On a bright and clear day, July 2008, a large box arrived. In the box, lay a machine, black and heavy, with knobs and buttons you could press with ease. It was a Fostex 8 track port studio, paid for with pounds, designed to catch sounds and realise ideas and dreams.

On a grey day, a few weeks later overlooking a man made lake, I exchanged ideas with Rachel for names of recording artists. Treehouse, The Treehouse Orchestra, The Nightowl Sings were mentioned amongst others. These names seem to enter the world with ease. A band and a label were born.

Songs were written, friends were asked and sounds began to form. The Treehouse Orchestra was growing. The first branch of this orchestra was Treehouse (Marc Gillen, Alex Thompson, David Thompson, Rachel Gillen); an album ‘Five Stars In a Field At Dusk’ was recorded and released in January 2009. The songs had a homespun feel, like the artwork that protected them. Folk, country, indie pop, drone and noise mixed together over it’s eighteen compositions. Guitars, Piano, Violin, Mandolin, ukelele, voices, samples, static and love sprung out of it’s beautiful mess.

Before we could catch our breath, three more branches sprung forth. Stephen Benson who had helped out on the Treehouse album formed We Are the Wooden Houses and conjured up a five track E.P. of guitar pickings and drones which meandered through an insular world of beauty and isolation, looking for John Fahey and Soledad Miranda. This was followed in the spring of 2009 by Hills! Werewolves! Run! (Marc Gillen, Stephen Benson) who released a playful album of miniature electro, country ballads, folk and Velvets tinged sonnets. At this point Alistair Popple became involved, adding much needed skill to the mixing, production and post production needs of all the artists. Alistair would prove to be an invaluable source of advice and expertise over the following years.

Old Weird (Marc Gillen, David Thompson) arrived in the hot summer, a year on from that first day, an E.P. of ghostly folk songs was conceived, like Harry Smith at a wake. These releases like the first had homemade artwork, pulling together cloth and pen, stories, photographs and illusions. They were given away as gifts to those we loved ; they all had a number TOR01, TOR02...etc. Each became a stepping stone to the next place, a bridge for us to see from.

At the end of the year we made a Christmas compilation which was held together with wood and glitter. It featured all the artists and people above, in addition to this, new artistic entities entered the fray, step forward The Ottors (Alex Thompson) with her stately and haunting violin tones enter to The Road Movies (David Thompson, Marc Gillen, Stephen Benson) brandishing a trio of guitars and alter egos rising up to an alter of Hawaiian psych.

Then came 2010 and an E.P. landed by The Nightowl Sings (Marc Gillen) with twenty minutes of deconstructed piano, reverb and songs about 19^th century ghosts. Next up The Dead West (formally The Road Movies) who put together a double album so sprawling, listeners were given a map before listening. The first disc took in guitar pop of all persuasions , linking Kraftwerk with The Beach Boys, Hank Williams with The Clean, all seemed possible. The second disc provided an esoteric journey through Kraut, psych, old time waltz, distortions, drones, clicks and meandering tall tales of love and death.

In the second half of the year a second We Are the Wooden Houses E.P. came, which added strung out repetitive ambient textures to beautiful plucked strings and a Nightowl Sings album which was something of a homage to early 90’s American indie rock.

That brings us almost up to date. This year has seen the release of the first Cat Of Tomorrow album (David Thompson) which links the BBC radiophonic workshop, Joe Meek and Buddy Holly and a We Are the Wooden Houses album full of beautiful sound poems, murder ballads and pastoral psyche. This was quickly followed by the second Hills! Werewolves! Run! Album, a high octane lurch fed on Sonic Youth, Norwegian Metal and political dissent. We have also enjoyed an E.P. from Shane Magee A.K.A. Whirlaway. (Shane was a member of Carlisle alt. Legends Harbourcoat along with Marc Gillen, Stephen Benson and Alistair Popple.) Shane’s E.P. is a haunting song collage full of whispers and battered dreams, simultaneously elegant and sad.

In the pipeline is another Dead West release, a Nightowl Sings album, a compilation of traditional folk songs and solo project from Alistair as yet unnamed.

I make that sixteen releases in three years, here’s hoping that creative streak continues and that you lucky listener can find the joy in these recordings that has sustained us thus far…
- Marc.