Stornoway

Crafting lush acoustic melodies with world weary storytelling, Stornoway were part of the late-2000s revival in indie folk bands that included Noah and the Whale and Mumford and Sons. Taking their name from a Scottish seaport town in the Outer Hebrides because they liked its evocation of winsome coastal remoteness, Stornoway were formed by singer Brian Briggs, multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Ouin and South African brothers Oli (bass) and Rob Steadman (drums) formed while they were all studying at Oxford University in 2005. They first came to notice when local BBC radio DJ Tim Bearder barricaded his studio and played their demo tracks repeatedly for an hour. They became the first unsigned band to appear on Later.with Jools Holland on TV, before debut album Beachcomber's Windowsill (2010) reached Number 14 in the UK charts and led to the band opening the Pyramid stage at the Glastonbury Festival in 2011. Second album Tales From Terra Firma (2013) received a 5/5 star rating from The Guardian and took their humble, intimate Celtic folk pop and added horns, crescendos and a cinematic grandeur that earned comparisons with Belle and Sebastian and The E Street Band.

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