The first song Sairie released, all the way back in 2019, was a version of a Scottish ballad called The Gairdner. They hit the ground running, sounding like a lo-fi Pentangle with an added layer of hauntological strangeness. In the seven years between then and now, the Brighton-based trio have released a handful of EPs and singles, including the eerie Christmas folk song The Cherry Tree and an English-language cover of the Françoise Hardy classic Tout Les Garçons et Les Filles that sounds a lot like those mid-60s Vashti Bunyan demos. Fans from the early days will have been anticipating a full-length debut for a long time, and with the release of Beneath the Spreading Tree they will not be disappointed.
Sairie have, to some extent, come full circle. There is a new version of The Gairdner here: it has a crisper, cleaner sound but retains the original’s spooky atmosphere. This is where the band excel. They have perfected the specific brand of folk music that sends shivers down your spine, the kind that is perfect for November mists or January frosts. On Beneath the Spreading Tree’s short opener, the very aptly titled Song For Winter, they lay out a technique that they will come to use repeatedly: the lead vocals are sung together by Emma Morton and Jon Griffin. When they do this – and they do it quite a bit – the songs seem haunted by their own flickering shadows. It’s a simple thing, but hugely effective.
But Sairie have plenty more tricks in their box. Harder Than It Seemed is beautifully sung by Morton, while Griffin’s guitar moves searchingly in the background. The melody is delicate, baroque, but the guitar and Andy Thomas’ bass are wiry and propulsive, and the song becomes a heady psychedelic brew. And on the tender, autumnal Three Knots, Griffin and Morton trade verses before a mid-way volte-face sees the song head off into wilder instrumental waters. Lysergic, droning highlight The Breeze on the Meadow brings in Maria Marzaioli’s violin and Alice Eldridge’s cello for a sound that resembles Philadelphia psych-folker Espers as much as Pentangle or Trees.
The American influence is subtle, and most detectable in Morton’s autoharp, which gives some of these songs a slight Appalachian hint. But the ghostly landscapes on this album – both physical and emotional – are rooted in a British psychogeographical and musical tradition. The places described in the lyrics feel both mundane and otherworldly. You Can’t Go Back is a Griffin-led song of love and yearning with a more contemporary indie-folk slant, but the overall feel remains dark and mysterious, and when Morton’s verse kicks in, it sparks a heightened sense of drama, an unresolved tension that approaches the gothic. How Many contrasts a sweetly sung melody with a dark harmonium drone, while The Green Light foregrounds Morton’s cut-glass vocals over an arrangement that somehow combines noirish alt-folk, 60s psych and a kind of anthemic indie-pop.
But where they really spread their wings is on the title track: a nine-minute narrative that unfolds, ghostly and inevitable, against high-wire swathes of strings. Sairie know exactly how to construct a song that makes you want to wrap up against the cold, and against the other invisible threats that lurk in apparently innocent landscapes. This long-awaited, ageless-sounding debut is starkly beautiful and richly rewarding.
Beneath the Spreading Tree (September 12th, 2026) Hollow Hill Records
Order (DL/CD/LP): Bandcamp | Norman Records (due to be restocked) | Resident