The Declining Winter started out as the meanderings of me, Mr Richard Vincent Adams now of West Yorkshire. A musical project to keep me occupied whilst my other group is (still) on hiatus and also so I can pretend that I’m not just an office worker by trade. Here’s a bit of history…..

Releases

Our first 7″ ‘The Future Sound of Hip Hop parts 1 and 2’ (2008) was housed in 100% recycled packaging made from old 7” sleeves turned inside out with individual photo. The initial copies came with a bonus CD of remixes by Epic 45, Remote Viewer, Part Timer and Northstation.

The first album ‘Goodbye, Minnesota’ came out on Ireland’s Rusted Rail records. Again it has recycled, handmade sleeves. There were two pressings, each with slightly different artwork. Then there was a limited edition vinyl pressing in April 2010 on Public House records.

The next Declining Winter record proper was entitled ‘Haunt the Upper Hallways’ and appeared on Home Assembly Music in luxurious 7″ AND CD format with. The 7″ contained three songs and the CD contained the same three songs plus 7 bonus tracks including a remix of the San Francisco band Carta. Initial copies came with a bonus CD of remixes by the likes of Strategy, Winter North Atlantic, Fieldhead, Northerner, James Yates.

In 2010 we released our ‘Official World Cup Theme 2010’ (Home Assembly Music) to an unsuspecting world. Initial copies came with bonus postcards and panini stickers of the band.  We followed this up in October with “Scenes from the Back Bedroom Window” a very limited 3″ CDr release on Secret Furry Hole.

Nothing happened until 2013 when we released ‘Fragment 5’ a 10″ record as part of Monopsone’s Fragment series of releases.

We then branched out into the world of cassettes with the ‘Lost Songs’ tape. Its now sold out but you can get it from Bandcamp.

Then came 2015 the year they are all still talking about where we released ‘Home For Lost Souls’ (LP/CD Home Assembly), ‘Endless Scenery’ (ltd CD on Sounds in Silence) and a split 12″ with Isnaj Dui on Rural Colours.

2018 was the next busy year with the ‘Belmont Slope’ LP/CD (Home Assembly) and the ‘Chimneys etc’ and ‘Return to Branch’ 7″s (Signal and Fissile).

In 2019 I broke my ankle so everything was limited to home recordings. Luckily I was asked to contribute to two interesting projects  – UTE a multimedia project with a 7″ and a beer. Then Paper Piano issued Why Clanks a book and CDr that documented the journey from Saltaire to Silsden Football Club.

All our available records are carried by the nice people at Norman Records and many of them are available to stream/buy at Bandcamp.

Remixes

We have occasionally been asked to remix people. So far we have ‘altered’ tracks by Aarktica, Northerner, Fieldhead, Carta, Arthur and Martha, Team Forest, Brave Timbers, The Green Kingdom,  amongst others.

Live

The Declining Winter live band did consist of Richard Vincent Adams, Paul Elam, Gareth S Brown, Sarah Kemp, Elaine Reynolds and Richard Morris . Other ex and temporary members include James Yates, Stuart Wilson and Graham Jones. We made our debut on March 20th 2008 at the Packhorse in Leeds and have since played with the likes of Stars of the Lid, A Silver Mount Zion, Remember Remember, Winter North Atlantic, the Durutti Column, Bracken, Mogwai, epic45, Eric Chenaux, Konntinent and many more.

We reconvened in 2015 for a few shows with a new line up of Richard Adams, Paul Elam, Mick Harrison and Chris Lanigan.  Matty Jones-Green replaced Paul Elam then Jo Rose temporarily replaced Matty Jones-Green for our winter tour of 2018.

For our 2020 tour, Gareth Brown has returned to replace Mick Harrison and Matty Jones-Green is back instead of Jo Rose.

As well as this blog you can follow us on  Facebook and Twitter

You can also subscribe to our mailing list by clicking here with the word ‘Subscribe’ in the header.