Video Premiere: A Winter Union – Minstrels

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been seven years since the Festive folk supergroup A Winter Union released their first studio album. For those new to this festive offering, the band features Hannah Sanders & Ben Savage, Gilmore & Roberts and Jade Rhiannon (of The Willows – of whom Ben Savage and Katriona Gilmore are also members).

The band have just announced a new album. Sooner After Solstice will be released on 10th November (Sungrazing Records – Catalogue No. SGR201 – Pre-Order here). The band are known for producing a sound so much greater than the sum of their parts; this is a record full of joy, passion and life – the magic captured between five friends in a room singing the music they love.

The Winter Union annual tour has become a welcome part of the folk calendar, an experience that has shaped the album that nods to British and American folk traditions. Ben Savage: “We’ve long looked upon our December tour as a kind of month-long Christmas party. There’s always such a brilliant feeling in the room at gigs around that time of year, and we just feed on it… By recording lots of the record close together, live in the studio, in the winter, we did everything we could to try and can a little of that energy here.”

You can hear their first single, ‘Minstrels,’ below, on which they set to music Wordsworth’s poem about the rigours of music-making in the depths of the British winter.

As a band that has only ever toured throughout December, A Winter Union felt a real affinity with Wordsworth’s workmanlike seasonal musicians.

A Winter Union bring a fresh approach to the folk tradition, and that’s clear to hear on Minstrels. On the strength of this new single, it should be your number-one Winter Solstice album.

Among the other songs featured on Sooner After Solstice are ‘The Trees of Old England’, which sees the quintet add a new wassail to the traditional repertoire. Meanwhile, Jethro Tull’s ‘Ring Out, Solstice Bells’ opens the album with a transatlantic feel with mandolin and dobro riffs-a-plenty, and the raucous ‘Rise Up Shepherd’ finds the band belting out gospel-tinged choruses to an earthy blues jam backing.

Whilst there is no shortage of Christmas party here, there are plenty of moments for reflection and poignancy: Jamie’s reworking of Graeme Miles’ ‘Snows Of Winter’ is a beautiful declaration of love amidst the freeze, and Katriona’s ‘Raise A Candle’ offers a moment of reflection at a time of year which is so challenging for so many.

Alongside the core band, their sound is given some added dynamics with the folk world’s most loved Double Bass player, Ben Nicholls and Dan Day on Drums.

Pre-Order Sooner After Solstice: https://propermusic.com/collections/pre-orders/products/awinterunion-sooneraftersolsticeatransatlanticfolkchristmas

Sooner After Solstice Tracklisting

1. Ring Out, Solstice Bells (3:41)

2. Minstrels (3:17)

3. Snowin’ On Raton (4:31)

4. All Bells in Paradise (4:04)

5. White Christmas Somewhere (4:15)

6. Rise Up Shepherd (3:25)

7. Snows Of Winter (6:00)

8. The Trees Of Old England (3:42)

9. Raise A Candle (4:11)

10. In The Bleak Midwinter (3:44)

11. Boxing Day (3:10)

12. I Saw Three Ships (3:56)

All of the players involved in A Winter Union have been highly praised on Folk Radio:

Of the band, Gilmore and Roberts featured most recently on Folk Radio with their new album Documenting Snapshots, which was also one of our Featured Albums of the Month.

“…a magnificent, mercurial album that will cement and further enhance their reputation as purveyors of the finest-quality music.”
David Pratt, Folk Radio

Last year, Hannah and Ben made their Topic Records debut, Ink Of The Rosy Morning.

“This is their most immediate, beguiling and, dare I say it, finest work yet.”
Mike Davies, Folk Radio

The last offering from The Willows was in 2018 with Through the Wild; the lineup featured Ben Savage, Jade Rhiannon and Katriona Gilmore from A Winter Union alongside Cliff Ward (who plays guitar, banjo and fiddle), drummer Evan Carson and John Parker on double bass.

“Even at this early stage in their career, it is tempting to draw comparisons with bands like Fairport Convention…They take their influences from both sides of the Atlantic, they have a rambunctious, danceable approach to traditional music, and they are not afraid to turn up the amps and sacrifice a few sacred cows along the way.”
Thomas Blake