Folk collective Spell Songs was born as a musical companion to the two books of meditations on nature by writer Robert MacFarlane and artist and naturalist Jackie Morris. The recordings are tender naturalist-chamber-folk spell-poems of wildness, beauty, loss, and hope, inspired by the creatures, art and language in The Lost Words and The Lost Spells books. Each spell is a summoning of sorts, conjuring an animal, bird, tree or flower - from Barn Owl to Red Fox, Oak to Bramble, Jay to Jackdaw - with which we share our lives and landscapes.

The musicians wrote together on their “open plan” of musical ideas for Spell Songs II: Let The Light In, combining their guitar, harp, cello, keyboard, woodwind, kora, percussion and vocal harmonies. Spoken voice, whispers, accents, dialects, native languages, birdsong, the bark of foxes, the soft sound of a moth’s wing, the sound of a children’s climate strike; all increase the intimacy and power of the musical world conjured by Spell Songs II. Spell Songs performs excerpts from the new album; and Scottish singer Julie Fowlis and Senegalese-born kora virtuoso Seckou Keita chat about the project from London. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: "Heron," "Daisy," "Thrift"

Watch "Heron": 

Watch "Daisy":

Watch "Thrift":

"Oak":

"Bramble":