Over The Silvery Lake [LP]

The Hanging Stars - Over The Silvery Lake [LP]

Long overdue reissue of the first album by The Hanging Stars. Initial 300 copies come with 12"x12" print. London-based psych-folk outfit The Hanging Stars re-release their much-loved debut album Over the Silvery Lake on Crimson Crow. Blending folk pastoralism with swampy '60s Americana, they sound like the missing link between the California desert sun and the grey skies of London Town. The album was recorded between LA, Nashville and Walthamstow, with each of these vastly different places leaving an indelible mark on the songs. Now signed to the Loose Records label and fronted by London-based songwriter, singer and guitarist Richard Olson (The See See, Eighteenth Day of May), The Hanging Stars are essentially a loose collective of people who weave together a blissed-out psychedelic tapestry. The rest of the core band is made up of Sam Ferman on bass and Paulie Cobra on drums, Horse on pedal steel and Patrick Ralla on banjo, guitar. They jam rather than write and hang out rather than rehearse, harnessing a kind of tipsy euphoria resplendent with luscious arrangements and glorious vocal harmonies. There are a number of allusions to nature and the weather on the album, borne in part out of the contrasting surroundings in which it was produced. The band's fascination with Americana led them to record some of the material Stateside, laying down some of the parts at Battle Tapes Studios in Nashville, as well as at Vision Quest Studios in Los Angeles with Rob Campanella. Following the LA recordings, a trip to the Californian desert provided the core notion of what they wanted to produce -- a shard of light that they clung on to whilst recording the rest of the album in the significantly more rain-soaked atmosphere of Walthamstow, London, under the watchful eye of Brian O'Shaughnessy at Bark Studios. The Hanging Stars place themselves firmly as part of a long folk tradition encompassing European and North American influences -- as a continuation rather than a pastiche of these styles. This is the sound of a band really coming in to their own, fully formed and in no doubt of their vision. With Over the Silvery Lake they succeeded in producing a record, which has the country, blues and folk traditions at its heart. A1. Floodbound _x000D_ A2. Cure Your Ills _x000D_ A3. I'm No Good Without You _x000D_ A4. For A While _x000D_ A5. Golden Vanity _x000D_ A6. Rainmaker, Sunseeker_x000D_ B1. The House On The Hill _x000D_ B2. Ruby Red _x000D_ B3. She Never Sleeps _x000D_ B4. The Hanging Stars _x000D_ B5. Hang Me High _x000D_ B6. Crippled Shining Blues _x000D_ B7. Running Waters Wide