The Owl Service is an English alternative folk music collective that formed in 2006, by multi-instrumentalist Steven Paul Collins (who has led the band for its entire duration), named after the 1967 novel by Alan Garner.
[1] While working on the first Owl Service release (the Wake the Vaulted Echo EP from 2006), he met Dom Cooper, of The Straw Bear Band, who was drafted in to provide lead vocals on the song The Two Magicians.
The Wake the Vaulted Echo EP was warmly received in psych-folk circles and this led to Collins being asked to record a track for the 2007 compilation album John Barleycorn Reborn on the Cold Spring label (for which he also contributed sleeve notes).
Southern reissued A Garland of Song in June 2008 on CD and LP and this was followed a month later by an EP on the Static Caravan label recorded with ex-Mellow Candle singer Alison O'Donnell entitled The Fabric of Folk.
[3] By this time the band had a core line-up of 7 with the addition of Jason Steel (guitar, banjo, vocals), and experimental musician Katie English (aka Isnaj Dui) providing flute and melodica.
Keen to return to his DIY roots Collins parted company with Southern Records at the end of 2009 and immediately began a series of new Owl Service releases collectively titled The Pattern Beneath the Plough.
The band regrouped again 6 months later for 2 more shows; the first was again in Leigh-on-sea where they were joined by frequent collaborator Alison O'Donnell, and the second was in London at a fund-raising event for the feature-length Shirley Collins documentary film.
October 2014 brought forth the first new Owl Service record since the Garland Sessions album in 2012; a low-key EP to mark Halloween entitled Three Inverted Nines which featured cover versions of 4 songs written by legendary musician Glenn Danzig.
Ultimately, Collins' fierce anti-industry/pro-DIY stance would prove to be his downfall as the band flew below the radar of most people and the album was both a critical and commercial failure, being met either with total indifference or worse; completely ignored.
To see the album fail proved to be the final straw and soon after its release Steven Collins announced that The Owl Service would cease to exist on the band's 10th anniversary on 6 June 2016.