The Forest / The Wald

The Forest / The Wald is a study and collection of work that reflects on fragments and echoes of tales from the woodland and its folklore. Such wooded realms are deeply embeded in our folk and popular culture stories: their boughs and undergrowth being seen as places where spirits both good and bad may reside, visitors from elsewhere in the cosmos have laid down roots or where unwary travellers can come undone. The album takes as one of its initial reference points Electric Eden author Rob Young’s observations of the roots of the word folk as being “...the music of the ‘Volk’, a word born of the Teutonic Wald, the wild wood where society was organised ad hoc, bottom-up and frequently savage...”; places where rituals endured and perplexed their heirs. Although today they are often tamed and managed it takes but a wandering into the heart of one to realise just how near to being far from the comforts and securities of civilisation we are. In amongst The Forest / The Wald can be found field recording folk that captures greenwood rituals performed in the modern day, echoes of fantastical childhood rhymes, sylvan siren calls that tremble through tangles of branches, electronics pressed into the summoning of otherworldly arboreal creations unearthed amidst the creeping thickets and elegies to woodland intrustions, solitudes and seasons. Released as part of the A Year In The Country project, a set of year long journeys through and searching for an expression of an underlying unsettledness to the bucolic countryside dream; an exploration of an otherly pastoralism, a wandering amongst subculture that draws from the undergrowth of the land, the patterns beneath the plough, pylons and amongst the edgelands. On previous A Year In The Country releases: "A year in the country quietly go about their business releasing beautifully packaged music that is influenced by folk, electronica, drone as well as by landscape, time and place. These... compilations each have themes running through them, tying the music together and seemingly telling a story as they unfold." Terrascope "…one imagines such editions being buried in time capsules or cemented in stone walls for future generations to mull over: sedimentary layers of history..." A Closer Listen "...a conceptual compilation of excellently eerie electronic music..." Simon Reynolds, author of Retromania and Energy Flash "...beautifully packaged collection of Midwich Cuckoo ghost-folk - a haunting edgelands lament for piano, cor anglais & rustling pages." Mojo “A skillfully weighted blend of of dark folklore and synthesised experimentation, 'Fractures' is a bit special." Electronic Sound “The album evokes a beautifully atmospheric pastoral reverie and a ghostly sense of loss…” Ghost Box Records