Hi Rachel, thank you for taking the time to chat. Let’s start by finding out who is involved with ‘Around About Dusk’ and what they bring to the sound?
Around About Dusk is a five-piece band featuring, myself on accordion and vocals, Gus Dolding on clarinet and guitar, Bill Frampton on double bass, Damian Keane on drums, and James Guilford on trumpet. I write the music for the project, but the songs are vastly improved by every musician in the band. At its core are the trio of comprised of, Gus, Bill, and I who have been playing together in various projects for around 10 years.

 

The band name came after a lot of discussion! To be honest, I think the worst part of being in a band is naming it. Bill was looking at jazz titles for inspiration and came across Round Midnight. I often get very excited about dusk — especially when we’re travelling to gigs. It feels like such a beautiful, liminal space where anything could happen. I’m always saying in the car, “Imagine if we had our passports and just kept driving!” It’s become a bit of a running joke in the band, and that sense of possibility really influenced the name.

What can you tell us about the band’s formation?
The band really formed when Gus, Bill and I took a trip to New Orleans in 2018. We spent three months there busking, learning songs and writing, and it gave us the chance to work on music in a much more focused way. We’d already been playing together in a lot of traditional jazz projects (which we still do), but this project gave us space to explore original music and my compositions. It’s been such a joy to develop that together. We’ve now been playing together for 10 years, and I genuinely hope we’ll be doing it for another 10 — we just love making music together.

‘Performing is all about creating connection, and a bit of magic, whatever the setting.’

Turning to ‘Sweet Old Fables’, given some tracks were released in 2023, what made now the right time to deliver a full album?
‘Sweet Old Fables’ has been a long time coming. We released an EP previously, which was a lovely project and got some attention, but I’ve wanted to make a full album for a long time. With funding from Help Musicians, we were able to create a large-scale collaboration involving eleven musicians. As well as Gus’s arrangement of one track, the wonderful arranger Henry Davies worked on another track called ‘Falling’. We absolutely couldn’t have made this project happen without that support, alongside a successful crowdfunding campaign. The songs were ready, and we wanted to create something ambitious that we were truly proud of. I’m so overjoyed that this album is the result and we can’t wait for people to hear it.

 

Some of your music – such as ‘The Swarm’ and ‘Orchard Fruits’ appears to be centred in contrasting folk cultures. What led to you including such a range of influences on the album?
The album is definitely a melting pot of influences and doesn’t sit neatly within one genre. You can hear elements of klezmer, manouche jazz, 1930s swing, European folk, old-time and American folk traditions, blues, and various world rhythms. On one hand, it reflects all the music I love. On the other, it does make our sound quite hard to categorise, as we move dynamically through different styles, genres and moods. That said, it means we attract a really diverse audience. Although if someone discovers us through just one track, they might be surprised by how varied the full live experience is!

 

And linked with this, which track on the album most accurately reflects where your overall sound is right now?
That’s a great question. Broadly, we’re hoping to connect with people who enjoy acoustic instruments, vocal harmonies and storytelling in songwriting. With a quite diverse sound, there are pros and cons, but it sits firmly at the intersection of acoustic instrumentation, jazz improvisation and folk storytelling — that’s really the core of what we do.

 

Music has the constant ability to bring people together. What moment like this has stuck in your mind to this day?
I wrote a song for my parents when my dad was ill last year – it’s about grief and recognising that our parents grow older. Every time we play it live, someone comes up to me afterwards to say how much it moved them and how important it was to hear that experience named. It really showed me how important vulnerability is in songwriting. Another moment was a gig last year where people stood in torrential rain to keep watching us perform outdoors. That level of commitment – and the very Britishness of it – was such a powerful reminder of how much music can mean to people. 

 

Given the aforementioned range of influences, to what extent does the compositional process of your music come from written ideas vs. improvisation?
I’d say about 80% of the music is written, but we often leave space for improvisation. That really reflects our love of jazz and its spirit of spontaneity. It keeps things exciting for us and for audiences, and it plays a big role in our on-stage communication. We also include some jazz standards in our live shows, which naturally involve a lot of improvisation.

 

Which track from the album was the most rewarding to record?
We recorded the entire album live, which is quite unusual. It’s riskier because if someone makes a mistake, you can’t just redo one part — you have to redo the whole take. But especially with folk and jazz, you lose a lot of the magic when you multitrack. Some tracks involved up to eleven musicians, all recording together, with me singing live as well. It was intense but incredibly special. ‘Falling’ and ‘Without You’ really capture that sense of everyone being in the room together.

 

And on this topic, if someone was watching an Around About Dusk recording session, what would they be most surprised by?
I think it would be the lack of multitracking. Also, how much risk the musicians took — especially in the solos. Nobody played it safe; everyone was really expressive and adventurous. It would have been easy to be cautious, but that would have made the music far less interesting. I’m so proud of what everyone created.

 

Turning to performing, what are your pre-performance rituals?
We don’t have many strict rituals, but on long journeys we’ve taken to doing quizzes almost the entire way — which can be as exhausting as it sounds! Gus always needs to eat before a gig and gets very stressed if he thinks he won’t manage it. We also love checking out charity shops whenever we arrive somewhere new. Before playing, we usually warm up together, but that’s about it. In the studio, though, I did try to create a sense of ritual — we started each session with a cup of cacao (for “heart-opening” communication!), and I spent a lot of time writing and doing vocal warm-ups.

With your performances having taken place in contrasting settings, is there a type of venue that you feel most at home in?
Honestly, we love the variety. We might play an intimate house concert as a trio one night, which feels like a conversation with the audience, and then a large festival stage the next, with people dancing and singing along. For me, it’s all about creating connection and a bit of magic, whatever the setting. Our current spring tour spans 21 days and includes everything from house shows to large arts centres. We’ve been loving every moment of it.

 

And finally, what has been the biggest learning curve for ‘Around About Dusk’ to date?
The biggest learning curve has been adaptability. We’ve had to adjust to lineup changes and evolving roles within the band. As a fully independent group, we’ve also had to develop a wide range of skills — video editing, running ad campaigns, making merch, and managing social media — things that don’t always come naturally to us. It’s been challenging at times, but it’s also helped us grow a lot, so I’m really grateful for that.

Photography Credit: Hannah Lisa Photography