Bill Fay - Countless Branches

Countless Branches is the sixth studio album by English folk singer, pianist and songwriter Bill Fay, released in January 2020 via Dead Oceans Records.

After signing to the Deram label in 1967, English singer-songwriter and pianist Bill Fay released two albums, his self-titled debut in 1970 and Time of the Last Persecution in 1971, however sales were poor and Fay was dropped from Deram soon after its release. Struggling to secure a release for his third album, Tomorrow, Tomorrow & Tomorrow, Bill Fay took various jobs outside of the music industry, while continuing to record music at home. In 1998 the British record label See for Miles Records reissued his first two albums, prompting a revival of interest in his work, and Fay's third album Tomorrow, Tomorrow & Tomorrow was finally released in 2005 by Durtro Records.

With renewed interest in Fay’s music, he returned to record new material, signing to Dead Oceans records and releasing the superb album Life Is People in 2012, followed by Who Is The Sender? In 2015, both produced by Joshua Henry.

Sounding more sparse and succinct than on his previous records, Countless Branches collects compositions drawn from the trove of material Fay has amassed over 40 years. Unfinished songs emerge with newly written words and melodies on Fay’s recurring themes – nature, the family of man, the cycle of life and the ineffable vastness of it all – as if they had been lying in wait to find their place in our current zeitgeist. The resulting ten songs are as pointed and poignant as anything he has ever recorded.

His new album was produced by Joshua Henry, with the cast list slimmed down from previous sessions. Guitarist Matt Deighton remains as Fay’s trusted Musical Director and the musicians have mostly all played on Fay’s albums in the past. But both Henry and Fay thought that, this time, there should be more of Bill on his own at the piano, or with minimal accompaniment.

It is at the piano, alongside some rudimentary home recording equipment, where Bill has been composing music in the intervening decades between his first and most-recent album at every chance he could get. His newest material retains the awestruck, inquisitive feel of those early songs. They often evoke landscapes, ancient and sacred places, as their author traverses the outdoors to marvel at it all. And he is doing it all from that corner of his room at the piano, while the word about his work continues to grow and spread like so many branches. For decades now, Bill Fay’s songs have been his ambassadors.

While still reluctant to play live or make public appearances, Fay’s resolve and his purity shine through the work and make him a special artist, finding his wider world from that corner of the room – and long may he continue to do so.

This album is on black vinyl with a printed inner sleeve and digital download code, pressed in the US via Dead Oceans.