. Grantby takes the traditional ballad "As I Walked Over Salisbury Plain" and tweaks it into "The Ballad of Imber Down." The Memory Band original "Walk Along It" borrows heavily from the anonymous and haunting version of the traditional English tune "The Lincolnshire Poacher," broadcast from a shortwave numbers station and believed to be operated by the British secret services. Limited edition of 500 copies.
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CD
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TMB 001CD
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2004 release. Glorious album from The Memory Band, released on Spinney Records (Vashti Bunyan, Barry Dransfield, etc.) offshoot Hungry Hill. This record features Stephen Cracknell (ex-Badly Drawn Boy), Adem from Four Tet, assorted members of Hot Chip and Polly Paulusma. Best described as 21st century folk, the album will appeal to fans of Four Tet, Adem, The Wicker Man OST, Fairport Convention, Lambchop and Calexico. The Memory Band was conceived as an imaginary band, built inside a computer and made flesh by the contributions of the artists mentioned above. Featuring violins, harmoniums and guitars, the intention is to leave behind 20th century notions of fusion and purity and to simply explore new musical languages, with plenty of singing and dancing on a Sunday.
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CD
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TMB 003CD
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This is the third album by Stephen Cracknell's The Memory Band. In a decade which has seen a wide ranging and fruitful revival of interest in folk music, The Memory Band has established itself in that fine English tradition of slightly schizophrenic projects pointing in several directions at once. From the outset, The Memory Band has embraced change and for Oh My Days, the ever-fluid line-up of the band has shifted once more, with a fresh emphasis on rhythm courtesy of the powerhouse team of bassist Jon Thorne from Lamb and drummer Tom Page of Rocketnumbernine, as well as an all-new vocal frontline featuring Jess Roberts, Jenny McCormick, Hannah Caughlin and Liam Bailey. Sam Carter, winner of the Horizon award at the Radio 2 Folk Awards, plays and sings on a number of songs, while there are contributions from names new and old; Nancy Wallace, Dot Allison, Sam Genders on vocals, guitarists John Smith and Pete Greenwood, bassist Jonny Bridgwood, string players Quinta, Rob Spriggs, Jennymay Logan and Laura Moody, Sarah Scutt on accordion and recorder, and Serafina Steer on harp. Oh My Days is a warmly-textured, delicately-balanced blend of the best elements from its predecessors. Low-key electronic pulses and loops purr away gently beneath material that radiates a quiet strength, having expanded its palette to embrace soul, gospel, Laurel Canyon rock and country blues alongside the folk and jazz elements of the earlier albums. It's a beautifully-poised piece of work, with the usual handful of inspired covers: Sandy Denny's "By The Time It Gets Dark," Graham Bond's "Love Is The Law" and Jeff Alexander's "Come Wander With Me" nestling amongst ten originals, several of which are already live favorites.
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