Regular followers of Folk Radio UK will be familiar with East London five-piece folk band Stick In The Wheel, headed by singer Nicola Kearey, and guitarist/producer Ian Carter. Their debut From Here (2015) was a Featured Album of the Month on FRUK which, in his review, Thomas Blake concluded as “high-energy, politically switched-on folk music and it is one of the most vital recent additions to the English musical tradition.”
Selected as one of our Best Albums of 2015, the release picked up glowing accolades from fRoots magazine (Album of the Year) and a MOJO (Folk Album of the Year), with four BBC Folk Award nominations since their inception in 2013.
Known for Kearey’s fierce, authentic delivery, this is culturally and politically switched on music with its roots firmly embedded in the genre’s traditional, working-class heritage. The group have been widely commended for their timely appraisal of English Folk, and their skill in telling stories through song that reconnect modern audiences to the past – drawing unexpected parallels between then and now.
Watch Over Again, their new video and lead single from their second studio album Follow Them True (out 26 January 2018).
Speaking of the track Kearey said:
“Like the album that it opens, ‘Over Again’ is about a new start, how things come in cycles, rebirth, being stuck in a loop, how you can become trapped, bound by your own rituals, how you need hope to break out of them, but that it has to come from within. We wrote an early version when Rachel Thomas Davies was in the band, then she left, and we left it. Then Ian had a dream one night where he’d mixed the vocals from the ‘Over Again’ with one of the new backing tracks that were kicking around for this album. It just worked.”
The songs on Follow Them True examine rituals and cycles, our inherent power to change ourselves and the world around us, the past repeating itself, ghosts and death, land and place, thieves and beggars. It continues to question the notion of what folk music is, and what it means in 2018. The new album expands the radical sound of their debut to include electronic and found sounds, using a broader sonic palette to create a greater depth full of layers and meaning, yet at the same time remaining totally connected with the tradition.
You can pre-order Follow Them True via their Pledge page which includes signed vinyl/CD along with limited special items.
Click here: https://stickinthewheel.lnk.to/followthemtrueYo
Stick in the Wheel 2018 Tour dates:
8 Feb – London @ Borderline
20 Jan – Glasgow @ Celtic Connections: Oran Mar
2 Feb – Doncaster @ Roots
3 Feb – Kendal @ Brewery Arts Centre
9 Feb – Basingstoke @ The Forge: The Anvil
10 Feb – Widcombe, Bath @ Wharf Room
2 Mar – Edinburgh @ The Traverse
Photo Credit: Toby Amies