“Can swell your heart like a lullaby, yet also creates
a dark melancholy that is utterly compelling.”
Despite moving in the same musical circles, it took a tour around the continent for cult indie star, Martin John Henry to want to collaborate with the acclaimed Scottish harpist and songwriter Gillian Fleetwood. The pair met after Henry (De Rosa) was invited to open for open for acclaimed Danish songwriter, Agnes Obel, with whom Fleetwood (The Duplets, State Broadcasters) was playing.
During this tour they performed live together for the first time, playing a version of Elliott Smith’s Between the Bars with Obel at the spectacular Cirque Royal in Brussels.
Bonding over a shared love for the music of Hamish Imlach, Michael Marra and The Blue Nile, Fleetwood joined Henry on stage in cities across Europe, an experience that left the pair vowing to make new music together on their return to Scotland.
Following a residency on the remote West Highland Peninsula of Morvern, the pair recorded their debut EP, the lush, arboreal ‘On the Forest Floor‘ (Olive Grove) – in 2015.
Returning to their other projects for a time Henry and Fleetwood once again entered the studio in 2019 to record a second EP, this time weaving in deeper connections to Scottish traditional song. Martin and Gillian have always seen their different backgrounds and approaches as being a strength to draw on, and this new EP explores these differences more boldy than before. Martin’s calibre as a songwriter of skill and nuance and Gillian’s upbringing in traditional Highland music are creatively and sensitively merged on Archipelago Vol. 6. Produced by Andy Miller (Mogwai, Songs:Ohia, Life Without Buildings), this latest collaboration finds Henry and Fleetwood’s imagined landscapes populated by lost voices of a poetic Scotland-past. From the doomed Bessie Bell and Mary Gray to the Ama divers of Japan, Henry and Fleetwood continue their journey to an imagined, infinite place with the forgotten stories of Scotland as their point of departure.
Henry & Fleetwood’s, Archipelago EP: Volume 6 will be released on Olive Grove Records in March 2020, on 12” vinyl and as a digital download. Henry & Fleetwood will celebrate the launch of their EP in the intimate settings of the Glad Cafe on Glasgow on Thursday 5th March, where they will play alongside Circle Meets Dot, who occupy the other side of the forthcoming record.
Henry & Fleetwood – Archipelago Volume. 6
Release Date: March 2020 on Olive Grove Records
Format: Digital Download and 12”vinyl
Track Listing:
1. Powers of Ten
2. Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
3. Ama
4. Lassie Lie Near Me
5. The Room
