Description

Green Grass coloured vinyl LP

One of the most important voices in British folk music, Shirley Collins returns with ‘Archangel Hill’, her third album for Domino.
No one else in this land knows old songs like Shirley Collins, weaving into them on every airing a new genetic code, a new revelation, a new perspective. But Shirley’s spell is not just conjuring up of songs; it’s the evocation of the land too. There is a quiet muse in this record, redolent with the chalkiness of the South Downs, the landscape that has knitted itself into the bones of every generation of Collins. This is an album that swoops like the Downs through the episodes and the musical companionships of Shirley’s road less travelled.
‘Archangel Hill’ is named in honour of Shirley’s stepfather, who called Mount Caburn, a landmark close to Collins’ home in Lewes, ‘Archangel Hill’. Shirley imparts some context: “Whenever I walk Mount Caburn, I give a silent greeting in memory of my stepfather Bill and his horses. I’ve picked sloes there in autumn, sat watching sheep and the occasional chalk hill blue butterfly in summer, but Bill had ridden over it many times in the 1920s, walking horses from Bishopstone to the Lewes races.”
The album artwork is a painting by Peter Messer of Mount Caburn, commissioned by Collins.

Tracklisting

Fare Thee Well My Dearest Dear
Lost In A Wood
The Captain With The Whiskers
June Apple
The Golden Glove
High And Away
Oakham Poachers
Hares On The Mountain
Hand And Heart
The Bonny Labouring Boy
Swaggering Boney
How Far Is It To Bethlehem
Archangel Hill