Have been listening to this on repeat every since I got it -- it's wonderful!! A great mix of songs, some funny, some beautiful, and some personally touching ("Turning Year"). I'm so glad I 'discovered' you guys. Thank you, and happy holidays!
Hello. I received an empty envelope mailed from Will Rowan in Williamsburg, MA. It is blue and was sent media mail. Again, it was completely empty. Was this supposed to contain my two books and CDs? As it wasn’t insured, usps won’t help. I don’t know of anything else similar that I’d be expecting, but do let me know if this isn’t the address you would have sent it from. Thanks.
Cordelia Strandskov, Minneapolis, MN
We spent all this week signing and packing and shipping out 11,000 preorder albums, and we can’t wait to hear what you think! Some of you have already received your copies and sent us photos or messages, and we love seeing them in your hands and homes! A Reminder: some of you opted not to receive a CD in your survey, just to get downloads. If you didn’t get a cd this is probably why, though feel feee to double check with us!
A huge thank you is due to our intrepid crew of volunteers who put in countless hours helping us stick labels and stuff envelopes. This was a project that truly took a village, and we are so grateful to our community for showing up and helping out!
🇨🇦A note to our Canadian backers:🇨🇦 We had been really hoping that Canada Post would have come to a contract agreement with the union by the time we were shipping things out week, but the strike continues so seems that we and our Canadian customers will need to wait a little longer. Shipping with another carrier is prohibitively expensive, but more importantly we stand in solidarity with fellow union workers and do not want to cross the picket line by using another service. Some orders have been shipped out as a bulk export and will ship within Canada once the strike resolves. Some are already in the mail as individual orders, and we’re holding the last batch until the strike resolves. If you feel called you can support CUPW with an automatic email!
Thank you for your patience and understanding! We know you are eagerly awaiting your albums, and we are hoping for a speedy resolution of this labor dispute.
Finally, our deep gratitude goes out to everyone who backed this project! We are so excited to share our love of unusual winter folklore and traditions, and to discover that there is such an appetite for this delightful music. Thank you for supporting independent music and art! ❄️🎶🎄❤️
PS we now have the album on our pre-order store for friends who want to get a copy (or extra gifts!
-MOST IMPORTANT: Please fill out your survey so we can send you your albums! This is the way for us to get your current shipping info! Survey deadline: November 17
-Shipping is still on track to begin Nov 30
-Come to a show! Our Music of Midwinter tour (northeast US) begins next weekend, and we have a livestream available WORLDWIDE on Dec 8!
-Join our Patreon for year-round access to new music and supporting our mission
-We got the test pressing of our vinyl album! You can add it to your order when you fill out your survey
Surveys: Thank you to the 5500 of you who have already filled out your surveys and given us your addresses for shipping! As you may or may not know, Windborne is entirely run by the four of us (we jokingly refer to Lynn and Will's basement as "Windborne's Shipping and Receiving Department") and since we are also preparing to go on tour right now, it is super helpful to have your info as soon as possible so we can get organized and ready to ship the album the minute we receive it! Your BackerKit survey is the way we can collect and process all that info, so please fill it out soon--the final deadline for surveys is Nov 17. Find your survey here: https://windborne.backerkit.com/ by entering the email address you used to make your pledge.
Downloads: Once you finish your survey, you get the downloads! If you are having trouble just let us (or Backerkit support) know! You can choose between wav and mp3 files for the music.
Shipping: As we said in our main campaign, we will begin shipping at the end of November and everything looks on track for that timeline! We know many of you are eagerly awaiting the album to give as gifts for the holidays, and rest assured that we are doing everything we can to get it to you on time.
Music of Midwinter tour: Starting next weekend, we will be touring our Music of Midwinter show, which includes many of the songs on this album! If you are in the northeast of the US (Maine to Maryland!) we hope you will join us in person at a show this year! We will also do a livestream concert on Sunday, Dec 8, bringing these songs straight to you at home. You can add a livestream ticket to your order in your survey, which will also get you a pass to our post-concert Zoom hangout as a thank you for backing this album! Livestream tickets are also available here if you want to share the link with friends: https://tix.windbornesingers.com/events/windborne/1424440
Patreon: If you want to stay in touch with Windborne year round, see a peek behind the scenes, support our mission, and get exclusive tracks and videos that aren't released anywhere else, we would love to welcome you to our Patreon community! We just celebrated our five year Patreon anniversary, and we are excited to continue growing this vibrant community from all over the world!
Vinyl: We just got the test pressing of our vinyl, and it sounds great! You can add a copy of To Warm the Winter Hearth on vinyl to your order via your survey, but please note that it will NOT ship in time for the holidays. It wasn't originally part of this project, but due to popular demand we ended up adding it! We are so glad you all asked for it, but given its late addition, the production timeline is way further behind the book and CD.
We hope you are enjoying the digital downloads, and thank you so much for your support! If you do make it to a show in person, please do come say hello! We love making the face to face connection after all these months of digital communication. :)
Hi I purchased the CD and book as a gift for a loved one. I can put their address in for shipping of physical things, but how can I make sure they can download the music files?
Just dropping in with a few quick updates about surveys, book printing, shipping, and more music.
-The survey collecting your address and other important info will go out soon! The Backerkit platform is currently reviewing the backend of the survey and as soon as they approve it we will send it out. With the amazing 8000 backers we have for this project, that process is just taking a little longer than expected.
-The books are in progress and the CDs are being pressed! We got an update from the printer this week showing us some sample copies of the book, and it looks amazing! We added gold foil to the back cover as well, and can’t wait to show you.
-US backers have free shipping, and folks outside the US who selected international shipping will also not be charged. If you forgot to select that option, we have decided to extend our subsidized shipping to everyone at that same rate, so you will see that added to your cart.
When you complete your survey you will be directed to download To Warm the Winter Hearth. You can also order the To Warm the Winter HearthVinyl Edition You will also have the option of adding Windborne’s older albums to your order if you’d like more vocal harmony in your life, so we wanted to give you a quick overview of the options since they all have a distinct character!
Of Hard Times & Harmony (2022) and Song on the Times (2017): these two albums are songs of social struggle from movements of the past, sung for the struggles of today’s times. Like To Warm the Winter Hearth, they are also books as well as CDs! The books have lyrics, art, and essays about the songs giving historical and cultural context for the music.
Song on the Timesalso has the melodies of each song notated and features some of our favorite union labor anthems, the Pete Seeger classic Where Have All The Flowers Gone?, and protest songs as old as the 1640s like The Diggers Song.
Of Hard Times & Harmonyis a mini hardcover book and features audience favorites like When I’m Gone by Phil Ochs and our song about streaming music called .4 Cents a Play, as well as a modern protest song in the Occitan language called Nou Carbons.
Lay Around That Shack (2015) reflects Windborne’s roots in American and English folk traditions. The powerful four-part harmony is amplified by rollicking banjo, washboard, and jaw harp, and includes the much-requested song Grey Funnel Line by Cyril Tawney.
Midwinter Meeting (2013) is a piece of Windborne history! This album captures live recordings of our first tour as a quartet and includes the most diverse range of songs from different polyphonic traditions, like Corsica, Georgia, Bulgaria, and more.
We also have T-shirts in a beautiful maroon color that feature artwork from Song on the Times! These shirts are union made and union printed in our home state of Massachusetts, and come in unisex sizes Small - XXL
Thanks for your support for our work, and it seems our timeline is still on track to have digital go out this week, and physical ~November 30!
