The Bookshop Band are the musical offspring of an artistic love-affair between a group of award winning folk songwriters, Beth Porter and Ben Please, and an independent bookshop in the UK, Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. The songs are the musical outpouring of the band’s own response to books they have read, curated by the bookshop.
After hearing the band’s previous albums, Pete Townshend reached out and offered to produce their next record, and ended up playing on every track too. “EMERGE, RETURN” is the result of this and comes out on June 28th, 2024.
It features songs inspired by books by authors including Philip Pullman, Margaret Atwood, Shaun Bythell, Yann Martel, Carol Birch, Barney Norris, Robert Macfarlane, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, and Aldous Huxley. The cover art is by Stanley Donwood, and it was mixed by Nick Drake’s recording engineer, John Wood.
We are on a huge UK tour at the moment, kids in tow to promote our new album, so we thought it might be a nice moment to release this music video, of a song called “Why I Travel This Way“, inspired by The High Mountains Of Portugal, by Canadian author Yann Martel, who also features on the track, playing glockenspiel.
Filmed and edited by Ben Please, with help from all the fire crew at the glorious Eden Festival. Music by The Bookshop Band, ft. Pete Townshend. Music produced by Pete Townshend, engineered by Myles Clarke and Michael Nyondoro, mixed by John Wood.
The Fat Angel Sings 