Some of you may remember that for a while we had a performance wing of the project called The Ominous Folk of Hopeless Maine. Ominous Folk gigged for the last time about two and a half years ago.

Some of us went on to start a new project called Carnival of Cryptids. Nimue and James are the core of this project. Other regulars have sung with Ominous Folk and can be found in YouTube videos. Robin Burton, Jessica Law and Keith Errington are core Cryptids, and we did get Susie out with us for one event.

Carnival of Cryptids sings some of the same material as Ominous Folk, but has a bigger seasonal repertoire and more content we’ve picked up for local events. We mostly stay in Gloucestershire and sing at community events.

Carnival of Cryptids has just released an album Feral Folk which you can find on Bandcamp. It includes the Hopeless versions of Haul Away Joe and Prickle Eye Bush, which are Nimue’s reworkings, plus her original song Three Drops. There is also a Jessica Law song about eels, a traditional song full of ravens, a May song and an ominous thing about fairies.

It’s available to pre-order now, and will be launched at the Stroud Wassail on the 21st February.