FIFTH DAUGHTER – Stellar Season (2025, LP Fruits de Mer Records) 

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Fruits de Mer Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl (including poster), 100 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Yellow Blue Vinyl (including poster), 300 copies

Release Date: 16 Feb 2025

Fifth Daughter is a progressive/psychedelic Rock duo hailing from the UK, consisting of 2 personas (musicians) quite well known to the British “underground” scene. Nicholas Whittaker is best known as a member of the highly-rated progressive rock band Diagonal, while James Howarth is a former member of Running Dogs, and has collaborated with the KLF and Martin “Youth” Glover; his last live performance was a headlining slot at Ronnie Scott’s, on bass… “Stellar Season” is their debut LP album, and here’s some useful info from Fruits de Mer’s press release:

“Fifth Daughter are new to Fruits de Mer, ‘Stellar Season’ is their first LP; they describe themselves as progressive/psychedelic rock and their music as an “eclectic mix of prog, psych and acid folk, very much inspired by the likes of Jade Warrior, Jimmie Spheeris, VdGG and Incredible String Band”…that got my immediate attention, hopefully it’s got yours too…

‘Stellar Season’ was conceived as a loose concept album during one of the COVID lockdowns, with Whittaker sketching out the basics of a story about a rural society far from Earth whose obsession with summer leads to an endless day that they soon regret, learning to appreciate the rhythm of the seasons in the process. Knowing the talent of his old friend as a songwriter and bassist, Whittaker brought Howarth in to collaborate on the songs.

The recordings were completed over several sessions from 2021 to 2023. The album features fellow Diagonal band members Luke Foster and Dave Wileman, as well as ambient guitarist Will Howes.

The album explores a range of emotions, from tender to euphoric; it’s instrumentally adventurous, featuring exotic percussion, sitar and synthesizers alongside acoustic guitars, woodwinds and vocals”… 

“Stellar Season” consists of 7 tracks, 4 of which are on the first side and 3 on the second side of the LP album. The opener “The Eternal Dance” starts under a relaxing and kind of peaceful neo-folkie-bucolic scenery, the duo slowly unfolds a gentle Psych-Prog mantle that covers this melodic Folkie tune. “Become Sun” has a let-loose, soft, acoustic soundscape, kind of bucolic (once more) with an intense Psych-Pastoral feel, dreamy and ambient-like flirting, a track that slowly transforms and becomes a Psych acidly-drenched Folkie adventurous tune. The next one is the instrumental “House Of Ra”, a track that uses the same acoustic bucolic intro of the 2 previous songs, a bit faster and more adventurous piece of pastoral acid-folk music with a Proggy edge and a strong Canterbury-Rock feel… “Forever Knowing” starts with a dreamy and almost ambient-like Sax sound. This is another magical neo-folkie tune, evoking a nostalgic feel, blending soft-prog with Light-Psych or something like that… Side “B” opens with “In Love With The Sun”, a fine blend of acoustic Proggy-like and Psych-drenched music, under a nice colorful neo-folkie cloak, slowly transformed into an ambient-proggy rather interesting track. “Season Of Fasting / Call For The Equinox” is a fantastic blend of Neo-Folk & Neo-Psych, with a pastoral Proggy mood, a slightly Canterbury feel, and towards the end with an interesting experimental edge. The last song, “Ever Winter”, is my highlight; the soundscape is acoustic, neo-folkie, with a psych-trippy touch. At the same time, the duo successfully tries to transport the listener into an imaginary world, place, and date unknown. Still, the soft-proggy mid-70s scenery is more than obvious and quite recognizable, I must say. In conclusion, if you are into some serious and full of quality blend of Psych and Folk, then “Stellar Season” by the Fifth Daughter will take you with them into their trippy imaginary journey, and you will ENJOY it! TimeLord Michalis 

Tracklist

Links

Listen / Buy through FIFTH DAUGHTER Bandcamp

Get it via FRUITS DE MER RECORDS Web