In 2016, Shirley Collins made a comeback with Lodestar on which she was keen to point out “I don’t want people to think I’m the lodestar. It’s the music that is guiding me.” In the accompanying essay from Stewart Lee, he notes that Lodestar “represents a distant point of inspiration which she, in her dedicated humility, has spent a lifetime pointing whatever talent she has towards, (as) the humble servant of the disembodied voice of the people”. Last year then saw the release of her second album for Domino, Heart’s Ease, every bit as good as Lodestar. In his review, Thomas Blake notes “She has spoken of regaining her confidence, and as a result, her voice sounds, if anything, even better than before. From the start, her singing is easy and conversational, the sort of voice that could capture the attention of a noisy pub or a hushed concert hall with equal ease” and he went on to conclude that it was “an album as good as folk music gets.”
Hearts Ease featured four non-traditional songs including the closing track “Crowlink” which is where the next part of her story starts. Today, Shirley Collins is pleased to announce a new EP, Crowlink, due July 30th. The EP is named after a particular hamlet in the Seven Sisters (a series of undulating hills on the Sussex coast) with a pathway that overlooks the English Channel which is one of Shirley’s favourite places to be.
Picking up from Heart’s Ease’s finale, the Crowlink EP is a collection of songs sung by Shirley Collins and featuring field recordings from the edge of the cliffs at Crowlink, Firle Church and Etchingham recorded by Matthew Shaw. Shaw also produced the EP and played additional instrumentation across the EP’s five songs.
Alongside the Crowlink announcement, Shirley Collins shares “My Sailor Boy” from the EP, which finds Shirley singing over a moody, atmospheric fusion of sounds and demonstrates a more experimental side to the folk veteran. Elsewhere on the EP, Ossian Brown’s hurdy-gurdy rings through on “The Rose and the Briar” and the artwork is by author, painter, film maker & provocateur Brian Catling.
Directed by Grant Gee, the video for “My Sailor Boy” mirrors the eerie sound and mystical feel of the EP.
Alongside the EP, there will be two special Crowlink shows at Charleston Trust, East Sussex at the end of the month which features an immersive sound installation as well as performances from Matthew Shaw, Brian Catling and an intimate concert from Shirley Collins and the Lodestar Band. The sound installation contains fragments of letters, diaries and prose from Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell and the Bloomsbury Group (Charleston Trust is the former home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant) as well as poems and extracted writings voiced by Shirley Collins, Jeremy Deller, Zakia Sewell, Benjamin Zephaniah, Heather Leigh, Laura Barton, Mark Fry, Lally MacBeth, Peter Owen Jones, Hannah Peel, Sam Lee, Amy Grantham, Alex Merry and Matthew Shaw.
Upcoming live dates
31st July 2021 – Charleston Trust, East Sussex Tickets
1st August 2021 – Charleston Trust, East Sussex Tickets
2nd – 5th September – End of the Road Festival @ Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset
Photo credit – Enda Bowe