Men Of Straw/Progress!, by The Shining Levels

Men Of Straw/Progress!

by The Shining Levels

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1.	Men Of Straw 03:22	lyrics	buy track
MEN OF STRAW I’m lonely just for you I’m waiting like I do Go softly when you leave A shadow’s over me I’m ready for to swing Your brass and copper king Fall pitter patter rain A storm across the brae So blow your breeze about my heart We skitter scatter through the dark Come burning men of straw Fall screaming at my door I see them in my dreams So blow your breeze about my heart We skitter scatter through the dark
2.	Progress! 04:04	lyrics	buy track
PROGRESS! Then it’s gone, gone, gone Winter is cruel sometimes In the new day sun Quick as a lightning strike I’ve been sick so long Bitter as lemon rinds Then it’s gone Still my days are turning oh! Still my nights are yearning Then it’s gone Still my days are turning oh! Still my nights are yearning When the soul is gone Some of us lose our minds If machines they come I’ll still have my axe to grind Then it’s gone Still my days are turning oh! Still my nights are yearning Then it’s gone Still my days are turning oh! Still my nights are yearning

about

Two-track single taken from the forthcoming vinyl release on Outre Disque
"Music inspired by the novel The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers".
outredisque.com/the-shining-levels

Album released 31st May 2019 and available as digital download on Bandcamp

Written and recorded on the edge of the northern English moors using rural folk musicians, loops and electronics, the result is a heady brew of gritty landscape hymns, ethereal acid-folk, borderlands ballads, 70s folk horror TV/film atmospherics, mood pieces, echoes of the colliery bands of old, moor-top drones and much, much more.

Music inspired by the novel The Gallows Pole sees The Shining Levels tread similar topographical terrain to The Unthanks, and shares DNA with such disparate musical ancestors such as Pentangle, Sandy Denny, Bridget St. John and Tom Waits, though is its own beast entirely.

Inspired by the real life events of 18th century Yorkshire criminal gang the Cragg Vale Coiners who operate in the Upper Calder Valley in the Pennines, the album’s source material, The Gallows Pole by author Benjamin Myers, has rapidly become a modern cult classic. First published in 2017 by Bluemoose Books, it has sold out seven print-runs before being reissued by Bloomsbury Publishing. It is the first novel to be signed to Jack White’s Third Man Books, and will be published in the US/Canada in November 2019.

Drawing on a shared childhood and background with the author, The Shining Levels’ music explores themes from the book: an England divided, the potency and mystery of remote rural landscapes, industrial progress, the changing seasons, shifting fortunes, self-delusion and self-aggrandisement, poverty vs wealth, societal power structures…and strange visions of mythical creatures.

credits

released May 3, 2019

Written and Produced by The Shining Levels

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about

The Shining Levels Durham, UK

The Shining Levels are an alt folk group based in the North East of England. Their songs feature beautiful arrangements of soaring harmonies in lush soundscapes.
Their first album ‘The Gallows Pole’ was a musical companion to the novel my Benjamin Myers in 2019. And their new 2022 album ‘The Silence of The Girls’ is influenced by the bestselling novel by Pat Barker. ... more

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