Driver, Merlyn - It Was Also Sometimes Daylight

Recorded partly in London with the help of David Gray and partly in a converted barn in rural Finland, the album is a raw, intimate meditation on life, memory, nature, and childhood - shaped as much by acoustic folk and contemporary influences as by the rhythms and textures of the natural world.

Raised on a smallholding in Orkney without mains electricity, Merlyn's childhood was shaped by long hours spent outdoors - often to escape what could be a volatile home environment. "Some of my favourite early memories involve tracking and studying wildlife in the fields around my childhood home. I didn't attend the local school until my early teens and was able to spend a lot of time outdoors. Once the dark winter months set in though, my siblings and I had to make our own fun inside." 

"One of my earliest musical memories involves us creating a homemade tape of surreal songs and imaginary sounds, including 'a typewriter in depression'... We discovered that by simultaneously pressing 'Record' while holding the Pause button halfway down, we could change the recording speed and distort our voices." That sense of instinctive, lo- fi creativity runs throughout the album.

"I wanted the record to be stripped- down, raw, and intimate." Built mostly around acoustic instrumentation, the album features contributions from artists including Owen Spafford (fiddle), Francesca Ter-Berg (cello), Nathan Riki Thomson (double bass), and a cast of non-human collaborators: curlews, frogs, toads, geese, and more.