Dapple by Dan Haywood

Dapple is an acoustic suite of originals, recorded at various locations outdoors in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire in 2012. Originally released in 2013.

''a record of simple beauty'' Big Issue

''the album’s power comes from its purity – a man, his guitar, and Mother Nature, together in song'' Penny Black Music

''his primary influences, rather than having their roots in popular or folk music, seem to have seeped up from the ancient ground on which he made these airy and beautifully understated recordings'' Folk Radio UK

''It’s the all but irretrievable England of John Clare, John Selby and John Dowland, but its spirit finds shelter in Haywood’s remarkable album''. The List

“Given that Dapple could be set in the 18th century, I was keen for there to be no motor vehicle noise, just in case the listener might prefer to imagine it that way. So the locations had to be out of the way, and some of the sessions started as early as 4am to beat the sound of the Abbeystead gamekeepers’ Land Rovers and Bowland farmers’ tractors. Days on which the breeze might gust above 5mph were avoided, which was good for reducing wind noise and for a preponderance of midges.

In the spring sessions the air was alive with birdsong, and you’d wade into that set and make a small territory and start singing yourself, just a thread in a tapestry. There’s a list of avian background singers and scene-stealers on the sleeve. Later sessions could be deathly quiet and the molestation of the air was all our doing, like on the post-dusk title track, when the frightened words seemed to flash up in a pitch-black anechoic chamber. Rather than Milton’s darkness visible, it’s darkness audible.

I spent half a decade making a very long-playing record called Dan Haywood’s New Hawks, which was largely a place-specific and time-specific suite of songs, set in places in the Highlands of Scotland where I lived and worked in the early years of the 21st century. There were huge flights of fancy and trips around the globe, but it always returned there – a 32-part love song to Caithness and Sutherland. But as a suite, Dapple is a love letter to rural England, although it sometimes perhaps sounds a little Danish or Austrian or Hungarian.

New Hawks involved many musicians, and had a few snatches of library recordings of Highland birds and so forth. At the time, we were working in increasingly larger buildings like churches for spatial effects. So it seemed to be the next step to record in the outdoors and be part of the ambience rather than add that in. My New Hawks bandmate, the inimitable Mancunian composer and multi-instrumentalist Paddy Steer, had picked up a ’70s mono Nagra, a portable tape recorder used in film and radio, which audiophiles maintain is of the highest fidelity. I nagged him to help me with an al fresco project.

Obviously I needed players who could work fast and sound good, and who weren’t addicted to post-production or overdubbing – because none of that was available; it was all live and set in stone. So we have Mr Steer, Andy Raven, Therese Standish, Richard Turner and Jeff Barnes, who are tasty and fearless, and all necessarily unplugged – on guitars and mandolins but also double basses, drum kits and harmoniums that got heavier and heavier as we carried them up bilberry-covered hills or down ferny gullies.” – DH

''The best songwriter you've probably never heard of has delivered another diamond'' (Record Collector Magazine )

''Very far out'' (David Berman)

The Puma-Sutras, Dan Haywood's New Hawks, Dapple, Pill Fangs, Major City, Spring Record, Country Dustbin, Dutch Desert, Vintage Valium.

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