You Are Wolf, the alt-folk project of award-winning British composer and writer Kerry Andrew, has announced the release of their third album ‘hare // hunter // moth // ghost’ on November 3rd 2023, on Firecrest Records. Their last album, KELD, was described in a Folk Radio review as “eerie, understated beauty that combines folk traditions with experimental soundscapes. Both timeless and modern…”.
hare // hunter // moth // ghost is told in an utterly modern and individual style that draws on their contemporary classical background, as well as drone, electronica and alt-pop.
Kerry says:
The new album is a collection of eleven alt-folk songs based on themes of transformation, inspired by my own experiences of recent debilitating chronic illness (4.5 years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), and transition to a non-binary identity.
Alongside a mix of traditional and folk-inspired originals are collaborations with other eminent nature writers – Robert Macfarlane and activist/author Nick Hayes – and Sam Lee in a guest vocal.
The second album single, ‘winter solstice‘, is released tomorrow (September 6th), the video for which is premiered below. This dark, Scandi-noir-influenced original song adapts words from Kerri ní Dochartiagh’s Wainwright Prize-shortlisted nature memoir, Thin Places. It explores the boundary between the natural and supernatural worlds.
The haunting animated video was made by Marry Waterson, whose work we have featured many times on Folk Radio…their music and image form the perfect partnership, the visuals heightening that feeling of permeability between the natural and supernatural. Kerry knows how to bring these worlds to life through song, and the opening Irish Traditional Music Archive’s recording of six girls from Magilligan in 1969, singing the beguiling rhyme: ‘A little thing goes wandering about/behind her backs and under her tracks/see I have got it/see I have got it/Tra la la la…’ tips you straight into a strange shapeshifting realm. While Kerry has a tremendous knowledge of the folk songs, mythologies and oral traditions of these islands, it is their wonderful interpretation that warps time, balancing and connecting the past with the present.
I feel the shifting begin
I think of the river
a place where the veil is so thin
I think of the river
hare // hunter // moth // ghost was produced by Kerry and MaJiKer. It was mastered by Ian Carter and features artwork by Nicola Kearey (both of Stick in the Wheel/From Here Records).
Pre-Order hare // hunter // moth // ghost (out on November 3rd) via Bandcamp – https://youarewolf.bandcamp.com/album/hare-hunter-moth-ghost
For every single release, Kerry will be releasing an exclusive original short story reading as B-sides for buyers on Bandcamp only. You can order Winter Solstice from tomorrow (September 6th).
https://linktr.ee/kerry.andrew