‘Red Earth and Pouring Rain’ is the upcoming album from Folk and Tumble favourites Bear’s Den and while the 22nd July may seem a long way away, you can hear your first teaser on the Communion released single ‘Auld Wives’.
You know what you get with Bear’s Den by now; sublime songwriting, indie-folk sprawled on a bed of intricate synth work and infectious beats. On the new single, Andrew Davie had the following to say:
Where my grandparents live in Scotland, and where my mum grew up, there’s this cottage I used to go to write. It’s always been a bit of an escape for me but also reminds me a lot of growing up, which has always been a trigger for me with songwriting. Nearby there’s three rocks called the Auld Wives Lifts. No one knows how they got there, and there are faces carved into the rocks. There’s all sorts of folk tales around them, that have stayed with me growing up. The song is about my grandad who lived near there. He developed Alzheimer’s in his old age. Knowing someone, and them not knowing you any more, is a difficult thing to go through. Auld Wives became this way of talking about it, of venting about that feeling, and make more sense to me.
Let us know what you think of ‘Auld Wives’, the first track to be released from the follow-up to 2014’s Ivor Novello-nominated ‘Islands’.
Tour dates, festival announcements and album pre-orders including a very limited edition of 500-only (EDIT: less than 499 now) test pressings, hand-packaged by the band are available on bearsdenmusic.co.uk.