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It must be time to check in with Stornoway again. At the end of May they released their first full-length album, Beachcomber’s Windowsill on 4AD. Which is nice.

For those who already own Stornoway’s independently released EPs, many of the songs will already be familiar, but new standout tracks like Fuel Up and I Saw You Blink make this album well worth picking up. Alexis Petridis at The Grauniad liked it, in any case.

Here’s the band playing “unplugged” in the fernery in Oxford’s Botanic Gardens. They may not be the most innovative group out there, but they’re still probably my favourite British band right now. And I think I want one of those squeezy portable harmoniums…

I’ve only heard Stornoway play live once: it was midnight in a rain-soaked field last year just off the M40 near Aylesbury or Thame or somewhere. In any case, it was dark and wet. There were 15 people in the crowd and the band was almost drowned out by the rave tent next door. It was hardly an auspicious evening.

But something about their music must have stuck: possibly the strong melodies and their ability to look and sound like a folk-rock band without being a folk-rock band. I came home, bought all their mp3s (all eight of them), wrote a blog post, and now their song Here Comes the Blackout is one of my top-played tunes on last.fm.

So having followed the band for over a year now, it’s gratifying to see they’re building some solid buzz: they played Glastonbury this year, became the first rock band ever to play a concert in the Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre (oh to have seen that gig!), and most recently appeared on Later with Jools Holland:

Although they’re not signed and have no album out yet, their song Zorbing is already an anthem on the Oxford scene. It’s a piece of music which typifies Stornoway’s approach: apparently ramshackle, amiably round-vowelled, but cleverly structured and very catchy. It’ll be interesting to see what 2010 brings for these chaps.

Zorbing – Stornoway
From Letters From Lewis EP: Hatpop/Independent [iTunes]

Last weekend’s Arcane Festival at Tetsworth was a lucky opportunity to hear a live performance by Stornoway, surely one of the most interesting bands currently working in Oxford. Their deceptively simple, pentatonic-based melodies are filtered through folk-rock and various bits of electronics with trumpets, violins and banjos.

Smart lyrics hide a few coy winks to their home town – the title of the song posted above refers to “zorbing through the streets of Cowley” – and one suspects that the river that runs through the centre of their song On the Rocks might just be the Cherwell or Isis as they wend their slow way towards the English Channel.

You can hear a lot more on their myspace page, and see more photos in their Flickr group.

Photo by Platform3