The Furrow Collective will be joining us on Sunday 1st December, live from Sheffield with thanks to Live At Sam’s. This year, they’re marking a decade since their debut album came out, so we caught up with the band to find out more about their highlights over the years, their plans for 2025 and what to expect from their gig with us. Here’s what they had to say…
This year, you’re celebrating 10 years since the release of your first album. Tell us about some of your highlights from the last decade!
It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade, but ten years together have given us some great times touring. Travelling abroad with a musical saw is always entertaining! An obvious highlight is winning the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Group in 2017, but really it’s all about the gigs for us, and the best concerts are those when the audience is rooting for us. We loved playing Folk by the Oak this summer and the Holywell Music Room in Oxford was a particularly special recent gig, with the acoustics being perfect for harmony singing and a dreamy crowd.
After a decade of music-making together, you must have plenty of repertoire to choose from! What will you be playing for us?
We’ll be bringing you music from We Know by the Moon, our latest (lunar-themed) album. So expect songs that are set after dark, under moon or starlight. We’ll also throw in some carols from our EP, The Longest Night, and some favourites from our decade together.
As you mentioned, your latest album, We Know by the Moon, is filled with songs that are set after dark. Tell us more about the album and the inspiration behind it.
We’ve always been drawn to darker songs, but this is our first conceptual album and it leans into the darkness, with 11 nocturnal songs. The album is full of tales of night visiting, ghostly encounters, and the occasional murder. There are songs from England, Scotland and beyond. The Moon Shines Bright is a macabre English traditional carol led by Emily; Rachels’s Fhada Leam an Oidhche Gheamhraidh is a homesick Gaelic lament of an Isle of Lewis emigrant; Alasdair sings Robert Tannahill’s eldritch night-visiting song Are Ye Sleeping Maggie?, and Lucy leads an unaccompanied vocal version of Every Day is Three, an American love letter song with cosmic references!
We Know by the Moon also features some beautiful illustrations – can you tell us about those?
Lucy’s mum, May Farrell, is an incredible artist and she illustrated each song with a beautiful black and white drawing. Lucy stitched the illustrations together onto a crankie so that we can take them on tour with us as they add an extra visual dimension to the songs.
You’ve done a few gigs with us over the years, both as a group and with other projects. What are your thoughts on the role of online gigs for artists and audiences?
We’re very much on board with online gigs. We’re all parents and know how hard it can be to get to gigs when people have families. There are lots of people who can’t travel to our gigs for other reasons as well, so it’s great to be able to include a LTYLR concert on this tour. We did one a couple of years back and loved having an international audience as well as the in-person crowd. We’re really looking forward to playing in Sheffield too. It’ll be our first Sheffield gig since Emily moved there.
As we come towards the end of the year, what do you have in store for us in 2025?
We have a gig coming up on 22nd January at Celtic Connections with Salt House, and we’re looking forward to collaborating on some songs together. Individually, Emily is writing songs for a new solo album, planned for release next autumn. Next spring, Alasdair is releasing a new album entitled Remembered in Exile. It was recorded in Nova Scotia with various Canadian musicians including bassist and arranger Pete Johnston, as well as Màiri Morrison, the Gaelic singer from the Isle of Lewis with whom Alasdair previously collaborated some years ago on the album Urstan. Lucy is also touring with Catherine MacLellan in May, and Rachel has a few solo gigs throughout 2025, so it’s set to be a busy year for us all.
We can’t wait to see The Furrow Collective in our living rooms on Sunday 1st December. Find out more about the gig and book your ticket here.