Album Notes We started the recording that became 'Runes' with a feeling that a fresh approach was needed following our previous three albums. Experience gained in making them had lead us firstly to the decision that we needed a dedicated space for recording where we could have time to experiment without having one eye constantly on the clock, and secondly that we needed to update our equipment. These two decisions shaped the next 18 months in both positive and negative ways, but just as in the old saying 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' we think the problems we encountered and eventually overcome have resulted in our strongest album to date. The space was relatively easy to find. Steve has a small outbuilding in the garden, a former wash-house or 'brewhouse' for a row of forge worker's cottages. Suitably refurbished, it provided a compact (around 12 foot square) space though there was no room to create separate' recording' and 'control' areas, so whichever one of us was engineering a session just had to sit silently as the music was recorded and be careful not to 'clink' the teamugs. The equipment was a little harder to sort out. Much research was done on the merits of this-or-that system before making our choices, but purchasing the gear was just the beginning. A steep learning curve followed; at one point we even had to google 'how do you open the CD tray' after a fruitless 20 minutes had been spent on our knees poking and prodding the offending bit of kit. On another occasion Steve almost managed to dispose of the main audio-digital interface - the 'blue brain' - thinking it wasn't needed. Oops. Slowly however, an initial 'why did we ever go down this route' attitude morphed grudgingly into 'this gear isn't bad' and eventually 'aren't we glad we bought this stuff'. So, we had a studio. Now all we needed was some music to record. As well as the recording gear we brought several new instruments to the Runes sessions. These included the gorgeous Taylor 8-string baritone guitar, mandolin, cello and a sackload of percussion instruments as well as new guitar tunings, all of which needed to be understood both from a playing and recording perspective. The instrument that gave us the most heartache however was one we already had and knew intimately. Sarah's fiddle had served us well on coming on for 500-odd gigs, sounding great live, but in the new studio we had to admit it didn't sound half as sweet. We tried every combination of positioning, one mic, two mics, you name it, but it just didn't sound the way we thought it should. This caused us a fair amount of anguish, not least to Sarah who had owned the fiddle for many years. There was also the not-inconsiderable issue of money - a decent violin can cost an eye-watering amount. However, we had to bite the bullet and Sarah went off to audition fiddles. Several weeks later on a Tuesday morning Sarah sat nervously under the mic, new fiddle poised. We were all a little tense, knowing that if this didn't solve our dilemma then we had something of a problem on our hands. The tune we were about to try it on was 'The Birds Are Still Singing', a piece that had already become quite emotive for the band, as it had been written as a tribute following the deaths of several people close to us. Sarah took a deep breath and started to play, and the sound soared, filling the studio. Job (for that's the fiddle's name, pronounced 'Jobe') sang with a rich velvety voice that recorded beautifully, to the relief of all three of us. 'Birds' was recorded and we all left the session grinning, feeling we were well on our way now this obstacle had been removed from our recording path. That evening, Sarah's father died. As you might imagine, 'Birds..' has taken on a whole new meaning for the three of us. The first few live performances were incredibly emotional and remain so to this day. Recording continued throughout 2012, being fitted in between live work, and slowly the album began to take shape. The range of the music surprised even us, from the almost-classical Christchurch Cathedral to t
