Birds of Play have come together bit by bit to become their current quartet selves – Alex Paul and Jack Tolan (guitar, mandolin, vocals) have been playing music together for years. Jack Tolan had the privilege of playing with Eric Shedd (bass, mandolin, guitar, vocals, musical director) around a campfire at Paul’s 35th birthday soiree, and it was around that fire, somewhere deep in a canyon on the Colorado Plateau, the Birds of Play were born. Their debut album, ‘Anthrophony’, was released mid-summer 2019. Anneke Dean (violin, vocals) started exploring other genres of music whilst studying a degree at Chicago College of Performing Arts. She joined Birds of Prey for their tour in Autumn 2020, officially becoming the fourth member.
Birds of Play have a new album out called ‘Murmurations Volume 1‘, and today’s new song comes from it. Alex Paul told us a little about it: “This tune is the first in a suite of three songs. They tell a tale of Saint Michael’s (the San Miguel River) journey through the land and to his inevitable reunion with Dolores. The Dolores River Basin and the San Miguel River Basin both start, in part, at Lizard head pass, just South of where we live outside of Telluride. Through many miles of convoluted twists and turns and journeys through vastly different landscapes, they meet back up about 70 miles Northwest of where they began. These songs imagine the two rivers as long-lost lovers finding their way back to one another and the friendships that Michael makes along the way.”
