Andrew Rumsey

Andrew is a musician, writer and Anglican bishop, whose recent album Evensongs
has gained widespread praise as an unexpected gem of pastoral pysch-folk.

Recorded on a single summer’s day a day in a twelfth-century Wiltshire church, the
project has been championed by the BBC’s Mark Radcliffe, who featured Andrew as
a guest on his Radio Two Folk Show. ‘Evocative songs, aching vocals, and a heart-
melting sense of space at its core’ according to Clash magazine.

Accompanied by guitarist David Perry and RealWorld Studios’ Bob Mackenzie, armed with a collection of vintage microphones, Rumsey set out to capture something of the magic of a country church in August – complete with bees, birdsong, and a whisper of wheezy organ.

Andrew penned these songs to accompany his book English Grounds: a pastoral journal – described as “a total delight” by Simon Jenkins of The Guardian. This book and Evensongs are parts of a single creative project that former Times Literary Editor Erica Wagner commended as “gorgeous… a celebration of the landscape this writer so fully inhabits”.

Alongside musical life, Rumsey is also Bishop of Ramsbury: an ancient role in the mystical county of Stonehenge, Avebury, and Salisbury Cathedral. Evensongs is an imaginary congregation – singing of lost places, and their hope of return.