While previewing their third album as part of the Roundhouse's smaller-shows-in-a-big-venue Summer Sessions, Stornoway promised to man the T-shirt stall afterwards like a hungry new band. The folk-pop quartet, led by duck expert Brian Briggs with his PhD from Oxford University, are clever enough to understand that they must paddle furiously to last in an industry that is quick to drop its former darlings.
So they’re crowdfunding their next recording using Pledgemusic, asking fans to pay for extracurricular treats such as birdwatching with Brian, Zorbing in Berkshire and autographs on absolutely everything. It’s an any-means-necessary policy that suits a band that featured pipe banging and an axe smacking a block of wood among the wide-ranging sounds here.
The new songs were as varied as the hiccupping keyboards of Lost Youth and the darker violin and guitar of The Road You Didn’t Take. “That’s a new one about mountains and the usual sort of stuff,” said Briggs.
He was a charming host, very funny in his meek, hesitant way, though he couldn’t surpress the chirpiness of his outlook. We Are The Battery Human was an Innocent smoothie label of a song. More bombastic folk bands may have left them behind but as a beach ball floated around the room, they seemed happy with their lot.
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