Brown Wimpenny

Long live Brown Wimpenny is a collection of some of our favourite tunes and songs that we’ve picked up and played around with over the last couple of years.

The people and places through which we discovered this music are central to the choice of tracks on the album. From listening to source recordings of Frank Verrill and Jake Thackray during rehearsals, to picking up tunes at local pub sessions each track brings with it a little piece of the band's history.

It’s not surprising then that we found ourselves drawn to the human narratives that define traditional songs. Tales of hardened shepherdess’ and maligned steelworkers, lonely drunks and sailors nearing death. It’s these stranger, often forgotten folk characters that really captured our imagination, pushing us to use the full scope of textures and sounds our arsenal of instruments can create.

The music itself reflects the diversity of styles and influences within such a large band, and the spontaneous approach to arrangement we often took. Be it the punkish drive of Sheffield Grinder or the expansive soundscapes on Raglan Road, we filtered traditional songs through 11 different interpretations altering their form to find their meaning.

In this way the album does not mark the birth of something new, nor the culmination of efforts passed. It is simply a celebration of something that has always been in motion. Long Live Brown Wimpenny.