Biography
Blending pastoral folk with cosmic jazz and classical composition, the British instrumental duo Hampshire & Foat entered the scene in 2017 via their widely praised debut Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, which was followed twelve months afterward by the shadowy fairy-tale set The Honeybear. The enterprise of esteemed jazz pianist Greg Foat and multi-instrumentalist Warren Hampshire—formerly of Mercury-nominated indie-rock outfit the Bees—the pair’s pooled abilities carved out a singular soundscape frequently reminiscent of a cinematic score.
The longtime companions first convened inside an Edinburgh studio, enlisting players from their prior ensembles together with jazz drummer Clark Tracey. Issued that May by Scottish imprint Athens of the North, the resulting work, the beguiling Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, emerged in 2017. Shifting focus for the next project, the two traveled to the Isle of Wight to shape songs for a conceptual record centered on an invented children’s volume titled The Honeybear. Tilting further into experimental chamber folk than their opening effort, the ten tracks of The Honeybear were designed to mirror successive chapters of the fictional book and featured atmospheric, orchestrated settings interwoven with on-site field recordings gathered across the island. After the album surfaced in February 2018, the duo promptly resumed work on material intended to summon the atmosphere of 1960s British library music and film soundtracks; issued that summer, the collection bore the title Nightshade: Library Music, Vol. 1.
Hampshire & Foat delivered their fourth album, Saint Lawrence, in 2019. Captured across two bright afternoons in 2017, the set was tracked live without overdubs inside a pair of churches located in Saint Lawrence along the Isle of Wight’s southern shore, then transferred to a vintage stereo Nagra IV-S reel-to-reel machine. Longtime collaborators Phil Achille and Eric Young joined the duo, along with an assembly of area musicians, to document the reverberant character of the sanctuaries and the adjacent terrain. Individual pieces take their names from nearby landmarks, secluded beaches, and country lanes.
The longtime companions first convened inside an Edinburgh studio, enlisting players from their prior ensembles together with jazz drummer Clark Tracey. Issued that May by Scottish imprint Athens of the North, the resulting work, the beguiling Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, emerged in 2017. Shifting focus for the next project, the two traveled to the Isle of Wight to shape songs for a conceptual record centered on an invented children’s volume titled The Honeybear. Tilting further into experimental chamber folk than their opening effort, the ten tracks of The Honeybear were designed to mirror successive chapters of the fictional book and featured atmospheric, orchestrated settings interwoven with on-site field recordings gathered across the island. After the album surfaced in February 2018, the duo promptly resumed work on material intended to summon the atmosphere of 1960s British library music and film soundtracks; issued that summer, the collection bore the title Nightshade: Library Music, Vol. 1.
Hampshire & Foat delivered their fourth album, Saint Lawrence, in 2019. Captured across two bright afternoons in 2017, the set was tracked live without overdubs inside a pair of churches located in Saint Lawrence along the Isle of Wight’s southern shore, then transferred to a vintage stereo Nagra IV-S reel-to-reel machine. Longtime collaborators Phil Achille and Eric Young joined the duo, along with an assembly of area musicians, to document the reverberant character of the sanctuaries and the adjacent terrain. Individual pieces take their names from nearby landmarks, secluded beaches, and country lanes.
Albums
