Nigel Shaw
This new album is a tender instrumental exploration of the exquisite dreamscape of ancient moorland. Featuring wooden flutes, whistles, piano, cello, violin, guitar and voices.
Advance orders for the CD album open now (release date June 1). Download available here from June 1. May be listened to now through our WILDSTREAM streaming hub.
The first surprising chords of Lichenheart carry us through a tear-spilling, heart-filling, darkening pilgrimage, enveloping us within its raw wonder. This album is infused with the aching beauty of the journey travelled…and echoes with the possibilities of a journey yet to come. Lichenheart is the third in our trilogy of new music, which also includes This Remembered Earth and The Creel & The Crock & The Cauldron.
These words were written by Carolyn after listening to Lichenheart for the first time…
“Lichenheart grabbed me with its first surprising chords then carried me through its tear-spilling, heart-filling, soaring, darkening journey. I needed to pause after each track to restore my breath and allow the music to settle inside my ears. The title track wrapped and spun me around within its painful beauty. Distant Tor brought me to drenching sobs. My own vocals on Song That The River Sang had transformed far beyond anything I recognised into the eternal prayer of ancient water. Salâbenâ was warmly familiar but utterly astounding, like encountering a dream you had forgotten but once knew, like dancing strange steps that seem somehow to fit your feet. Black Hill, A Tree and a Star, Winter Green: each one met me with powerful grace. This album is infused with the aching tenderness of the journey travelled, and pulses with the possibilities of a journey yet to come. It is not ambient like The River, nor lamenting like Requiem: Well of Souls, nor yearning like Nocturnes, nor mighty like Dartmoor Symphony, nor ancestral like Echoes of the Ancient Forest. It is all of these things and more. Lichenheart speaks to an enduring trust that we are loved by the Earth, to the compassionate kindness that we each yearn to share, to the wild freedom that we all seek to know.”
Lichenheart is composed and performed by Nigel Shaw, featuring Carolyn Hillyer (vocals), Garwyn Linnell (cello), David Edwards (violin), Simmy Singh (violin) & Brian Abbott (guitar).
TRACKS: Lichenheart ~ Winter Green ~ Distant Tor ~ Song That The River Sang ~ A Tree And A Star ~ Black Hill ~ Salâbenâ
The photo below shows Nigel standing on Merripit Hill with his carnyx, Bronze Age horse-headed hunting horn. A few minutes after playing this, our herd of wild ponies came galloping through the mist and surrounded us!
