Greedy Magicians is the third album release from Quiet Loner. 

04 The ghost of Oswald Mosley

Gather round and listen to the tales of the savage pilgrims, an album of 11 short stories merging fact and fiction, weaving threads of people and places through an ever present past. 

From the Victorian slums of Nottingham to the deserts of 1930s New Mexico these are tales of people and places across centuries and continents. Meet William Blake, William Booth, DH Lawrence and Johnny Cash. Listen to the final testaments of defiant old soldiers facing the grim reaper. Hear tales of bare knuckle boxers crossing the Atlantic or convicted killers seeking redemption in the power of country music. 

Many of the characters in these songs are drawn from the past, no surprise given that Hill is one of the few songwriters to have ever done a year long residency in a museum. As a community artist and activist Hill also takes his songwriting into schools, prisons, homeless centres and care homes. The people he meets inhabit these songs. 

This is Americana rooted in British history and in Hill’s own upbringing in a coal mining culture that was obsessed with America. Not surprising then, that several of the songs here, trace lines between the UK and the USA. Like 'The Exile of DH Lawrence’ with its nods to spaghetti western, in a song about a Nottingham lad wandering the deserts of New Mexico. Hill was born and raised in the same town as DH Lawrence and his Nottinghamshire roots loom large elsewhere on this album ( 'Four Corners' and ‘Bendigo’)  

On this album Hill and his producer/collaborator Sam Lench set out to create a deliberately lo-fi and intimate musical landscape for the characters to inhabit. Their aim was to keep it brittle and hushed, so the listener feels they are sat next to the storyteller. 

It was recorded to analogue tape in an attic studio above a Salford pub where George Orwell used to drink. There are notable guest contributions from producer Lench, alongside long time collaborators James Youngjohns (Last Harbour, Willard Grant Conspiracy) Mike Doward (Last Harbour, Woodbine & Ivy Band) and Kirsty McGee.  

This is Matt Hill’s vision of what UK Americana should be, taking the honest grit of country music and setting it firmly within his own experiences and roots, and doing so creating a beautifully authentic piece of work.

Roll Me Out in the middle of the night

Stand Tall Before the Wagon

Bendigo

Four Corners

Chains

If Love Should Rise on the Winter tide

Savage Pilgrims

Gary Gilmore's Last Request

Billy's Prayer

The Exile of DH Lawrence

Save Your Pity

FROM THE ALBUM SAVAGE PILGRIMS
Find out more at https://matthillsongwriter.com/ 

Gather round and listen to the tales of the savage pilgrims, an album of 11 short stories merging fact and fiction, weaving threads of people and places through an ever present past. From the Victorian slums of Nottingham to the deserts of 1930s New Mexico these are tales of people and places across centuries and continents. This is Americana rooted in British history and in Hill’s own upbringing in a coal mining culture that was obsessed with America.

Stone And Bone

A storytelling singer-songwriter and community artist who offers a British take on folk and Americana. Formerly known as Quiet Loner

Matt Hill

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