Earlier this year, we reviewed The Declining Winter’s album Really Early, Really Late. It’s the project of songwriter and composer Richard Adams, who, Thomas Blake states in his review: “is happy to dwell in the most liminal of places: this makes for a music that is disquieting, unnerving, and often difficult to pin down.”
He concludes: “There are many ways of describing The Declining Winter’s sound – haunted shoegaze, perhaps, or devotional chamber music, or ambient dream-folk – none of which do it any justice. It’s better to think of Adams’ work as an integral if obscure feature of the British musical landscape, like a stone circle hidden behind a housing estate. It’s a back catalogue that is ripe for discovery, and Really Early, Really Late is an enticing place to start: it is engrossing, sometimes playful, frequently pensive, and never less than captivating.”
They are touring alongside epic45 in November – epic45 are Ben Holton and Rob Glover, who grew up in the middle of nowhere, Staffordshire, England. They released their first 7″ EP in 1999 and, from there, have continued to put out a number of widely celebrated albums and EPs inspired by their immediate surroundings, childhood memories and the evolving landscape and its histories.
A listen to both of their latest releases, Really Early, Really Late (released on Rusted Rail and Home Assembly) and Spring, an unreleased epic45 album from the era between Drakelow and May Your Heart Be The Map (released on their own Wayside & Woodland Recordings), suggests this will be quite a beautiful psychogeographic dreamy listening experience.
Tickets: https://linktr.ee/epic45_tour
