MAY, by Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew

MAY

by Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew

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New Music Jason This album is my Feature Pick for April 27 - May 3, 2024 on my New Music page:

newmusicjason.wordpress.com/2024/05/03/the-new-music-im-listening-to-contemporaneously-this-week-april-27-may-3-2024/ Favorite track: The Cuckoo.

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Double LP release of MAY: black vinyl by Softwax Record Pressing in Philadelphia, limited to 350 copies.

Includes unlimited streaming of MAY via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

shipping out on or around May 3, 2024

edition of 350

$28 USD or more

1.	The Cuckoo 14:40	buy track
2.	The Branched Body to a Maypole 03:19	buy track
3.	The May Dew 11:27	buy track
4.	The Pleasant Month of May 06:32	buy track
5.	Down By the Green Groves (Sing Sing So Green) 08:46	buy track
6.	Day Song 09:13 video	buy track
7.	The Green Bushes 07:04	buy track
8.	Searching for May 08:13	buy track
9.	The Ghost of Mary Potter 02:44	buy track

about

MAY is a double-LP collection of recordings made between 2020–2023 by Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew (AC&BD), whose ongoing series channels, inhabits and transmogrifies the vast corpus of traditional English folksong celebrating the most fertile of months. An auditory tapestry, MAY employs at its base a flank of analog synthesizers, field recordings and Churchman’s layered vocals, each combining to form a beautifully dizzy sonic collage that often spirals out across long durations into hypnotic rhythms and jubilant melodies.

Both multi-disciplinary artists with roots in the English countryside and a fascination with folklore, AC&BD tap into the multifarious manifestations of folk music across eras throughout the British isles, pushing it towards a new, noisy din with their experimental approach. This might represent a further dimension of “British visionary music” as described by Rob Young in his pivotal Electric Eden book. Perhaps an Electronic Eden? Opening track “The Cuckoo” begins with an atmosphere reminiscent of the more pastoral moments of Broadcast before devolving into a trance-like wall of noise, binaural beats and whispered incantations. “The Green Bushes” sets Churchman’s multi-tracked vocal harmonies atop a pulsing, single-chord foundation. MAY’s varied reference points include Anne Briggs, The Copper Family, Cyril Poacher, Steeleye Span and Shirley Collins, to name just a few.

Originally released digitally by Drew’s Thanet Tape Centre label, new Pennsylvania label Love’s Devotee presents the first vinyl release of AC&BD’s MAY, with tracks reedited and reconfigured by the artists especially for this compilation. Mastered for vinyl by Giuseppe Ielasi—whose credits include releases by Alvin Curran, Catherine Christer Hennix and Charlemagne Palestine—MAY brings AC&BD’s music out of the digital realm and into a physical release truly worthy of deep reverberation throughout your abode. Limited to 350 copies on black vinyl pressed by Softwax in Philadelphia.

credits

released May 3, 2024

Recorded in Suffolk, Kent and London between 2020 – 2023.
All music and lyrics traditional, arranged and with additional lyrics by Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew.
Compiled and reedited from releases published by Thanet Tape Centre on the first of May 2020 – 2024.

Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.

Artwork by Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew.

Released by Love's Devotee (LOVED-002)
lovesdevotee.com
lovesdevotee.bandcamp.com

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Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew UK

AC&BD, 2020–2024

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