Stornoway have always held a special place in our hearts. The band’s debut album went silver in the UK, an example of fine songwriting, recorded in a fresh, unadorned way simply finding the audience it was always meant to.
After a break the band are back, and new album ‘Dig The Mountain!’ – their first in eight years, believe it or not – lands on September 8th. Available to order online, the record is trailed by recent single ‘Trouble With The Green’, a slice of Stornoway magic that charmed 6Music’s very own Lauren Laverne, amongst others.
New single ‘Bag In The Wind’ is a vintage piece of Stornoway, a delicious chunk of indie-folk with excellent harmonies and an intriguing song structure. Borrowing from the English folk tradition and merging it with aspects of celebrated South African ensemble Agisanang Choir, what emerges is defiantly original.
A song about people losing their way, and wandering through life without purpose, ‘Bag In The Wind’ emerges as something quietly affecting.
Stornoway’s Brian Briggs comments…
People are a bit like bags, weighed down with worries and endless jobs, hoping for someone to take us by the handle and tip the gravity out of us… The song was born from just noodling around on the guitar, playing muted chords with all my fingertips just resting gently on the strings. I recorded two guitars and panned them fully in stereo which gave the close-up effect you hear in the verses.
The vocal melody was partly inspired by the recording of the Agisanang Choir you can hear at the beginning and end of the song, singing ‘Tschelane’ in the Tswana language. I found the song on a favourite compilation of mine called ‘African Renaissance Sampler, Music from the South African Broadcasting Corporation’.
The full video for ‘Bag In The Wind’ is available to watch on Clash before anywhere else – a real treat for fans, you can tune in now.
Catch Stornoway on the road this October. ‘Dig The Mountain!’ will be released on September 8th.
Photo Credit: Alex Lake
