YORK folk singer Heather Findlay is releasing a Christmas single of Gaudete and The Snows They Melt The Soonest, available on CD and download from this week via her website, heatherfindlay.co.uk.
"While writing new material, and amid finalising cuts for my trio’s forthcoming DVD and live album, Aces & Eights – A Night In The Saloon Bar, we decided to heed the call of fans, following the success of my I Am Snow album last winter," says Heather. "So we've recorded another winter offering in the shape of a festive double A side of trad tunes dubbed Horse Feathers," says Heather, who made the recording at the Rock and Rose Studio in York for release on the Black Sand Records label.
The Heather Findlay Quartet recorded the medieval Latin carol Gaudete and lilting trad folk ballad The Snows They Melt The Soonest with an ensemble of Findlay on lead vocals and alto recorder, Sarah Dean on vocals, alto recorder and flute, Martin Ledger on vocals and electric guitar and newest member Joska de Langen on vocals, piano and acoustic guitar.
The artwork for Heather's Findlay's Christmas single, Horse Feathers
"There are so many angles to my writing and influences, but the folksy-rooted winter album I Am Snow I released last December went down so well and the demands for us to record Gaudete, as performed at our shows, were so overwhelming, we couldn’t refuse," says Heather.
"I fell in love with The Snows They Melt The Soonest on first hearing so, for me, this song was an obvious choice for another trad tune to accompany Gaudete in this year’s festivities."
The Heather Findlay Quartet performed both songs at last Friday's Snowstorms and Icicles Winter Concert in Room One at York Central Methodist Church, St Saviourgate, York.
"The show went really well," says a delighted Heather. "I love having a band where everyone swaps and changes instruments and this line-up is no different with Sarah picking up flute for The Snows' and Joska playing acoustic guitar on a few numbers too in our stripped-back, intimate home-city performance."
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