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Three Cane Whale

  • The Prince Albert Rodborough Hill Stroud, England, GL5 United Kingdom (map)

Bristol-based multi-instrumental acoustic trio Three Cane Whale released in October 2024 their new album "Hibernacula", recorded in the sumptuous acoustic of St George’s Bristol by Rob Habron (who also recorded the band's multi-location second and fifth albums, "Holts & Hovers" and “303”).  "Hibernacula" refers to the places of refuge chosen by animals in which to hibernate and over-winter, and is inspired by some of the band’s favourite sanctuaries and landscapes.

Three Cane Whale is a multi-instrumental acoustic chamber-folk trio based in Bristol, UK. As intricate as a team of watchmakers, as spare as a mountain stream, uplifting and elegiac in equal measure, their music encompasses both a cinematic sweep and an intimate delicacy, in which “the aroma of muddy leaves and old nettles is almost tangible” (The Observer).

Expect a stage strewn with upwards of a dozen instruments (some familiar, such as mandolin, harmonium, & acoustic guitar; some beguilingly unusual, including the eerie bowed psaltery, the baroque-esque Eb trumpet, & the delicate Finnish kantele), allowing for some striking multiple instrumental combinations and an overall soundworld unlike any other.

The band’s eponymous debut album was recorded live in an eighteenth-century Bristol church, and chosen by Cerys Matthews as one of her ‘Top Five Modern Folk Albums’ (Sunday Telegraph). Second album Holts and Hovers was recorded in 20 different locations, including churches, chapels, a greenwood barn, an allotment shed, the top of a Welsh waterfall, and the underside of a Bristol flyover. It was fRoots Editor’s Choice Album Of The Year 2013, one of the ‘Hidden Gems Of 2013’ in The Observer, and one of Acoustic Guitarist magazine's '20 Essential Folk Albums'.

2016's "Palimpsest" album was recorded in Real World Studios in Wiltshire, with Adrian Utley from the band Portishead producing, and artwork by Dorset's Little Toller press (best-known for their gorgeous editions of old and new nature writing classics). "Palimpsest" received 4-star reviews in The Guardian, The Independent On Sunday, The FT, The Irish Times, The Mail On Sunday, Songlines, and The Telegraph, and was a 5-star Playlist Choice in fRoots.  At the end of 2016, "Three Cane Whale: Live At The Old Barn, Kelston Roundhill" was chosen as the inaugural release on Kelston Records, and described as " a fantastic release" on BBC Radio 3's Record Review. In 2017, the band collaborated with 13 filmmakers and visual artists on short films to accompany live performances, and toured the project throughout the UK.  In 2019, the album “303” was recorded in, and inspired by, a series of linked locations in South Somerset, and described by Songlines magazine as “exquisite musical miniatures imbued with the West Country landscape.”

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