In-the-moment improvisers, The Ciderhouse Rebellion are releasing their fourth album Genius Loci 2: The Valley Of Iron on Friday 1st April this year. Master accordionist Murray Grainger and award-winning fiddle player Adam Summerhayes have recorded another collection of spontaneous tunes, inspired by the Rosedale Valley and its incredible industrial history.
Rosedale (the Valley of Iron) lies at the heart of the Yorkshire Moors. Genius Loci 2: The Valley Of Iron is The Ciderhouse Rebellion’s musical response to the valley as it is today – lonely, haunted and beautiful. Adam and Murray have drawn inspiration from the sense of history, the ironstone industry now gone and the imagined lives of the thousands of people who worked there. For over a year (and in all weather) the pair visited and re-visited the valley, exploring the moors and the visible remains of its industry. They sought the Genius Loci – the ‘spirit of place’ that inspired each track – each one created and recorded on the moors edge. Drawing from the innate energy of the landscape that surrounded them, they performed and recorded on the open moor. Sometime inside an old kiln or clambering over the once fortress-like walls in order to stimulate a response to the post-industrial landscape.
This is improvised music of the moment – as though spun from the wind and weather, drawn from the whispers of history, and as if created from the very stones of the valley itself.
With backing from the Arts Council England, the album is their fourth since 2020 and its story has already gained traction after being featured on Matthew Bannister’s Folk On Foot podcast. It forms part of a wider multi-media project – Ironstone Tales – to be rolled out throughout 2022. The project includes a second CD (Ironstone Tales, out July 1) by Words Of A Fiddler’s daughter, the trio formed by the duo being joined by poet Jessie Summerhayes; and a series of spectacular videos containing live performances interweaved with stunning footage of the landscape, Jessie’s poetry, and spoken word histories of its people and industry.
The Ciderhouse Rebellion demonstrate once again how their instinctive compositional method draws seemingly timeless melodies from thin air. The toll of industry on people and landscape; the ghostly remnants of buildings; the echoes of the souls who lived, worked, and died within them; the smell of the landscape; and the call of its birds.
Previous release Genius Loci 1: White Peak was inspired by, and similarly created on the spot, in the landscape of Derbyshire’s Peak District.
The new album will be released on Bandcamp (available for pre-order from March 1st) and all the usual platforms on April 1st 2022.
Artists’ website: theciderhouserebellion.com
‘Ruin’ (from Genius Loci 1: The White Peak) – official video:
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