Stornoway announce first new music in eight years

Indie folk band Stornoway have released a new single following an eight-year hiatus.

The band also announced a surprise new album, called Dig the Mountain!

Stornoway announced their split in 2016, and followed it up with a farewell tour. They reunited for two festival gigs last year.

Frontman Brian Briggs said he had become "hooked" after writing a new collection of songs "with no goal or plan".

The line-up of Briggs, keyboard player Jon Ouin, and bassist Oli Steadman, does not include original drummer Rob Steadman.

Steadman was part of the reunion shows but is currently based in the United States. Mike Monaghan, who has played extensively with Gaz Coombes, takes up drumming duties.

Briggs was studying ornithology at Oxford University when he met the other members of the band, and many of their songs reflected a passion for wildlife.

After they broke up he worked as a senior reserve warden at Llanelli's Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust Wetland Centre.

Stornoway had a recent boost in popularity when their cover of The Only Way Is Up was featured in a Co-op advert, leading to more than two million streams.

In a statement, Briggs said: "Stornoway did not exist. I was creating with no goal or plan and it was exhilarating.

"I am a playful person and I got completely lost in the adventure of songwriting, not knowing where a song might take me, what feelings I might discover and how they might turn into sound.

"Every song was an emotional and physical journey I was only partly in control of.

"Once I got the taste of a song forming, I was completely hooked. I would disappear in it for days, emerging from the shed as high as a kite, with the sea roaring in the distance and no light but the blinking stars."

Stornoway released three albums; Beachcomber's Windowsill in 2010, Tales from Terra Firma in 2013, and Bonxie in 2015.

Their farewell show at the New Theatre in Oxford was later released as a live album.

The fourth studio album is released on 8 September on Cooking Vinyl records.

A UK tour will follow in October and November.

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