© Julien Bourgeois
At the beginning of the 80s, Robert Smith asked And Also The Trees, who were then a very young group, to support THE CURE on two of their British tours.
The relationship between them became more than professional (Smith produced one of their first demos and Lol Tolhurst, The Cure drummer at the time, produced their first album), developing into a long-term friendship, combined with a mutual admiration for each other's work.
It was with 1986's seminal Virus Meadow, an album of rich melancholy, that And Also The Trees truly found their own identity. The audiences, especially French ones, were enraptured with the dramatic nature of their work, the dense, chiming guitars and the relentless rhythmic spirals that perfectly complement the poetic lyrics of singer Simon Huw Jones.
In 2006, twenty seven years after the first And Also The Trees concert in a small town in Warwickshire, they recorded one of their best albums, (Listen For) The Rag And Bone Man, and proved themselves to be one of the few surviving 80s post-punk bands to still hold our attention.
And Also The Trees were invited to play the 7ème Ciel rooftop on 22 September 2008. It was their first ever acoustic gig. The concert delighted the group so much that they released an acoustic album of some of their songs, called When the Rains Come, in 2009, and then followed it up with two acoustic European tours.
The friendship between And Also The Trees and Le 7ème Ciel was sealed a year later with the release of a vinyl and CD on the new label Les Disques du 7ème Ciel.
The And Also The Trees release is a limited edition with just 500 hand-numbered copies worldwide.
The Vinyl is packaged in a deluxe 350 gsm brown recycled cardstock sleeve and comes with a four-page booklet which contains Simon Huw Jones' handwritten lyrics for all of the songs, two postcards, a badge, which is exclusive to the release, and a full CD version of the EP housed in a 350gsm brown recycled cardstock cover.
The record is only available for purchase from Les Disques du 7ème Ciel store. It is not on sale in any other shop.
© Sarah Hepburn
As poet, pilgrim, founder of wyrd-folk and the maestro of Birch Book (and formerly of IN GOWAN RING), B'ee has developed a homespun sonic tapestry with a peculiar richness of vision, recording over a dozen full-length albums and performing in over thirty countries worldwide.
His first three albums as In Gowan Ring, Love Charms, The Twin Trees and The Glinting Spade, left their mark on the American 90s psychedelic folk scene. In 2002, he released Hazel Steps Through A Weathered Home and acquired a growing following in Europe.
Birch Book's music is rooted in poetic folk traditions while cultivating an inimitable, self-attuned writing style that prefigured the new psyche folk movement popularised by DEVENDRA BANHART and JOANA NEWSOM.
It also marks an evolution away from the overtly psychedelic sound of In Gowan Ring towards a simpler, highly effective, direct song-based approach, reflecting the distillations of a perennial rambler taking a road less travelled.
B'ee was first invited to play Le 7ème Ciel Parisian rooftop on 18 September 2008 and then for a second time on 28 May 2010.
As B'ee speaks French and has a strong interest in French culture, Les Disques du 7ème Ciel suggested a collaboration on a record based on French songs.
As I remember, La Chanson de Prévert, a Serge Gainsbourg song that pays tribute to Jacques Prévert's poem Les Feuilles Mortes, was the first French chanson that I learned to play as a means to help with my studies several years back. Besides having some personal poignancy, I relished the seamless wordplay and ‘homage to song' aspects. Not long after, it seemed necessary, then, to disinter The Dead Leaves within the song. Having a weakness for obtuse games of letters, and in keeping with a certain metaphysical imperative, I then was unable to avoid the injunction to construct a ‘meta-homage' in order to satisfy an eccentric inclination in expression of the senses and evolution of the genre.
...One more song written on the dead leaves whose withered bodies, strange and wonderful, unravel memories full of evanescent things, woven in a spectacle of flesh, where life's intricacies involve each other and fade.
– B'ee
The Birch Book release is a limited edition with just 500 hand-numbered copies worldwide.
The vinyl is packaged in a deluxe 400 gsm grey cardstock gatefold sleeve and comes with two large art inserts on uncoated 300 gsm white paperboard and a full CD version of the EP housed in a printed 400 gsm grey cardstock sleeve. It is all hand-made from 100% recycled raw paper.
The package also includes a unique 100% embroidered Birch Book patch exclusive to the release.
The record is only available for purchase from Les Disques du 7ème Ciel store. It is not on sale in any other shop.
