Wedding

One reason why things have been a bit quiet of late, here at the Hive, is that I've been busy getting married. It was a gorgeous day, all heart, or, as one friend put it, a 'candlepowered wedding.' I wasn't expecting to play but the Bees insisted and so here we are, playing Uncle Tom and Aunt Sally as part of the mini-Catweazle we held in the evening.









With so many musicians present there were spontaneous sessions happening through the day (the observant acid-folk fan will spot old friend, Sharron Kraus).


And gor blimey, if that isn't Rima Staines bashing out a tune on the old squeeze box, with Huff and Puff, and Jackie Singer from Jabberwocky days.


A quick An Dro in the corridor with Jane, Chris, also from Jabberwocky, and Jim of Red Dog Green Dog fame.


And here I am with the misses, the wonderful Nomi, cats that got the cream - a gorgeous happy day.


All photos by Kate Raworth and her team.
Andy xxx

The New Album!

We're happy to announce that the new album is finished and will be released on November 26th (available from our website, CD Baby, and the usual download outlets). It's called An English Arcanum and contains eleven original track of darkly crafted folk. We're pretty chuffed with it, I have to say.

It comes packaged with some stunning artwork by the wonderful Rima Staines, and to whet your appetite, here's the front cover. We'll keep you posted about gigs etc, though as you know, we're lying low while Josie adjusts to being a mother!

More soon,

Andy xxx

Rima and Tui

Like many people out there, I think I suffer from a kind of temporal disphoria, the feeling that I belong in another time. Well, there are a few delights to being in the modern world, one of which is the interweb, without which we would never have found Rima Staines, the wonderful artist who designed the cover for Untie the Wind. Believe it or not, during that entire collaboration we never physically met. I found Rima, by accident, on myspace, and we did everything by phone and email. Such is the modern world.

But just this week, while on my summer holiday ramblings through the SW, I caught up with Rima, and her fella, Tui, in a sheep field not far from Chagford. Tui is an artist in his own right, making exquisitely crafted music on his laptop, under the name Orla Wren. They live in a beautifully converted, magic truck, all filled with puppets and clocks and feathers and stones and things. It's like sitting in a fairy tale. We drank tea, ate copious biscuits and chatted for hours about art and music and lifestyles and, you know, this and that. Very hard to leave and come back to the city (how DO we put up with street lights that turn the sky the colour of Mars?).

Both Rima and Tui, being the peripatetic hermits that they are, are notoriously camera-shy, but I managed to catch a shot of them in their delightful home, which manages to solve the dilemma of how to belong in the here and now, when all the while you'd rather be back then...

Oh, and did we say? Rima is currently working on the artwork for the new Bees album...

Andy xxx

Rima

We thought you also might like to know that Rima is on board to do the artwork for the next album. Even now her pencils are twitching and ideas starting to gel...

Oh, you want to know what the album will be called? Well you'll just have to wait now, won't you...

Rima Staines

Now that I'm getting the hang of this blog malarky here's a link to Rima's blog.

We found Rima by accident on myspace - hey, the modern world does have it's advantages - and we were immediately struck by her artwork. It has a fairytale quality, for sure, but a darkness too which means that it is never cheesy. I love the hints of medieval art and Eastern European folk art. In my book she's up there with the greats - Rackham, Dulac and Kit Williams - and immediately we sensed that she conveys through images some of the themes and moods that we try and convey through music. It's been a delight to work with her on the album and the website and we are already discussing future collaborations (about which I shall say no more for now).

And you know what? We're never actually met face to face! The modern world is truly bonkers.