Everything in Readiness

Shovel Dance Collective continue their remarkable run with Everything in Readiness, their third album and debut for Glitterbeat’s tak:til imprint. Since forming in late 2019, the nine-piece have become central to a new wave of traditional music, with earlier albums The Water is the Shovel of the Shore and The Shovel Dance earning wide acclaim in the UK and beyond.

True to their name, this is a collective in every sense: exploratory, inclusive and politically engaged. Drawing on underperformed traditional material, they weave songs into vivid, fearless arrangements shaped by improvisation, tape manipulation, field recordings and acoustic instruments, always attentive to class, expropriation and carceral systems.

From the celebratory Jer the Rigger to the devastating prison medley A Hundred Stretches Hence / I Wish There Was No Prisons, this is bold, moving work. Fans of caroline, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Alison Cotton and Milkweed should dive in.