I really like the Dolly and Shirley combination because of Dolly’s organ. It’s a specific type of organ, a flute organ. I had one built for me, it sits in my studio and takes about four days to tune because the pipes are made out of lead that you have to warm up and twist slightly to the left or to the right. I decided to take that on tour with me once, can you imagine? It’s a really beautiful sound. Very innocent, there’s no vibrato to it, no pomp and circumstance of the church organ and no fartiness of a harmonium. It’s a very pure English sound and I’ve only heard it on record on Dolly’s work. Love, Death And The Lady was probably the reason I made Sundark And Riverlight but if something has been heavily referenced on an album I have to put it away. I can’t go back to it and it just needs to disappear out of my life… but I still needed some Shirley and Dolly Collins.

It’s a medieval English folk concept album – not done in a 70s prog way, but innocent and humble and beautiful. It probably has every element of English folk music in one album; a medieval folk band playing in one ear, and then suddenly it transitions to the flute organ, and then a little folk string section and then back to just Shirley’s guitar and vocals.

It’s a beginning, a meeting, a courtship, a denying, like a dream, a traditional folk song, a theatre piece on a record. It’s incredibly extravagant, but also incredibly folk and humble at the same time. I also love how dry it is, no reverb, there’s no compression or anything like that. It’s recorded in a really traditional way and I’ve tried to do that on some of my work – people have complained.