Folklore Tapes Calendar Customs Box Set

• four twelve-inch vinyl records containing thirty-eight tracks
• includes the releases Merry May, Crown of Light (Midsummer Traditions and Folklore), Fore Hallowe’en, Midwinter Rites and Revelries
• researched and executed by fifteen artists over a two year period (2014–2016)
• forty-page booklet comprising illustrations, research notes and an in-depth calendar customs essay by Jez Winship
• also includes a set of four postcards featuring original artwork by David Chatton Barker, a unique photogram print and download code
• held by a hand-numbered and stamped foil embossed box
• limited edition of 250

The high-days and holidays of the agrarian year mean little to many of us today. Estranged from the natural world and its solar cycle, we too often encounter such dates only as decorative names in the lifeless pages of pocket diaries and year-planners. Yet these occasions were deeply significant to our long-dead forefathers, who daubed each with a variety of vividly coloured customs, rites and rituals. The Folklore Tapes Calendar Customs series explores this heady world of seasonal symbolism creatively, through research and artistic reinterpretation.

The Folklore Tapes Calendar Customs Box Set recounts the adventure so far, taking its listener on an arcane journey reeling around the four corners of the ritual year. With Merry May, we encounter the dances, games and fertility ceremonies that once greeted spring and the returning bounty of the soil. Pulling on our Crown of Light, we join the fires, feasts and fairies of Midsummer, with a full-swelled sun casting its enchanted energies around us. At the borderline festival of Samhain we bestride the threshold among the wandering spirits and tricksters that stepped this night Fore Hallowe’en. Our voyage spins to a close at the year’s end with Midwinter Rites and Revelries, where, clothed in evergreens, we forecast the sun’s rebirth beside ceremonial flames.

For these compilation albums, each contributing artist researched a specific seasonal custom and, informed by their findings, conjured a sonic movement in response. The pieces are a magnetic assortment of sound collage and foley work, composed music and augmented field-recording. The release documents the Folklore Tapes group as it has evolved to be: a variegated host of musicians, storytellers, sound designers, academics and performance artists united by their desire to get off-the beaten-track in the eerie hinterlands of folk memory. These are playful retellings of long-forgotten observances; library sounds, carried forth on a wisp of smoke from the bonfires of ages past.

The works are presented here on vinyl for the first time in remastered audio (each was originally released – and soon sold out – as a cassette album between 2014 and 2016). Accompanying the records is a horde of precious items: a photogram print, a set of four postcards featuring the original cassette release artwork, and a detailed booklet comprising illustrations, research notes and an in-depth seasonal customs essay. These treasures are housed in a hand-numbered and stamped cream foil-print blue box, published in a limited edition of 250.

01 - Carl Turney & Brian Campbell – SumerIsIcumenIn
02 - Blue Funz - Beltane, Isle of Mull. Need-Fire & Milking Cows Through Cake
03 - Arianne Churchman - Minehead Hobby Horse
04 - Rob St John - Bringing in the May
05 - Ian Humberstone - Hunting of the Earl of Rone
06 - Mary & David - Wish Before Sunrise (May Dewing)
07 - Sam McLoughlin - I want to sing like the birds sing…
08 - Malcolm Benzie – Hawthorne

Vinyl Two: Crown of Light (Midsummer Traditions and Folklore)

01 - Mary & David - Solar Spell
02 - David A Jaycock -Making The Pyre At St. Cleer
03 - Ian Humberstone - Puck's Dance
04 - Magpahi - The Day the Sun Stands Still
05 - The Yellow Funz - Guardian of the Portal
06 - Modern Studies - The Green Ray
07 - Carl & Brian - Maximum Tilt
08 - Jennifer Reid - Whitsun & Wakes
09 - Dean McPhee - The Blood of St John
10 - Sam McLoughlin- Sunset on the Rocky Coast
11 - Arianne Churchman - Midsummer Ley Line Hotline

Vinyl Three: Fore Hallowe’en

01 - Ian Humberstone - The Summons of Death
02 - Magpahi - Derwen Adwy’r Meirwon
03 - Snail Hunter - Domnhuil Dhu
04 - Eva Bowan - Aos Si
05 - Carl Turney & Brian Campbell - Punkie Night
06 - Bokins - Taskmaster, Trickster, Troublemaker
07 - Mary Stark - Nos
08 - D.Orphan - La Mas Ubhal (Quinque Sect)
09 - Rob St John - Old Growth

Vinyl Four: Mid-Winter Rites and Revelries

01 - Arianne Churchman - Fourth Solo Cutty Wren Ritual
02 - Dean McPhee - The Devil's Knell
03 - Rob St John - Fire Rites
04 - David Chatton Barker - Wheel of Life
05 - Sam McLoughlin- Tangerines in Socks
06 - Magpahi - Lady of the Mountains
07 - Mary Stark - Holly and Ivy
08 - Ian Humberstone - Carrying The Clavie Fire
09 - Brian & Carl - lo Saturnalia!
10 - Mary & David - Wassailing