In a decade which has seen a wide ranging and fruitful revival of interest in folk music, Stephen Cracknell's The Memory Band has established itself in that fine English tradition of slightly schizophrenic projects pointing in several directions at once which manage to find their place in the ever exciting independent music scene, popping up at several influential moments and though the marvels of technology finding audiences all around the World.

From the outset The Memory Band has embraced change and for its third album, Oh My Days, the ever-fluid line-up of The Memory Band has shifted once more, with a fresh emphasis on rhythm courtesy of the powerhouse team of bassist Jon Thorne from Lamb and drummer Tom Page of Rocketnumbernine, as well as an all-new vocal frontline featuring Jess Roberts, Jenny McCormick, Hannah Caughlin and Liam Bailey. Sam Carter, winner of this year's Horizon award at the Radio 2 Folk Awards, plays and sings on a number of songs, while there are contributions from names new and old; Nancy Wallace, Dot Allison, Sam Genders on vocals, guitarists John Smith and Pete Greenwood, bassist Jonny Bridgwood, string players Quinta, Rob Spriggs, Jennymay Logan and Laura Moody, Sarah Scutt on accordion and recorder, and Serafina Steer on harp. Oh My Days is a warmly-textured, delicately-balanced blend of the best elements from its predecessors.

The Memory Band - Love Is The Law

Liam Bailey: vocal
Hannah Caughlin: vocal
Jonny Bridgwood - double bass
Stephen Cracknell: guitars and production.
From the album "Oh My Days" and as featured in the film "Third Star"
available to download at: https://thememoryband.bandcamp.com/album/oh-my-days


The Memory Band - Demon Days

Stephen Cracknell: guitar, bass, cajon
Rob Spriggs: viola, violin
Quinta: viola
Jennymay Logan: violin

The Memory Band - Blackberry Way

Colours

Albion's Daughter

(Cracknell)
Sam Ewens - trumpets, flugelhorn 
Horns arranged by Sam Ewens

Cursus

From the Further Navigations EP on Static Caravan, to be released for recordstoreday on 10inch vinyl. VAN272. A remix of the track "Salisbury Plain" from the album On The Chalk (Our Navigation Of The Line Of The Downs) also available on Static Caravan.
www.thememoryband.com
2014 RSD release. The Further Navigations EP is a continuation of the themes which informed The Memory Band album On the Chalk (Our Navigation of the Line of the Downs) also released on Static Caravan. Featuring remixes from Belbury Poly and Grantby and a brand-new Memory Band track, the EP draws inspiration from the ancient "lost road" that is the Harrow Way. The choice of collaborators are two producers who have had a profound impact on The Memory Band sound in different ways, but both bring to the fore the cinematic elements of Stephen Cracknell's approach to traditional music. For "Hobby Horse" Belbury Poly takes the blueprint from the Memory Band's version of the traditional funeral march "When I Was on Horseback," transforms it by speeding it up, flicking the swing setting and producing something that sounds like David Munrow making music for schools on analog synthesizers. Grantby takes the traditional ballad "As I Walked Over Salisbury Plain" and tweaks it into "The Ballad of Imber Down." The Memory Band original "Walk Along It" borrows heavily from the anonymous and haunting version of the traditional English tune "The Lincolnshire Poacher," broadcast from a shortwave numbers station and believed to be operated by the British secret services. Limited edition of 500 copies.

The Memory Band & Grantby - The Ballad Of Imber Down

Forthcoming track from the Further Navigations EP on Static Caravan , to be released for recordstoreday on 10inch vinyl.VAN272. A remix of the track "When I Was On Horseback" from the album  On The Chalk (Our Navigation Of The Line Of The Downs) also available on Static Caravan.
www.thememoryband.com
2014 RSD release. The Further Navigations EP is a continuation of the themes which informed The Memory Band album On the Chalk (Our Navigation of the Line of the Downs) also released on Static Caravan. Featuring remixes from Belbury Poly and Grantby and a brand-new Memory Band track, the EP draws inspiration from the ancient "lost road" that is the Harrow Way. The choice of collaborators are two producers who have had a profound impact on The Memory Band sound in different ways, but both bring to the fore the cinematic elements of Stephen Cracknell's approach to traditional music. For "Hobby Horse" Belbury Poly takes the blueprint from the Memory Band's version of the traditional funeral march "When I Was on Horseback," transforms it by speeding it up, flicking the swing setting and producing something that sounds like David Munrow making music for schools on analog synthesizers. Grantby takes the traditional ballad "As I Walked Over Salisbury Plain" and tweaks it into "The Ballad of Imber Down." The Memory Band original "Walk Along It" borrows heavily from the anonymous and haunting version of the traditional English tune "The Lincolnshire Poacher," broadcast from a shortwave numbers station and believed to be operated by the British secret services. Limited edition of 500 copies. 

