New album ….almost there!

We have spent the last few months working on our new album and we are almost at the stage where we will be able to hold it and feel it!  The whole process has been long and hard work but so enjoyable and satisfying.  We love the sound we’ve achieved, it’s so us, but bigger and brighter than ever before. 

The artwork is all in place and our first preview copies will be on their way shortly.  It’s very tempting to start writing the next album………!

A date for the diary is 11th May 2013 - that will be our official launch show at the National Centre for Early Music in York.  Hope to see you there!

Week 2 in the studio

Wow what a week we have had! Tracks have all gone down and now we are sitting back enjoying virtuoso instrumentalists! What a treat! Listening back we are delighted with how the songs have developed and how our own sound is coming out strongly. Tempted to start writing the follow up album right now!!

We owe so much to Clive gregson and john wood for weaving their magic. How humbling to watch them in action making us sound utterly fab! We can’t wait for it to be out there!

Union Jill teams up with Jacey Bedford →

Stepping up activity for album #3

Those of you who have kindly been following our progress over the years will be aware that we are now in preparations for our third album.  A difficult one…? Not at all.  Our new material is exciting and a real development on previous work (which is how it should be) and we both feel we have a million songs inside us bursting to get out.  The tough job will be deciding what to leave out. 

We are delighted to be recording at the Old Chairworks in Castleford in the company of John Wood, Clive Gregson, Andy Seward and Mark Boyce (our fab core team!).

We will also have some guest musicians which we will announce later (just to build the drama!). 

We will post images and stories about our sojourn in the studio.

Union Jill at York Folk Weekend 2012

As usual we thoroughly enjoyed this event - the rain held off for the Sunday evening and we’d like to thank all who were there to enjoy the event.  New material in the set now, so it was good to have the opportunity to get it in front of a live audience! Photo courtesy of John Illingworth.

Basement Bar, City Screen, York on Wednesday 13th June

Beverley Folk Festival on Sunday 17th June!   

Our brush with the famous…..

We were delighted to meet the legendary John Wood yesterday and we took a tour of the studio we are thinking of using for the next album.  John is renowned for his work with Pink Floyd, Sandy Denny (a fave of ours!), Nick Drake, Squeeze to name a few….  It became apparent to us just how much of a legend he is when a young technician quietly and politely asked if he could be introduced to John as he was a great admirer.  Ah the reflected glory…. and no, the young man didn’t ask to be introduced to us :-( 

We are now nearing the end of the pre-production sessions with Clive, so it will just be hard graft between now and September to get comfortable with the material before we go into the studio. 

An interesting interview with John here.  http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov11/articles/john-wood.htm

Great day busking to promote Beverley Folk Festival

This is a joke, surely! →

Feeling like it’s the 1970s - women are larger today because they don’t do enough energetic housework.  This is laughable on so many levels…. the beauty myth, women and the domestic, body image…. has all this discussion been totally ignored!!

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And in colour……  Thanks to Derek Schultz at Cannedphoto

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Beverley Folk Festival Cafe Run 2012 ©2012 Derek Schultz - cannedphoto.com