The Declining Winter

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The Declining Winter is a British band based in Yorkshire, led by Richard Adams, the co-founder of the Domino Records group Hood.^[1] The band plays a unique form of pastoral pop taking in influences from lo-fi, electronica and post rock with a strong visual aesthetic inspired by the countryside of Yorkshire.

They released their debut single "The Future Sound of Hip Hop Parts 1 & 2" on Misplaced Music in November 2007.^[2] This release was promptly followed up by a CD only remix project on Moteer and a debut album Goodbye Minnesota released by Ireland's Rusted Rail imprint in May 2008.^[3] In May 2009, they issued a mini album Haunt the Upper Hallways on Home Assembly Music.^[4] The same label also released an unlikely attempt at a song for the 2010 World Cup and later that year the four track CDr "Scenes from the Back Bedroom Window" emerged on boutique Italian imprint, Secret Furry Hole.^[5]

After a long period of silence, the band (now consisting solely of Richard Adams with assorted guests) returned to release a 10" Fragment 5 on French label Monopsone in 2013 followed by Lost Songs cassette on Sanity Muffin in 2014. The latter album consists of unfinished recordings rescued by Adams from his crashed hard drive and was later issued as a small run of CDrs. A brand new studio album, Home For Lost Souls, was released in March 2015 on Home Assembly Music,^[4] and came with a digital-only mini-album The Waning Mill Chronicles. In August 2015, the band played a rare series of UK dates with a new line-up consisting of Richard Adams (vocals, guitar), Paul Elam (guitar), Mick Harrison (bass) and Chris Lanigan (drums). The band then issued The Leaves in the Lane a split 12" with Isnaj Dui on the Rural Colours imprint, and a busy 2015 was rounded off with a limited album Endless Scenery on Sound in Silence.

The band once again fell silent as Adams worked with his other project the dulcimer-led instrumental band, Memory Drawings, but a very limited handmade 7" single Chimneys etc appeared in 2018, followed by a critically appraised new studio album, Belmont Slope, in September 2018. In 2019, Richard Adams released two near solo records under The Declining Winter moniker. Firstly a collaboration with Leeds-based designers Studio Build and brewing company Northern Brew Co. on a 7" record entitled UTE, which came with a craft beer of the same name. Then came Why Clanks - a short run book and CDr released by the Manchester-based print label Paper Piano Press. Adams also released an album of ambient and electronic recordings in 2019 on Sound In Silence under the name Western Edges.

In 2021 Adams released the entirely solo Recordings Of Weird Air cassette on his own Signal Records. The tape was made up of songs recorded live to iPAD the previous summer and autumn.

Discography[]

Studio albums[]

• Goodbye Minnesota (2008)
• Haunt the Upper Hallways (2009)
• Fragment 5 (2013)
• Lost Songs (2014)
• Home For Lost Souls (2015)
• The Leaves in the Lane (2015) split album with Isnaj Dui
• Endless Scenery (2015)
• Belmont Slope (2018)
• Recordings Of Weird Air (2021)

Singles[]

• "The Future Sound of Hip Hop Parts 1 & 2" (2007)
• "Moteer Remixes" (2007)
• "Remixes" (2008)
• "The Official World Cup Theme" (2010)
• "Scenes from The Back Bedroom Window" (2010)
• "Chimneys etc" (2018)
• "Return to Branch" (2018)
• "Why Clanks" (2019)
• "Occupying The Blanks" (2020)

References[]