The Memory Band & Belbury Poly - Hobby Horse

The Memory Band - This Is How We Walk On The Moon

From the forthcoming album 'Never The Same Way Twice' 
https://thememoryband.bandcamp.com/album/never-the-same-way-twice
composed by Arthur Russell, Produced by Stephen Cracknell
Nancy Wallace - vocals  
Stephen Cracknell - vocals, bass percussion 
Rob Spriggs - viola

This Is How We Walk On The Moon (edit)

Never The Same Way Twice is a collection of previously unreleased archive recordings by The Memory Band, compiled to coincide with twenty years since the release of their first self-titled album. It features alternative takes, mixes and arrangements of their own contemporary brand of folk music chosen from across two decades of musical navigations.  
https://thememoryband.bandcamp.com/album/never-the-same-way-twice


The album begins with the earliest mix of Calling On from their very first EP, sung by producer Stephen Cracknell, Polly Paulusma and Adem Ilhan from post rock band Fridge. Long-time associate Nancy Wallace's voice features on three tracks on the album: a cover of Arthur Russell’s This is How We Walk On The Moon, the very first studio take of the traditional ballad I Wish I Wish from Apron Strings and The Memory Band’s version of what became their theme song, Time And Space. Hannah Caughlin leads the ensemble through a haunting cover version of Come Wander With Me (which first appeared as the theme for the final episode of The Twilight Zone), while fellow traveller Liam Bailey sings on Children Of The Crows, a corvid-inspired mix of Children Of The Stones from the album A Fair Field.  Jess Roberts delivers a soulful interpretation of the Talk Talk song I Don’t Believe In You with added recorders, while Olivia Chaney sings an ancient drinking song from the Weyhill Fair as the introduction to So Fleet Runs The Hart. Additional vocals on the album are provided by Simon Lord, Helene Bradley, Sam Genders, Findlay Brown and Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, with spoken word contributions from John Andrews and Lisa Knapp.  The instrumentalists on the album include Jennymay Logan, Rob Spriggs, Tom Page, Fred Thomas, Liza Bec, Olie Brice, Alex Bonney, Jonny Bridgwood, Dee Byrne, Paul McGee, Rhys Morgan, Howard Cottle, Al Doyle, Quinta, Jeremy Radway, Lucy Railton, Sarah Scutt, Serafina Steer and Jon Thorne. 

Never The Same Way Twice is woven together in the trademark episodic Memory Band style with traditional tunes, original compositions and cover versions interspersed with spoken word, field recordings and sound effects in a collage of recordings drawn from different spaces and places, sounds continuously shaped and re-shaped by the ever-fluid ensemble of collaborators who have lent their own distinctive voices to the project over the years. The Memory Band was formed by Cracknell after a series of solo releases on The Leaf Label led to invitations in 2002 to play live at a festival supporting Coil and to produce a new live soundtrack to The Wicker Man film at the ICA. The music developed for those shows led to the recording of the band’s first vinyl 7 inch in 2003, followed by the debut album a year later, both self-released on the Hungry Hill label. These received positive reviews in the music press, who identified The Memory Band as pioneers of what was dubbed a ‘folk renaissance’. Aided by some early plays on independent radio, invitations to perform soon followed, with the band cementing their reputation at the burgeoning independent gig and festival scene that was developing across the country in the early 2000s. From the outset, spontaneity and spirit were prioritised over consistency and precision, and The Memory Band embraced a willingness to take on any opportunity that was presented to it. 

