Kingfisher - The Brothers Gillespie's New Album

Aim

We're making a new album called Kingfisher this summer and are reaching out to our community to help us fund it and bring the dream to life

About US

We are the The Brothers Gillespie, a duo of folk troubadours from The North Tyne Valley in Northumberland, known for lyrical songwriting, fingerstyle guitar and soaring sibling harmony. Our music is inspired by the still wild soul of the land in which we live, a land alive with presences, not owned by anyone. It is about seeing with the eye of the heart and recovering our imaginations. It is about finding home, belonging and each other in a world which is singing to us as we sing to it. 

The Kingfisher Crowdfunder 

Over the next couple of months we are making a record called Kingfisher, which will be our fourth studio album. It is a collection of songs borne of deepening into the kingdom of life and its terrain of love, loss, grief and longing. These are songs dreamed into being on the banks of two northern rivers, the Tweed and the Tyne, and are suffused with riverine life, light and image. The album is a song to the old ways, to the quiet wisdoms of the wild, a rallying call to the praise makers.

We are recording Kingfisher with producer/ recording engineer Gus White and the album will feature some beautiful guest musicians including Jen Hill (double bass), Tim Lane (Percussion) and Nick Jenkins (fiddle). The album artwork is being created by our friend, the incredible Cathy Fisher. We are so thrilled to be making this record and working with these people and with the help of our community we will do all we can to give this project wings. 

The launch show for Kingfisher will be at the Queen's Hall Arts Centre in Hexham on Saturday 10th October 2026.

Our Funding Target

We are independent artists without loads of resources or a big label behind us and community support is vital in enabling us to fulfil our vision for projects like this. Our main initial target is £12000 which would pretty much cover the costs of:

• Recording the album (including paying our engineer/producer and dear guest musicians for studio time and a little rehearsal time)
• Mixing the album 
• Having it really well mastered so it's ready to be played out in the world. 

Stretch Goals

Our £12, 000 target feels pretty ambitious but if the community is so generous as to enable us reach it we will keep fundraising towards our stretch goals which will be revealed on the page in sequence. These are additional to the core costs of making the record but still really integral to the project as a whole and for enabling this release to fulfil its potential for raising our band's profile and making our work sustainable. Our stretch goals are: 

• £15,000 - Paying ourselves studio time - If we reach this target we'll be able to pay ourselves a bit for out time in the studio. Of course we do this for the love and our main priority here is to get the record made but music is also our livelihood and receiving some recompense is extremely helpful and deeply appreciated. 
• £16,500 - Press & Radio Campaign - This level of funding will enable us to work with some trusted partners on a press and radio campaign for the new album in the weeks and months leading up to the release and beyond. Securing press and radio coverage for new releases, ideally at the national as well as regional level, is hugely beneficial for for raising the profile of the project and creating new opportunities going forward. 
• £19,500 -  CD and Vinyl 
• £21,500 - Quality Live Videos - Great videos are likewise extremely helpful for doing an effective release and creating touring opportunities down the line. We'd love to film some songs featuring our amazing guest musicians as well as some with just us. 

Other Ways You Can help 

Sharing the page and spreading the word is incredibly helpful! Also we'd like to try and get the record into the official UK folk charts so keep an eye out for the Bandcamp pre-order campaign which will go live in mid July. We intend to email everyone who supports the crowdfunder with a Bandcamp discount code enabling you to redeem the digital album for £4, which will count towards the charts. 

We are deeply grateful for your precious support, thank you so much.

With love,

Sam and James  

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 2nd August 2026 at 2:32pm