Snows of yesteryear

​Following up on the success of their first two singles, Counting Stars and debut Wait by the Shore (featured as BBC Radio Scotland’s ‘single of the week’), Glasgow alt-folk band Snows of Yesteryear release their third single, Something Shatters, as a tantalising taster for their forthcoming debut album, due out on all streaming platforms in May 2023. Something Shatters is the most upbeat sounding track we’ve heard from the Scottish band so far, but beneath the delicate vocals, insistent drums and swirling guitars, there’s an organic darkness that underlies the band’s musical offerings to date.
 
‘Something Shatters’ is a song that’s evolved with time, and now it’s reached its final form in a composition that balances emotional light and shade,’ says Kat Orr, the band’s lead-singer. ‘This track takes some energy from Celtic folk culture, the idea of a ‘glen of shadows’ where the living and the dead can co-exist. This isn’t just a Gothic idea, but a traditional, centuries old one that taps into the notion of 18th century ‘graveyard poetry’; a sense of standing on a natural fault-line or boundary where past, present and future collide.’
 
Something Shatters also taps into some universal musical traditions; there’s a little Jacqui Abbott, a feel of Florence and the Machine or The Delgados in the vocals, a sense of melancholy mixed with awe at the power of the natural and supernatural forces that surround us. For Orr, there are specific places that are evoked by the lyrics, but listeners are invited to relate the song to memories and places they have known.
 
‘There are places which I’ve visited which left me with a sense of the other, like the underground city in Edinburgh; I know, that’s a very bleak example!’ says Orr. ‘But you might feel the same walking through Glencoe in the Highlands or the Faerie Glen in the Trossachs. Something Shatters aims to capture that sense of wonder and danger, and remind us all of things in our lives that can’t be easily explained. There’s something about the Scottish feel for the supernatural that I can’t shake off, and I wonder how many other people feel the same.’
 
 
Snows Of Yesteryear further explore the landscapes and emotional lore of
Scotland in their forthcoming, eponymous debut album, recorded with Mattie Foulds (Karine Polwart, Eliza Carthy, Aidan O’Rourke, Kris Drever) at Castlesound Studios, and scheduled for release in May 2023.
       
Something Shatters streams to all major platforms from 17th March 2023.
 
For interviews and further information, email snowsofyesteryearband@gmail.com
 
WEBSITE https://www.snowsofyesteryear.scot
 
INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/snowsofyes/
 
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