The InCider Sessions is the second album from folk improv duo The Ciderhouse Rebellion. A limited edition of 100, signed and numbered CDs; a compilation of an extraordinary new body of music: 12 traditional and original tunes born of social distancing, forged in lockdown and created despite isolation. The album represents a refusal by master accordionist
Murray Grainger and Xiddle player Adam Summerhayes to let the potential to connect musically with each other, and with the world, be wiped out. 



We all watched as live music moved from the world’s live stages onto our computer screens and phones in the form of online gigs and festivals. This is different. The particular problem for this duo was - how can two musicians, separated by 50 miles (Adam in Derbyshire and Murray in Lincolnshire) and in a time of social distancing, enforced isolation and reduced travel, collaborate in real time when they can’t sit in the same room, react to each other in real time, and engage in a true musical conversation? One of them cannot send a track to the other for them to lay down their part on top. These two need to be able
to hear each other in real time, with no lag, in order to be able spark off each other and Xlow together as they create music spontaneously on the spot. 



In this high-tech age of Xibre broadband and multiple Gs, you’d have thought it would be as simple as starting a video call and hitting record. But no, the issue of latency - the time lag between creating the sound and the other person hearing it, both ways round - raised its head, and so for both to hear each other in the same time as they are creating the music seemed impossible. 



"There is no internet technology by which The Ciderhouse Rebellion
could interact to make their music in real time: no apps function without appreciable time delay except with the very highest existing internet speeds and bandwidths - not available to most of us. So we had to create our own way”, says Murray.


Without real time interaction the duo’s trademark style of reactive, communicative music making was impossible. The solution? Two landline telephones, a complex sequence of microphones, wires, mic’d up earpieces and headphones wrapped in blankets, creating a real-time
musical connection - appalling sound quality, sometimes impossibly so, but just enough to connect and intuit what the other was playing - and, magically, what they were about to play....
"Neither of us really understands how we managed this - it feels
almost miraculous to listen back and hear that we have created real music. It was always a struggle against technology and reality and
sometimes impossible - and sometimes we achieved it even though it was impossible. And that is what seems like a kind of magic.” says Adam.
So was born a series of 9 x 30 minute video broadcasts, The InCider Sessions, on FB and YouTube, released to the world every Tuesday evening from March 23rd to May 13th 2020. Each broadcast was a varying mix of the duo’s take on trad tunes, some of their pure improvisations starting from
a single note, contributions from a chicken called Jeremy Bird and some original poetry from Adam’s daughter Jessie (Words From A Fiddler’s Daughter) as well as plenty of banter in between from Adam and Murray. 



And that's how the 12 tracks on this CD were recorded - Xifty miles apart and connected only by a cracking landline, each instrument recorded where
it was played; the audio and video Xiles combined later to be broadcast on the popular InCider Sessions on Facebook and YouTube. The duo is now broadcasting their next series, The OutCider Sessions, every Tuesday 8.30pm on their FB and YT Channels.