New video now released on Youtube and Vimeo https://youtu.be/hFQ081DRbOo. Thanks to the wonderful Marry Waterson for making this video. The single is in 3 versions: Festival Mix, by Al Scott (as in video) and Folkpunk Mixes arranged, played and mixed by Henning Nugel. Availlable for download from https://raycooper.bandcamp.com/album/falling-like-thunder

Click on image below for video

I have just finished recording the new album, as yet untitled – but it will be soon. The album can’t come out until April, so I asked my record company Westpark if we could release a single in the mean time, they said yes, but asked for remixes so we could release the song in three different versions. They also asked for a video and I was very fortunate to be able to get Marry Waterson to make it and she did a great job, (out on Youtube on Dec 3).

I played all the instruments on the ‘Festival Mix’: Guitar, bass, piano and 8 cellos. This is the one that is used on the video. and it was mixed by Al Scott. Marry is the daughter of Lal Waterson and many years ago I made the trip up to Robin Hood’s Bay to play some cello on Lal’s final album. The engineer was Marry’s brother Ollie Knight.

When the record company suggested a release with remixes, I immediately thought of a guy in Germany I had been getting to know. His name is Henning Nugel and he mainly deals with composing music for video games; big sweeping orchestral sounding film music, also using folk instruments.

Henning made an album with Joolz Denby called ‘Crow’ where he orchestrated some of her spoken word poems. Joolz is, among other things, a non-playing member of New Model Army who I have followed over the years and I have a couple of her books on the bookshelf. I toured with New Model Army back in the day with Oysterband and our paths have occasionally crossed since. Henning also worked with NMA on their recent excellent album ‘Winter’, as well as with their singer Justin on ‘Surrounded’. I was so impressed by his work with Joolz I got in touch and we met in Berlin a few years ago. When I asked Henning to make a remix he said – OK, but I want to play on it too. Fine with me! I was interested to see what he would come up with. He ended up playing all the instruments on his version, drums, bass, acoustic and electric guitars, violin and Irish bouzouki, and the result is a full on folk-rock version which we are calling the “Folkpunk Mix’. Henning extended the arrangement and also made a shorter mix for radio. Al Scott then mastered everything in Brighton.

Check out the work Henning has done with Joolz and his music for computer games.

So there you have it, two very different versions of the same song. And the backing vocals on both versions are by one of the sisters from Baskery, Sunniva Bondesson. I met them again backstage at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival this year and suggested it. Co-incidentaly, they have just finished recording an album with Seth Lakeman, which Al Scott has done some mixing for. The three sisters are from Stockholm where I met them again in a club a few weeks ago, but Sunniva now lives in Berlin where she recorded her soaring backing vocals.

Video out Dec 3, single release Dec 5.

Henning Nugel…