The response to that first album and those early shows led to six studio albums, a whole host of side projects, bespoke events and a magical two decades of musical adventures. The Balearic Folk Orchestra, The Accidental album There Were Wolves and a long association performing music for The Wicker Man as well as a number of other film and archive related projects are among the many branches of The Memory Band tree.

Never The Same Way Twice full album stream

The Balearic Folk Orchestra - Barefoot In The Head (midsummer rehearsal)

The Memory Band  - The Poacher

The Memory Band - Blackwaterside

Original mix from our first seven inch EP on Hungry Hill records. SLOPE 1 2003.

Calling On (7 inch mix)

A track from the limited edition seven inch single we are releasing on Static Caravan (VAN 288) to coincide with our show at Supersonic Festival on 13th June. The live show is entitled Children Of The Stones and is a special commission in conjunction with the sound archive at the British Library. Using traditional melodies, field recordings and a new score we will summon up the ghosts of our haunted landscape.
This is a medley of a piece entitled Nightingale With Bombers, featuring a 1942 recording from a Surrey Wood of nightingales singing as Lancaster bombers fly overhead, and a traditional tune called John Riley. 
The single is limited to 100 copies and will be available to buy at the festival.

Nightingale With Bombers/John Riley

From the Rif Mountain compliation "Echoes From The Mountain"

When I Cease To Care (Wizz Jones cover)

Come Write Me Down - The Four Tet Remix

(Bailey/Cracknell) Branch Music Ltd./Copyright Control
https://thememoryband.bandcamp.com/album/a-fair-field
Liam Bailey - vocal
Helene Bradley - vocal
Olie Brice – double bass
Hannah Caughlin - vocal
Stephen Cracknell - guitar, reed organ, electric piano, dulcitone
Tom Page – drums
Rob Spriggs - viola
Fred Thomas - piano, electronic harpsichord, prepared piano

This track is named after the classic children's television series written by Jeremy Burnham and Peter Ray. The theme of a group of people trapped in a cycle of repetitive behaviour within the confines of a megalithic landscape and subject to supernatural forces is obviously appealing. This song was written for a specially commissioned performance of the same name for Supersonic Festival in conjunction with the British Library Sound Archive in 2015. A previous version of this track was released on a special lathe-cut seven inch released to mark the event. Co-written and sung by Nottingham songwriter Liam Bailey, it features backing vocals from Helene Bradley and Hannah Caughlin.

Children Of The Stones

Recorded in Garston Wood betwwen the borders of Wilsthire and Dorset on 6th July 2016.

A Woodland Scene

Norfolk Before Dawn

The Memory Band - Once Bittern

The Memory Band - The Snake

Recorded live at the Green Man festival 22/09/2010 featuring Olivia Chaney, Serafina Steer, Simmy Singh & Rakhi Singh.

The Balearic Orchestra - Where Love Lives (live)

recorded live at the Green Man festival. Featuring Lou Rhodes, Jeremy Radway, Sarah Scutt, Jon Thorne, Rakhi Singh, Simmy Singh, Karl Penney and Stephen Cracknell.

Balearic Folk Orchestra - La Ritournelle (live)

recorded live at the Green man festival 2010. Featuring Serafina Steer & Olivia Chaney.

Balearic Folk Orchestra -  Sweet Harmony (live)

From the forthcoming album "On The Chalk (Our Navigation Of The Line Of The Downs)" a musical journey along the mythical Harrow Way. 

Available in all good record shops from 20th May 2013 on Static Caravan (VAN257). 


"Releases by Stephen Cracknell and his acclaimed project The Memory Band have always lent themselves to journeys and landscape: dream-like stumbles through stony megaliths, wintry climbs along snow-covered hills, drunken dashes through sun-splashed fields with a summer love. Their records have always been more pre-occupied with external narratives than internal emotions. But perhaps never before quite as literally as on adventurous new album On The Chalk (Our Navigation of the Line of the Downs), a beguiling musical tribute to a mythical ancient pathway crossing a Southern England shrouded in mystery and withered by time.

