Pockets Of Stones

Charm of Finches, aka sisters Mabel and Ivy, aged 17 and 14, emerge from an eclectic musical environment of classical strings and Celtic folk, and have been likened to artists as diverse as Danish chamber songstress Agnes Obel, First Aid Kit and Gillian Welch.

They live in a rambling shack in Northcote with their family and a wild hermetic guinea pig named Pyramus.

Their debut album "Staring at the Starry Ceiling" features the duo's signature  sibling harmonies, with a distinct chamber-folk flavour coming from the instrumentation: cello, violin, guitar, ukulele, lyre, banjo, piano, glockenspiel: all played by the sisters.

The "singing finches" have played Australian folk and roots festival stages since releasing their debut EP "Home" in 2016.

Their song "Paper and Ink" won the 2015 Darebin Music Feast Songwriter's Award.

This album was recorded with the assistance of the City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program.


"The girls sang with an angelic beauty, hitting high notes with ease. Their harmonies rose and fell seamlessly with an impeccable blend. The performance captured the innocence of their youth, and the breadth of their talents. It was pure and natural and heart warming. "

speakertv.com



CREDITS:
released July 29, 2016

Charm of Finches are Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes
Written and arranged by Charm of Finches
Mabel: vocals, guitar, cello and glockenspiel
Ivy: vocals, violin

Produced and Engineered by Nick Huggins and Mabel Windred-Wornes
Mixed by Nick Huggins
Mastered by Sam John at Precise Mastering, Scotland, UK

Recorded at:
Nick’s studio in Point Lonsdale, VIC
Mabel’s home studio in Northcote, Melbourne




All Photography for album  by Emma McEvoy
except Mabel solo by Loc Nguyen-W.D.N Photography
Layout and Design by Di Diddle

Paper And Ink

I. Sleep/Less

nostalgic family gatherings in the summer.

thanks to:
Ruby Milner - Backing Vox
Matt Dixon - Lapsteel
Will McIntyre - Photo

Should Have Stayed Here

‘In the water’ is the first glimpse at Sea Glass, the eagerly awaited new album from esteemed Melbourne artist Grand Salvo. Sea Glass is out October 5 on Mistletone via Inertia. Pre-order vinyl/CD here: www.mistletone.net/grandsalvo

The first excerpt from Sea Glass is a baroque-folk rumination on memory, loss, the passing of time and death: “Oh say you love me before I go / will you remember me when I’m gone”. Someone walks slowly along the beach, though it soon becomes apparent that this is a beach of dreams, where everything is allegory and symbol. “I wander slowly along the shore / the tide is high and the sun is low”; a childlike attempt to articulate the endless flow of time. 

Paddy Mann has made six albums under the Grand Salvo moniker: (1642-1727), River Road in 2002, Temporal Wheel in 2005, Death in 2008, Soil Creatures in 2009 and Slay Me In My Sleep in 2012. His songs can be both sparse and heavily orchestrated, with each album focused on a particular idea or theme. Death was a story-book affair, with narration and intricate programmatic arrangements; Slay Me In My Sleep, an ambitious narrative-based song cycle co-produced with Nils Frahm, was shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize. All Grand Salvo’s albums have received lavish critical acclaim, winning Album of the Week on RRR (twice), Radio National, PBS, RTR and 4ZZZ. 

Sea Glass is Grand Salvo’s seventh album, and his Mistletone debut. This richly allegorical album explores how a single, vivid memory can shape who we are; resurfacing and altering our thoughts and recollections as the years go by. The album’s very structure is an approximation of how such a memory is forged; each song radiates out from a seed memory which unfolds like a lotus jewel in Field of Flowers, the second-last song and the only “straight” narrative song of this remarkable album. The album then closes with Standing On The Sea, a dreamlike journey on the beach that uncovers “a shard of sand smoothed emerald glass / and a change in the light”, layering the dreams of childhood and the memories of adulthood into a woozy contemplation of eternity and the cyclic, ever evolving nature of memory.

Sea Glass was recorded using a number of non-western instruments including qanun (Persian dulcimer), kora (African harp), koto (Japanese stringed instrument) and Indian percussion, with a heady female chorus (Laura Jean, Lisa Salvo, Hannah Cameron, Michelle Surowiec) reprised throughout the album, woven through the narrative like a recurring dream.

Grand Salvo has performed throughout Australia and internationally, making appearances in London, New York, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris and throughout Japan. He has shared stages with artists such as Fleet Foxes, Joanna Newsom, Bill Callahan and Sharon Van Etten, and has produced and arranged live shows with up to 25 musicians at Melba Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre and The Arts Centre Victoria. His collaborations include Daughters Fever (2015) with Peter Knight, Curious Animals (2016) with baroque violinist Lizzy Welsh and Tamara Saulwick’s Helpmann award-nominated theatrical work Endings (2015).

Sea Glass

Grand Salvo - In The Water

Ahead of your game

Breath

These Days

Shadow Of A Grey Thought

"Bones and String" is a dive into the depths of fragility and anxiety. Zeroing in on moments of personal strife and specific markers of change, the song faces down the fear of crumbling under the continually evolving challenges of life and relationships.

Lead vocals, piano, bass guitar, synthesisers: Dougal James 
Drums: Ben Fleming 
Trumpet, backing vocals: Cian Bennet 
Trombone: James Farrough 
Guitar: Matt Si 
Cello: Alex Olijnyk 

Production and mixing: Dougal James 
Tracking and co-production: Hamish Keen 
Mastering: Steve Smart 
String arranging: Hamish Keen, Alex Olijnyk and Dougal James

Art by Eleanor James

Bones And String

Melbourne sister duo Charm of Finches delivers intricate folk-pop that is simultaneously graceful and darkly bewitching. Their seamless blood harmonies traverse melancholy and wonder in equal measure.

The sisters, Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes, released their third full length album Wonderful Oblivion in 2021 through New York-based label AntiFragile Music to critical acclaim. They have since toured extensively through the UK, Europe and Canada in 2022/23.

Winners of the Australian Folk Music Awards Best Folk Album (2022) and Music Victoria Best Contemporary Folk Act (2021), their music has been nominated twice for the prestigious Australian Music Prize.

In February 2023 the sisters spent a month in rural Nova Scotia recording with acclaimed Canadian producer Daniel Ledwell (Jenn Grant, Oh Pep!), inspired by the frozen beauty of the landscape and their transient life on the road with their music. The result is their fourth studio album to be released in 2024.

Paper And Ink

Charm of Finches

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