Since myspace was upgraded it seems to be impossible to reply to emails. Apologies if you're waiting for a reply - not much we can do. Contact us via the Telling the Bees website.

Telling the Bees

Cheers! xxx

Hiya,

Our new album, An English Arcanum, has been nominated for Best Album in the Spiral Earth Awards 2010. Winner will be decided by public vote so please take a moment to vote for us at:

Spiral Earth Awards 2010

Thanks!

TtB xxx

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has befriended us lately. If you haven't heard back from us it is because myspace has become intolerably clunky and bloated, taking hours to download every page. Grr! OK, I'm exaggerating, but compared to, say, other social networking sites, myspace is windows xp to others' OSX.

So if you want to keep in touch with us, do check out our website and blog.

But it's great to hear so much inventive and delightful music out there xxx

We're happy to announce that from November 1st, and for a three month period only, you'll be able to download our song, Wood, free of charge! The song has been included on the new FATEA showcase bandstand session along with tracks from other up and coming folk bands, known and not so known.

Enjoy and do please spread the word!

Andy xxx

Hey, we got this great review from Spiral Earth!

The debut album from Telling The Bees who formed in 2007 around the songwriting of Andy Letcher, his songs of 'darkly crafted folkadelia' are brought to life by the assembled talents of Josie Webber, Jane Griffiths and Colin Fletcher. Andy Letcher is the pre-eminent authority on English bagpiping and the magic mushroom, what a combination...

Folkadelia is a gloriously enthralling term, hinting at untold depths with a nod and a wink, beckoning you into a secret world of mystic sensuality, yet it can all fall flat if it fails to deliver the whole experience. You can't unlock the gates without being prepared for the come down when they close, true psychedelia has that element of melancholy that is the flipside to the euphoria. Without that counterbalance it's just a pastiche. Untie The Wind has that chill of winter air blowing across it's beautiful surface that makes it truly resonate on all level's of the heart and soul.

We all get a polaroid moment of an albums sonic profile, for me with this album it's Cello and English Border Bagpipes, they carry that torch of melancholia through the glades and greenwood that make up this album. And it is Wood, in all it's forms, that is a central theme here; whether in the material that willingly gives itself up to become the instruments that make the music we love, or in the rage of a land ravaged by mankind's so called progress. Songs that delve so deep into the Greenwood that they invoke memories of other times held together by customs we have lost.

Telling The Bees have created a heady soundscape of pagan earthiness 'On the footpaths and byways of England you are never alone' (Quietly Raging). Yet it is not an off-with-the-fairies noodling desire for a better place, it has a darker, angry heart, in the past Letcher has put action to words in anti-road protests 'on the motorways and carriageways of England you are always alone'. These are songs that delve very deep, they repay repeated listening.

There are many points of reference within this album, their MySpace list of influences includes Vashti Bunyan, Espers and the wonderful Ozric Tentacles, if there is one influence that stands out for me it's Comus, their shade haunts the deepwood of Untie The Wind; the drone of a deeply bowed cello set against an insistent fiddle conjures an edgy sense of unease that sets the spine a tingling.

Untie The Wind is an album of sensual, powerful songs. It's one of those rare things these days, an album that has many secrets, you can only unlock them if you take the time to really listen and submit yourself to the experience; Turn on, tune out, and listen to the voices of the trees...

Iain Hazlewood

Alas Woven Wheat Whispers is no more, but albums can still be bought from us or from CD Baby.

Should be available on iTunes soon too xxx

We're delighted to announce that you can now download the album, in high quality mp3, from those fine purveyors of psych-folk, Woven Wheat Whispers.

And all for a mere £6. Now that's a bargain.

Untie the Wind just got the following review in Nightshift (Oxford's long-running music monthly). Yup, we're chuffed:

We've been sent some funny gifts by bands in our time but never a large ginger beard. But having suggested they might be a bit 'too beardy' for us synth-pop kids before we reviewed their demo a couple of months back, Telling the Bees have furnished us with the sort of facial decoration we'll need to make it all the way through their debut album. But what do you expect from a band who name themselves after the old folk tradition of informing the family beehive of any significant events, lest they get upset and fly away? Old, folk and tradition being the key words there, since 'Untie the Wind' is steeped in English folk music's ancient traditions.

English folk music is enjoying its biggest renaissance since the late-60s at the moment and Telling the Bees are indicative of why. Formed by local luminaries Andy Letcher, Colin Fletcher, Jane Griffiths and Josie Webber, here they rejuvenate old world sounds with a fresh, spiky approach that means they tap into the form's bucolic roots while lending an ear to more contemporary sounds, in this case everything from John Cale to Nick Cave (two men unafraid to sport the odd bit of facial hair when duty called).

Andy's voice is a full, rounded tenor and carries the hushed, atmospheric melodies with understated power, allowing Jane and Josie's string arrangements to really fly, notably on the soaring album opener, 'Waiting for the Dawn' and the intense, poetic 'The Worship of Trees'. Only on the rather trite 'Telling the Bees' itself does Andy's voice falter, dropping into that nasal twang that can get English folk music a bad name. Straight away, though, he's making amends with the gorgeous solemnity of 'Beautiful', a close relation to Seth Lakeman's Devon gothic storytelling (perhaps not unsurprising given that Andy grew up in the West Country). The album's high point, though, comes almost at its close with the title track 'Untie the Wind' exposing the power of Jane Griffith's fiddle playing as she comes close to matching the Bad Seeds' Warren Ellis' darkly atmospheric scraping. Two border pipe-led instrumentals offer a different perspective on TTB's sound, and it's telling that all the songs here are originals.

Like all good traditional folk, 'Untie the Wind' accepts modern life in without surrendering its old world appeal. Telling the Bees might recall a far off place, but one that's still very much alive. Can I take this beard off now? It itches like hell!

Ian Chesterton

We're booked to play the Wood festival - Sunday May 18th, 7.30pm, Tree Tent. See ya there!

Check out our new website www.tellingthebees.co.uk
designed by the wonderful Rima Staines.