Tag Archives: The Owl Service

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In case you were wondering why, here is why

Here’s an index page for all the other details. Just click on the song to find out more about who did it and why I choose them and what they did with it.

Burd Ellen – The Highland Widow’s Lament

Alvarius B – Corn Rigs

Andrew Liles – The Landlord’s Daughter

Good Shepherd with Maydo Kay – Gently Johnny

Magpahi – May Pole

The Owl Service & Harriet Bradshaw – The Tinker of Rye

Meg Baird – Willow’s Song

Sophie Cooper – Fire Leap

United Bible Studies – Procession/Chop Chop

Hawthonn – Lullaby

Teleplasmiste – Festival/Mirie It Is

Sharron Kraus – Sing Cuckoo (Summer Is A-Coming In)

David Colohan – Loving Couples/The Ruined Church

Burial Hex – The Masks/Hobby Horse

The Banshees of Bunworth – Searching For Rowan

Michael Begg – Appointment With The Wicker Man

Dean McPhee – Sunset

Available on digital, CD and gatefold double vinyl from our Bandcamp page.

It will also be stocked at the following quality record shops

Monorail Music, Glasgow, Scotland

It will NOT be available from Amazon or any streaming site.

Artwork, design and photography by Richard Wells. Here is his online Big Cartel shop and his Instagram

Mastered by Andrew Liles

United Bible Studies – Procession/Chop Chop

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Although listed as “Procession/Chop Chop” on the score what we have here is firstly the music from the old song “Fause Foodrage”

Since 1968, that tune has been used for the folk song “Willie O Winsbury” , I think it was Sweeneys Men who started it. This has led to some classic recordings from the likes of Pentangle, Anne Briggs, The Owl Service and Meg Baird.

Also included in this piece is the old nursery rhyme “oranges and lemons”.

United Bible Studies are a collective who put out their debut album in 2003 and their line-up is ever changing and evolving.

This time around, UBS was David Colohan (Agitated Radio Pilot, Raising Holy Sparks) who performed at the recent Barbican concert of Wicker Man music, Dom Cooper (The Straw Bear Band, The Owl Service) & Grey Malkin (The Hare & The Moon, Folk Horror Revival, Widow’s Weeds, Embertides) whose poem “Doonie Woods” is read by Linda Hyden at the start of “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched”

They’ve treated the two assembled tracks very differently. The Procession/Willie part is a ghostly, slowed down version that brings the maximum folk horror vibe. For the “Chop Chop” part they’ve taken a more radical, global approach with a lot of Indian classical influences there and even some riff.

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

The Owl Service & Harriet Bradshaw – The Tinker of Rye

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Now this song was one of the ones that I had to think hard about. The lyrics for this one seem to be original, while the concept – a tale of a tinker full of innuendo, isn’t (see the Jolly Tinker for instance, though there are some versions of that that ditch the innuendo for actual filth)

The trouble with this one is it seems to have been made specifically for Lee’s baritone and also light opera is not as malleable as folk music. I needed an artist with both an empathy for the material and a proven track record of doing interesting cover versions.

It seemed like The Owl Service were needed. After all, it wouldn’t even be their first tangle with the Wicker Man.

But what really swung it for me was hearing this recent and brilliantly inventive version of the old folk song “She Moved Through The Fair”.

The word came back, I had the Owl Service but it would be a collaboration with new singer-songwriter Harriet Bradshaw. I went and checked her Bandcamp and the feeling was very, very right.

So, while I knew this was a track that probably nobody would want to try and tackle, at the same time I knew it was in a safe pair of hands. The results are, of course, radically different and yet also actually very intuitive and a natural evolution of the song. I’d worried that this was the mission impossible but the crack team from Leigh On Sea took care of it.

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter