4AD

Oxford indie-folk quartet Stornoway followed up their celebrated 2010 debut album, Beachcomber’s Windowsill, in 2013 with Tales From Terra Firma. Ten this year, Tales From Terra Firma is an album of stories – birth, death, marriage and coming of age. Featuring the singles ‘The Bigger Picture’ and ‘Farewell Appalachia’, it was recorded and produced by the band in the main at their own Oxford space, bringing in mix engineer George Shilling (having loved his work with Teenage Fanclub, a huge influence on them) midway to help them achieve their vision. It worked too. By being true to themselves and remaining oblivious to outside influences, they made a truly special album where life is unfurled for the listener. The Guardian said in their full marks review that there’s “no curse of the second album for Stornoway, who’ve stretched out without losing sight of the intimacy of their charming debut.”

For its sleeve, the band worked with the artist Kirini Kopcke who used fragments of lyrics as her start point to create a picture foreach “tale” on the album, presenting a strip cartoon-like depiction of the adventures in the life of the main protagonist.

Pressed on recycled black vinyl, in FSC-sourced card sleeves

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Stornoway release their second album, Tales From Terra Firma, (excl. North America - released 18th March).

It is an album of stories – birth, death, marriage, coming of age: The Big Stuff. The songs were mostly written in a camper van in land-locked Oxford and the bulk of the recording spanned two winters, between December 2011 and November 2012. During this time no one outside the band heard the songs before the final mixes.

It all adds to the sense of a band intent on writing their own story to their own exacting specifications, oblivious to trends or outside influence. “We never aspire to be anything other than who we are,” says singer and principal songwriter Brian Briggs. “We’ve never felt we fitted in with a particular music scene, it’s always been about doing our own thing and being ourselves. It is honest music.”