Mawkin new album Crow…

This March, BBC Radio 2 Folk Award nominees Mawkin will be taking their unique brand of folk tunes and songs on the road for a 12 date national tour.

Following their successful collaboration with devonshire singer Jim Causley, Mawkin have been working on their brand new album ‘Crow’ for the past 18 months and are now looking to perform at arts centres, theatres and folk clubs across the country. Their debut album ‘The Fair Essex’ released in 2007, received wide critical acclaim and was declared ‘Unconditionally Mighty’ in MOJO Magazine.

Their new album is a brave direction for the band with a far more contemporary sound than before. A special concert featuring Eliza Carthy, Jim Causley and support from Hannah James & Sam Sweeney will be held to celebrate their new release on the 21st of April at The Weston Auditorium, Hatfield.

Two years in the making ‘Crow’ is another landmark in the band’s history, ancient instrumental folk tunes from around the globe are dragged delightfully into the modern age. Folk tunes are fused sublimely with jazz, rock and prog with a swagger and conviction that is thrillingly reassuring. New collaborations are offered with the jaw-dropping vocals of Eliza Carthy on the haunting and soulful ‘Bad Girls Lament’, one of England’s finest songwriters Steve Knightley (Show of Hands) delivers a pounding acoustic pop remake of his own ‘Its All Quiet’, the youthful and cheeky vigour of Jim Causley is presented in full show on ‘The Bellringers’ and Mawkin’s own guitarist and singer David Delarre gives a raucous Essex-delta blues cover of The Kinks ‘Harry Rag’. There is a real sense that ‘Crow’ is landmark achievement in the bands history- not just the music but also in the approach to the record. Melodeon player Nick Cookerecently said ‘we really wanted to go away for a while and make a record that we would want to listen to’ the band were also insistent on creating their own cottage industry; Drummer Lee Richardson explains ‘we really wanted to bring together all the know-how the band has built over the years and we have the facility to record and produce it ourselves – so we did exactly that’, together with Nick Cooke (who also works as Mastering Engineer for Extreme Music the Production Music arm of Sony/ATV)) the band could spend much more time developing their sound in the studio than ever before, even the artwork was produced by Becca Eastland – Lee’s partner and professional artist. ‘Crow’ signifies a real organic process that harks back to their critically acclaimed debut ‘The Fair Essex’ and looks set to be just as well received.


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