Enderby’s Room is fiddler Dan Mayfield, once from rural Lincolnshire, but he has now found home living in London. His folk-tinged songs reflect on his traditional folk upbringing, which included playing fiddle for Morris dancing sides around the country. Mayfield has also played fiddle for many artists including Daniel Johnston, Darren Hayman, The Wave Pictures and Allo Darlin.
Lakeside, the first single from their forthcoming debut album, is one of the first songs that Mayfield composed, taken from the perspective of someone longing to be with someone they can’t be with. There are themes of nature and listening which also feature throughout the rest of music on the forthcoming album. Mayfield is joined by Emma Winston (Deerful, Owl & Mouse) on vocals in this lamenting duet.
Over the past ten years, he has gently built up a collection of his own songs, which he performs with his band Enderby’s Room. The name comes from an Anthony Burgess character called Mr Enderby who composed his prose inside the toilet. The band’s make up has been constantly evolving; around 30 different individuals have been a part of Enderby’s Room over the last decade, before settling on the current 5 piece lineup.
Enderby’s Room’s sound features a Victorian pedal harmonium, together with French horn, double bass, ukulele, guitar and percussion.
The artwork for the record was created by Johnny Voss whose style involves using a continuous single pen stroke to create his illustrations.
As well as Enderby’s Room, Mayfield set up School of Noise which encourages young people to be creative with sound, using unusual noise-making and sound sculpting machines. This project has seen him take workshops to the Green Man and End of the Road festivals as well as the Southbank Centre, Museum of London, Great Ormond Street Hospital and primary schools around the country.
The debut album from Enderby’s Room is released in the spring. Pre-Order the single ‘Lakeside’ via Fika Recordings here: http://shop.fikarecordings.com/album/lakeside
More here: enderbysroom.co.uk