Made of eleven songs spread across haunting horn noises, crackles, drones, blissed-out beats and tender piano melodies, this fourth studio album marks the tenth anniversary of one the most invigorating and much loved folk acts around, a group described by NME as “a disorientating, drugged-up soundtrack for the 21st Century… genuinely beautiful.” And speaking of monumental journeys, it’s been quite a road to this moment for Cracknell and his ever evolving cast of collaborators.

“There’s been a real revival of interest lately in old roads and green lanes, in literature, art and film. This has run parallel to so much of the renewed interest in folklore and folk music. One supposedly ancient trackway that I'd hear referenced again and again was the Harrow Way, which stretched from the Straits Of Dover all the way to the west country by an overland route on chalk ridgeways.  I grew up in a place supposedly along its route.”

What followed was a period of extensive research, digging deep into his own past and the World around him, listening to a strange combination of traditional folk-songs and seminal British landscape music such as Chill Out by acid house pranksters the KLF, tracing old roads and creating ambient recordings on site for use on the album. ”It was all a lot of fun, running round the country playing at psycho-geography,” recalls Cracknell. “Like the landscape that inspired it, it’s an album that at times is dark and imposing and at others more peaceful and serene.”
 
Recorded in the songwriter’s home studio in East London (“an empty schoolroom overlooking a park… quite a peaceful place for London, really”), this is an album by a group who, like their subject matter, have changed and grown over time, but remain every bit as vital as ever.

For more information please contact Matthew Maxey: matt@inhousepress.com


When I Was On Horseback

Featuring vocals by Hannah Caughlin & Olivia Chaney 

From the forthcoming album “On The Chalk (Our Navigation Of The Line Of The Downs)” a musical journey along the mythical Harrow Way. Available in all good record shops from 20th May 2013 on Static Caravan (VAN257).


"And so it fell to him to take the hops down in the waggon to Weyhill fair, by Andover. Forty years ago, to visit that fair was a great event : and Bettesworth kindled with glowing recollection of the exciting things he had experienced at Weyhill. He tried to tell me of a song which " colts " or strangers to the fair were called upon to sing ; but, breaking down in that, he passed on eagerly to tell of "driving for the ribbons"  the ribbons that rewarded the carter who brought the first load of hops on to the hill. " I've drove," he said, " all night, purty near a trot, purpose for to git the ribbons. There's four bunches o' ribbons for your 'orses.  Who gives 'm to ye ? Ooh , I dunno. They up there. I s'pose it comes out o' the fair . You should see our old Miss laugh when we come 'ome with the ribbons. One o' the Burtons, she was, reg'lar rich people. Why, she 'ad fifty thousan' pound come to her all in one lump, an' no family. Very nice sort o' woman she was, too.
" 
Here, without explanation, my notes revert to the song already mentioned, and the ceremony called "horning" connected with it. At a certain inn at Weyhill there were two horns mounted so that the " colt " could wear them on his head while singing. And " there was a little place in 'tween the horns, purpose for to put a half-pint cup full o' beer in. Him what 'ad the 'orns, he used to have to sing this here song ; and then he had to pay the fine if he didn't sing it right." Doubtless the fine was beer free to all the company. Sometimes, probably as often as possible, an old stager, if well-to-do, would be caught and expected to " treat " handsomely, Once they " horned " an older brother of Farmer Barnes. Said he, " ' You thinks you got hold o' a fine colt, I dessay ; but I thinks he's more of a old 'oss.' " But the " old 'oss " enjoyed the fun, and contributed half a sovereign for beer. Be sure, too, that Bettesworth was in the thick of these games. " I 'ad 'em on three times one year. They didn't know but what I was a colt. And I liked 'avin' of 'm on." Pressed for the words of the song, he could give me only the refrain : 

" Harn, boys ! harn ! 
Drink like yer daddy wi' the long pair o' harns !" 

and one other line. I owe it to a friend's inquiries in other directions, that I am able here to give a version of the song that is at least complete so far as it goes : — 

" So fleet run the hare, so cunnin' run the fox, 
Why should not this young calf grow to be an ox ? 
For to get his livin', through briars and through thorns, 
And die like his daddy with his long pair o' horns. 
Horns, boys, horns ! 
Horns, boys, horns ! 
And drink like his daddy with the long pair o' horns." 

George Bourne "The Bettesworth Book" 1901

The Memory Band

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