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Artist
The Owl Service
12+ albums
folkneofolkpsychedelic folkpsych-folkapocalyptic folk
about
The Owl Service was an English alternative folk music collective formed in 2006 by multi-instrumentalist Steven Paul Collins (who led the band for its entire 10 year duration). The band name was taken from the title of a 1967 novel by Alan Garner. Formed June 2006 in Leigh-on-sea. Core members; Steven Collins and Jo Lepine, augmented by Nancy Wallace (of The Memory Band), Dom Cooper and Diana Collier. Single biggest influence; Paul Giovanni - an outsider who sensed what was at the heart of traditional British music, grasped it and created a sonic masterpiece combining traditional elements with his own trad-inspired original material. The Owl Service wouldn't have exsisted without him. The Owl Service, at its inception, was little more than a spark of an idea in the mind of Steven Collins. A life-long lover of folk music, Collins always thought he lacked the necessary credentials to find a place in the folk scene; being raised in a faceless new town with no sense of tradition, he felt totally divorced from the bucolic sounds of the 1960s folk-revival. Enchanted by images of Fairport Convention regrouping in a rented Queen Ann mansion house in Farley Chamberlayne; beguiled by the strange sounds of the Incredible String Band; spellbound by Anne Briggs' vocal purity; it remained a personal journey of discovery for many years. It was while watching Vashti Bunyan perform at the Homefires 3 festival in 2006 that the spark was ignited; 2 days the later, totally inspired, Collins be
