Laurence Collyer, aka The Diamond Family Archive, was a long-term resident of Brighton before he upped sticks and moved to the South West to start a family. He’s continued to make great music, regularly touring as Diamond Family Archive and releasing a monthly series of online EPs featuring a range of demos, live tracks and cover versions in DFA’s largely inimitable psych-folk style.

‘Would I Were A Swift (Or A Skylark Be)’ is the second DFA vinyl release, and the album is only available in that format with the tracks unreleased elsewhere. It’s a lovely physical artefact, each of the very limited editions coming with a printed booklet, a unique photograph and special trinket.

The DFA’s music has been described as how “Bob Dylan and the Band might have sounded if they’d been holed up in a cold drizzling English countryside with only bottles of cough syrup and Lou Reed’s Berlin LP on constant rotation”. They are songs with a hint of the countryside embodied by traditional folk music, but wrapped up in a series of mesmerising melancholic psychedelic soundscapes. Unlike anything else you will hear and filled with moments of intense beauty.

Although the new album is only available on vinyl, you can get a sense of the record from this live version of ‘A Raven’ which was released as part of DFA’s EP from April this year. Click the link below

April MMXV by The Diamond Family Archive

‘Would I Were A Swift (Or A Skylark Be)’ is available to order direct from the artist at Map Recordings here.