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Shovel Dance Collective – The Water is the Shovel of the Shore [IMPORT 2xLP] – New LP
Shovel Dance Collective – The Water is the Shovel of the Shore [IMPORT 2xLP] – New LP
Memorials of Distinction / Double Dare Records

Shovel Dance Collective – The Water is the Shovel of the Shore [IMPORT 2xLP] – New LP

$ 36.00 $ 0.00
Revolutionary takes on traditional folk, spliced with music concrète and field recordings along the Thames. This highly acclaimed album (Pitchfork, Quietus, Wire, etc.) is like no other. "All of it has the capacity to make your hair stand on end" - Pitchfork (7.7) // "A thing of rare emotional power." - The Quietus (31st best album of 2022) // "One of the most forward-thinking and original collections of traditional material you’re likely to hear this year, or any year." – FolkRadio // "Marks the arrival of a new generation of politically conscious traditional folk singers" – TradFolk //

‘The Water is the Shovel of the Shore’ is the revelatory new release by the nine-piece contemporary folk group Shovel Dance Collective, an expansive ensemble of multi-disciplinary artists and musicians currently based in London. Comprising members of caroline, Gentle Stranger, as well as accomplished visual artists and solo instrumentalists, Shovel Dance Collective reconceive traditional folk music as an experimental mode of longform composition, encompassing drone, early music, free improvisation, and metal. In the performances and recordings of the collective, the arrangements and lyricism of the folk canon are reinvented, as historically disenfranchised perspectives are placed at the forefront. Predicated on recounts of queer experience, black consciousness, pioneering feminist ideals, and the labour of the working class, the output of Shovel Dance Collective represents an inclusive repository of subversive oral folklore.
The latest release from nine-piece folk group Shovel Dance Collective, orbiting around the concept of water. Combining on-site documentation of traditional songs, folk tunes and field recordings in long-form sound-collages. The results lie somewhere between folk music, music concrete and acoustic ecology. Released collaboratively by Memorials of Distinction and Double Dare.

Tracklist -

I: The Bold Fisherman, Thames waters off Greenland Dock, The Weary Whaling Grounds, junkyard work next to Dartford Creek, rigging and reeds at Erith Marina, The Bold Benjamin, waterfowl on the Darent, The Herrings Head, water pump in Ladywell, Waves on the Shore, a Creek on the Llŷn Peninsula

II: In Charlestown there Dwelled a Lass, Camera flash on the Deptford foreshore, The Rolling Waves, crashing spring waves by the Cutty Sark, Lovely on the Water, lapping waters by Tower Hill, Pump Organ Bellows being pushed by hand, The River Chess Trickles, Watermans Dance

III: Tourists feed gulls outside City Hall, The Bold Fisherman, ferry east from London Bridge, A Fishermans’ Song for Attracting Seals / The Full Rigged Ship, clergy of Southwark Cathedral and St Magnus the Martyr bless the Thames, the organ at St Mark’s Clerkenwell, a fence at North Greenwich sings in the wind, distant cranes at Silvertown, The Wild Goose Shanty, slapping Thames water under a bridge, The Drowned Sailor, crashing waves at Deptford foreshore, Waterfall and Rain on the River Chess, Captain Kidd’s Farewell to the Seas

IV: Waters of the River Ravensbourne beside Elverson Road DLR Station, Lowlands, The Cruel Grave, pump organs at Nick’s House, The Grey Cock, Dan wading through Elverson Road DLR Station Tunnel, Ova Canje Water 


released December 1, 2022

Thanks and dedications -

To travelling communities throughout Europe, to whom traditional music owes a great debt for their work in the production, proliferation, and conservation of so much music. And specifically Mary Delaney, from whom we heard In Charlestown there Dwelled a Lass, and who lived in London for much of her life.

To the writer and educator Roy Brummell, formerly of the University of Guyana who first relayed the tune of Ova Canje Water to Mataio. Also to the great Guyanese folklorist and poet, Wordsworth McAndrew, who collected Ova Canje Water and many other Guyanese folk songs. In so doing he helped to keep alive a folksong tradition and repair Guyana’s cultural self which had been so brutalised by British colonialism.

To Mike O’Malley for his knowledge, time and skill in recording our full band version of ‘The Bold Fisherman’ which opens this release. Also to the great Copper family who have so well looked after and proliferated that song, and which is now inextricably linked to them.

To Rory Salter for his help in recording The Waterman’s Dance.

To Anna Peaker for her skill in formatting and designing the cassettes and fold-outs.

To Josh Cohen and Tom Lavin of ‘Memorials and Distinction’ and ‘Double Dare’ respectively for their support and patience during the creation of this piece of work.

To Rupert Clervaux for Mastering the release with a careful ear.

To Anthony Elliott for spending time with us on the Thames foreshore and taking the photo included in the essay.

A special mention from within the collective to Tom Hardwick-Allan for designing the album artwork, Mataio Austin Dean for the decorative motifs used in the printed essay, and to Daniel S. Evans for editing and shaping the medleys.

Personnel -

Alex Mckenzie: low whistle
Daniel S. Evans: bowed cittern, cello, pipe organ, pump organ
Fidelma Hanrahan: harp
Jacken Elswyth: banjo, mountain banjo, shruti box
Joshua Barfoot: accordion, hammered dulcimer, voice
Mataio Austin Dean : voice
Nick Granata: pump organ, voice
Oliver Hamilton: violin, voice
Tom Hardwick-Allan: bass harmonica, trombone

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