East London five-piece band Stick In The Wheel, headed by singer Nicola Kearey, and guitarist/producer Ian Carter will release their second album Follow Them True on 26 January 2018. Today they share the third and final single ahead of the album’s release, ‘As I Roved Out’. Watch the accompanying new video below.
The track is a deconstruction of all those dull “May morning” songs that prevail in the English tradition and beyond. The album sessions were already done when Nicola pressed record on her phone and this came out in one long five-minute story. Sent straight to Ian, the deconstructed is reconstructed, chopped up to make a different story, a new form with samples and rhythms. An exorcism of ghosts past and present.
Speaking of the track Kearey says: “I’d say that that trope is one you come across readily in folk songbooks. It’s one which I personally feel is difficult to connect with, not least because they usually follow with a description of a pretty lady met along the way, then the objectification thereof. I can’t relate to that. Plus “roving” – like its equivalent personality the “flaneur” by and large have the leisure time to rove. Me and my ancestors don’t/didn’t. We got up in the dark and went directly to work, toiled all day then came home again, exhausted. There is a nostalgia and fetishisation of the past in folk music which is mostly at odds with our approach.”
The songs within 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.
Pre-order Follow Them True here
Stick in the Wheel dates:
20 Jan 2018 Celtic Connections: Oran Mar, Glasgow
2 Feb 2018 Roots Club, Doncaster
3 Feb 2018 Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
8 Feb 2018 ALBUM LAUNCH Borderline, London
9 Feb 2018 The Anvil, Basingstoke
2 Mar 2018 House Concert, Edinburgh (email for info)
3 Mar 2018 Greystones, Sheffield
4 Mar 2018 Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
10 Mar 2018 The Met, Bury
11 Mar 2018 Square Chapel Centre for the Arts, Halifax
24 Mar 2018 Wharf Room, Widcombe, Bath
29 Mar 2018 Colchester Arts Centre, Essex
6 Apr 2018 St Ediths Hall, Sevenoaks, Kent
7 Apr 2018 West End Centre, Aldershot
Photo Credit: Toby Amies