The Rheingans Sisters release their highly anticipated new album Start Close In on September 27th. Sonically arresting, drenched in drones, and pulsing with age-old patterns of communal dancing, Start Close In continues the current rejuvenation of traditional folk music with a record steeped in minimalism, collectivism, beauty and noise.
Produced by the Juno-nominated, contemporary composer Adam Pietrykowski, Start Close In comes four years after Anna and Rowan Rheingans’ last album Receiver, which reached #2 in the Transglobal World Music Charts, was one of Songlines Magazine’s Top Ten Essential Folk Albums of 2020, and was described by Folk Radio as “a masterpiece of modern folk music” for its bewitching blend of Norwegian fiddle music, songs in Occitan, and true stories from the Northern Ireland Civil Rights movement.
On their new record, the multi-instrumentalist Rheingans Sisters weave between the dissonance of John Cale and the delicacy of chamber music; using violin, viola, tambourin à cordes, 5-string banjo, gourd banjo, flabuta, electric guitar, jaw harp, bones, triangle, English concertina and foot percussion. They’re joined on three tracks by saxophonist Daniel Thorne.
The album begins with the duo’s interpretation of the traditional English ballad The Devil And The Farmer’s Wife, inspired by Frankie Armstrong’s 1978 subversion of the song’s usually negative depiction of the female protagonist.
“We wrote this album as if ‘on stage’ with the physicality and energy of performing there from the very beginning”, says Anna. “It’s in live performance that music becomes this vital, playful, energiser. This feels closer to the collective experience of folk music as we know it – as social music, as work music, as dance music”
The album takes its title from a poem by the Anglo-Irish poet and philosopher David Whyte; a work loved by the sisters because, as Rowan explains, “It speaks to a human tendency to try and make a masterpiece when what’s really needed is connecting closer to the immediate and everyday which is also sometimes where you can find magic and multitudes of meaning.”
Start Close In is a radical and regenerative record; political, meditative, propelling, global, local, traditional, and experimental – a music only The Rheingans Sisters could make, but unlike anything they’ve made before.
Artists’ website: https://rheinganssisters.co.uk/
The Kickstarter video. It’s done now but it makes a good showreel:
TOUR DATES
Start Close In is released on September 27th and The Rheingans Sisters will showcase the album on a UK tour in November (7th-23rd) with more dates to be announced for 2025.
November 7: Cornish Bank, Falmouth
November 8: Pound Arts, Corsham
November 9: Milbrook Arts, Milbrook
November 10: Ashburton Arts, Newton Abbot
November 12: Alnwick Playhouse, Alnwick
November 13: Guildhall, Leicester
November 14: Round Chapel, London
November 15: Stamford Arts Centre, Stamford
November 16: Christchurch, Malvern
November 18: Colchester Arts Centre
November 20: Liverpool Philharmonic
November 21: Firth Hall, University of Sheffield
November 22: Cat Asylum, Newark
November 23: Turner Sims, Southampton
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