The Fisherman's Friends

Last Friday (11/12/09) saw the Wild Swans stage another triumphant performance at Static Gallery in Liverpool. This time the event had a nautical theme, with nets, lifebelts (including one reading "Revolutionary Spirit - Liverpool") and other maritime paraphernalia strewn around the venue. Capt. Simpson, P. issued rum rations and led his crew (First Mate Maymi, R, Able Seamen Mooney, M and Turvey, R with Pattinson, L. and Beswick, S in the engine room) through a set of classics old, older and new. At the end the stage was boarded by Mr Midshipman Sergeant, W. for the encores. The Wild Swans are currently in the studio completing work on their new album which we at Occultation look forward to releasing in 2010. There are a number of other projects in the pipeline but that one is going to be our number one priority for the next couple of months or so.

Liquid Mercury update

Afternoon all. We have now shipped all advance orders for the Wild Swans latest opus, Liquid Mercury - thanks to every who pre-ordered for their patience; we really did get everything out as quickly as humanly possible but we had a huge number of orders to make up and then take to be posted. If you've not yet received yours then it is in the post and any orders placed from now on should ship more or less immediately, within 24 hours in most cases.

Above is a photo of the limited complete set for the new Wild Swans single, Liquid Mercury, showing the 7" single, the limited (pretty much all gone now, I'm afraid...) signed photo insert and the also limited promo CD, these are still available to buy with the 7" only for us, while stocks last. We're currently making up orders and, although we managed to get a very small number in the post yesterday, we'll begin posting in earnest tomorrow. If you've ordered from us you'll get an e-mail once your order has been despatched but please be patient as we have a huge number of orders to process, we are doing them chronologically, as far as possible.

Wild Swans merchandise available

We realise this has been an expensive month for Wild Swans fans what with the release of the new single and the gig in Liverpool but surely you've been saving up over the last twenty years? If so then there is now a small but highly select range of WS merchandise available over in the Wild Swans Shop on the band's own website. This includes t-shirts, autographed posters from the July gigs and badges.

Everything is of the highest quality and very reasonably-priced. Boarding passes for the deck concert marking the launching of the good ship Liquid Mercury (may God bless her and all who sail her dead cat-bestrewn waters) are still available at the same place, although they are selling quickly, so we're reliably informed by WS HQ.

Liquid Mercury now shipping

We've just received the last bits of the Liquid Mercury jigsaw puzzle so we've started making up advance orders. We're hoping to post a few today (Saturday) and then more on Monday and on through the week until they've all gone. As far as possible the first orders placed will be the first to be posted. Please be patient though, as we've had huge demand for this one and we've also got a whole host of combinations (7"s with promo CDs, with 10"s, etc.) so it might take us a few days to get all of the orders out. Still, the good news is that the threatened UK postal strike has been put on hold and so, once the initial backlog caused by the one-off industrial action over the last fortnight has been cleared postal services ought to be back to what passes for normal.

If you've ordered already you will receive an e-mail from us to let you know that your order has been posted.

Can I also offer one final reminder that PayPal, in particular, usually only give us the address to which the card used to pay for the transaction is registered. So if you want your order posting anywhere else you must send us an e-mail with the delivery address, otherwise chances are we won't know and will post it to the address we receive with your order. If you've already ordered I'd suggest you do this quickly...

OK then... We're very pleased with the way Liquid Mercury has come out, the singles look, feel and sound fabulous - we do hope you'll agree.

Liquid Mercury - made for you

Just a reminder that orders are being taken for the new Wild Swans single here in the Occultation Shop and they're going very quickly indeed. We do still have copies of the promo CD - although these are limited as we'll need most of them to... well, promote the record. However as a number of people had expressed an interest in these artefacts we decided to get a few extra made to give people the chance to grab something special. We expect to have both the 7"s and the promo CDs next week, as long as there are no last-minute hitches and then we'll start posting out records.

Do remember that we're also doing special prices on our previous two singles so if you missed them or if you only got one of them now's a good time to complete your Occultation collection. Do e-mail us if there's a combination you're interested in that's not shown on the Vinyl Shop page - we couldn't fit everything in without making the page ridiculously long.

Finally we'd really like to thank all the people who've supported us by taking yet another leap of faith and buying this new WS single without hearing it. We really don't think anyone's going to be at all disappointed.

The Wild Swans – Live In Liverpool December 2009

To mark the release of their new single, Liquid Mercury b/w The Wickedest Man In The World (Occultation DIONE7D9003), The Wild Swans have announced that they will be returning to Liverpool's Static Gallery on 11th December 2009. Given that they sold out two nights back in July and that everyone who was privileged to witness those performances agreed that they were an utter triumph, we expect tickets to sell out very quickly indeed.

Tickets are on sale now on the Wild Swans own website here. Seriously, if you saw the shows in July you'll know what kind of a treat you're in for. If you didn't then you really will not want to miss out. Static is a wonderful venue and allows the Swans to create an atmosphere all of their own. Last time this was a village fête kind of ambience although no doubt it'll be something different in December.