'Nobody out there sounds quite like Russ Jeanes, the taste of honey is almost tangible on Trees Hug Bees. Pure pastoral nectar from the heart of Northern England. Accept no substitute'. Tom Robinson, BBC 6 Music.

No stranger to the airwaves, Jeanes ‘perfectly crafted’ musical creations have caught the ear and support of not only a few thousand soundcloud listeners, but also respected purveyor of new music, Tom Robinson, who has played a number of the tracks, with a total of six plays so far on his BBC 6 Music shows.

Russell Jeanes’ native Yorkshire BBC Introducing stations have also followed suit.
However, these songs have never been released for purchase and Folkstock Records have the unique pleasure of sharing these works of art and helping them attract the recognition they deserve. The EP Sleeping Leaves is being released on 16th June 2017 and these two beautiful songs from the EP are being released as an AA single on 2nd June.

‘Sleeping Leaves’ tells stories of breathing trees, sleeping fields and drunken bees. The songs have been brought to life in homes, gardens & summer fields across Europe & America by an enchanting collective of female DIY artists, each lovingly chosen by Russell Jeanes for their beautifully unique voices.

They say that everyone has a book in them. Perhaps that also applies to music? Russell Jeanes is about to release an EP of songs which have been a life time in the making. Starting off as sensitive poems written in his adolescence which reveal his love of the natural world, thirty years later the father and husband embarked on a project which would take him and his collaborators seven years of blood, sweat and tears to bring to fruition.

Spurred into action following the discovery of the long lost snippets of recording and poems unearthed when he moved to a cottage nestling in the beautiful woodlands of West Yorkshire, Russell set about converting one of his poems he found sleeping in the leaves of an old book, fittingly The Secret Life of Plants, into a song.
Feeling that his own voice was not the right vehicle for the song, Russell engaged the talents of a singer he found almost by chance on soundcloud.

Russ found a song called ('warm august wind') he liked the title of and clicked on the link to the artist and found himself captivated by the multi-talented Catherine Hershey, and was struck by a voice he realised he had envisioned singing his song, Simple Jayne. Having painstakingly created a backing track and guide vocals. Russ approached the singer. Thankfully Catherine agreed to take a listen and the next thing Russ knew, Catherine had sent a DIY recording and immediately Russ knew magic had been created. When other commitments permitted, Catherine turned her attention to the second track on the EP, Barley, Hops & Yeast, adding harmonising vocals to her interpretation which created a poignant sense of yearning within the track, while Russ worked on Simple Jayne.

Catherine’s vocal recording inadvertently captured the sound of a Parisian birdsong through her apartment window. Russ was so captivated by the blackbird immortalised on Catherine’s recording that he added more morning birdsong.
This heady dose of nature remains to this day and can be enjoyed on the finished recording! The first track was born.

Russ posted the track on soundcloud and in a fit of uncharacteristic self promotion, he also submitted the track to Tom Robinson’s Fresh on the Net uploader, which is the respected portal for new music which involves music lovers and critics picking their ‘fresh Faves’ each week. When Tom heard Simple Jayne, it not only got selected into that week’s Fresh Faves (which routinely whittles 200 acts down to a lucky handful), but he played it on his BBC 6 Music Show on both Mixtape and Sunday evening show.