Us & Them really deliver the goods with this stupendous four song EP of Paul Giovanni covers taken from the soundtrack of an early 70s cult movie from Britain called ‘The Wicker Man’….Quite simply, along with Kes, one of the best films ever made and easily THEE best soundtrack.
It must have been an impossible task to reproduce the brilliance of Giovanni’s original acid-folk songs but Us & Them really capture the macabre sounds and eerie mood of them all. The perfect musicianship and the addition of mellotron and dulcimer into the mix create brilliant new interpretations of ‘Corn Rigs’, ‘Gently Johnny’, ‘Fire Leap’ and ‘Willow’s Song’.
The record was at first released in the usual Fruits de Mer quantity of 500. These sold out within a week, so an additional 200 copies were pressed which also sold out immediately. The label design shows a psychedelicalized picture of the famous Alan Wicker…ha ha ha…hilarious.
The first 500 copies Fruits de Mer pressed of our Summerisle took 4 days to sell out. The second pressing of 200 copies took a week. But if you would like to take the last chance we got 8 copies left for sale. Three of them contains a poster which only the first 60 copies do. So that could be a good investment so you could last you days as a rich man or woman.
In the latest issue of the amazing Shindig ! Magazine Us and Them received a lovely review. Here it is:
Here’s a thing. I like to think of myself as an undying advocate of the “it’s it ain’t broke” principle, so the notion of having songs from Paul Giovanni’s exalted score for The Wicker Man re-recorded by, harrumph, some JOHNNY-COME-LATELIES initially struck me as sacrilegious at worst and pointless at best.
Man, what do i know? Turns out that this limited edition coloured vinyl EP, recorded by Swedish acid-folk duo Us and Them (Britt and Anders) with the assitance of mellotron maestro Frobisher Neck (Tony Swettenham) weaves much the same quizzical spell as the film itself, and, particularly in the case of ‘Willow’s Song’, actually out-lovelies the original version. Also tackled are ‘Corn Rigs’, ‘Fire Leap’ and ‘Gently Johnny’ with a dignified guest vocal from Ludvig Josephson; valid, delicate and persuasive all, but Britt’s vocal on this version of ‘Willow’s song’ would have you chowing your way through that bedroom wall with your bare teeth
The 500 copys of our new EP Summerisle sold out in just 4 days. 200 more will be pressed. If you want one contact Fruits de Mer records here www.fruitsdemerrecords.com
A big thanks to Paul Rigby and RECORD COLLECTOR for mention ‘Summerisle’ on their ‘Most Wanted’ spread – pretty good company to be in, as almost everything else featured is worth 800 quid or more !
On the 19 th of november Us and Them and Peter och gitarristen will perform at Teater Pero. The adress is Sveavägen 114 in Stockholm, Sweden. US and Them on stage 19.00 and Peter och gitarristen 20.00.
On the 4th of november from seven o’clock we will have a releaseparty for the Summerisle – Songs from the Wickerman. It will be in the Teater Bristol in Stockholm, Sweden. The adress is Sturegatan 39 in Sundbyberg.
We will play two short set: one acustic with our own songs and one with the Wickerman songs. There will be a bar, music in the spirit of The Wickerman and a lot of fantastic people.
Now you can see the videos of 3 of the 4 songs from our forthcoming EP Summerisle. There are made in august in the deep forests of Varmland, Sweden.
First is Willow’s song. Please take a dear friend in your hand when you watch it.
Corn rigs is a more traditional video with us playing the opening track of the EP
….and the last one, Fire Leap, where the central character try a bit more peaceful way to save the apple harvest than the one they use in The Wickerman film.
We have three of our own songs on Souncloud.com now. You can listen to and download them if you want. The songs are Weston-super-mare and Another view of us from our debut Based on a true story and A love will find its way to us which is only available on the Fruits de Mers members only cassette We come bearing gifts. The link to Soundcloud is http://soundcloud.com/us-and-them-1
