LIMITED TO 300 COPIES - 150 OF EACH OF TWO VINYL COLOURS
(ORDER ONE COPY, YOU'LL GET A RANDOM COLOUR,
ORDER TWO AND YOU'LL GET ONE OF EACH)

Another new band for Fruits de Mer, The Owl Service is an English alternative folk music collective that was formed in 2006 by multi-instrumentalist Steven Paul Collins (who has led the band for its entire duration), and were named after the 1967 novel by Alan Garner.

FdM’s love of Sandy Denny is no secret – we’ve released many a cover over the years – so we didn’t pass up the chance to release this two-track tribute by a group who have built quite a reputation in the last 20 years; and it’s a rather nice coincidence that the recordings include backing vocals from Owl Service regular Alison O’Donnell, who recorded the second single released by Fruits de Mer back in 2008 (as well as being a founding member of Mellow Candle).

This release sees Steven Collins paying homage to the lady who started it all… Way back in 1990, Collins was a teenage metalhead working in his local record shop when one day a colleague put Fotheringay's classic 1970 album on the shop stereo and a new musical landscape at once opened up for him. Discovering the music of Sandy Denny was the first step on the path that would eventually lead to the formation of THE OWL SERVICE some 16 years later. From her work with The Strawbs, through the three seminal 1969 Fairport Convention albums, the aforementioned Fotheringay record, and her diverse 1970s solo output, Sandy has remained a constant inspiration to Collins, and is one of the key influences on THE OWL SERVICE. The two songs covered here include a firm favourite in ‘The Sea’ by Fotheringay, and a song not actually written by Sandy but undoubtedly one of her best genre-defining folk-rock vocals, Genesis Hall by Fairport Convention. Both are fairly faithful cover versions which never stray too far from the classic folk-rock sound of the originals.

For this release, The Owl Service is Dorothy Chappell (lead vocals), Alison O’Donnell (backing vocals) and Steven Collins (all instrumentation).

If you're not already on our mailing-list, click HERE and you'll soon hear about everything we have lined up once we know ourselves