Madmen Cross The Water is a new fictional podcast from the transatlantic folk duo Sons Of Town Hall telling the story of songs on their new album.
Launching today, each month the band will release a new podcast episode and a new piece of music, which will cumulate in the album, Of Ghosts and Gods due Summer 2025. The podcast episodes will continue until December 2025 to complete the story.
The comedy fiction podcast takes place in the early 1900s and features the folk duo telling their mythical origin story.
Hosted by a fictional modern-day super-fan and performed by the duo, the series charts the pair’s misadventures as they travel the world armed with relentless optimism and mesmerising harmonies.
Each episode enacts the outlandish adventures behind each song on their new album, as each of the Sons of Town Hall’s songs helping to construct their fantastical world.
Sons of Town Hall are played by British songwriter and producer Ben Parker and American songwriter and author David Berkeley. The pair craft their songs while crossing the seas on a raft they made themselves.
That raft is more than just a mythic touring vessel and a creative springboard, it also allows them to retain their infectious hope and humour while transcending time and space. Dressed in threadbare Victorian outfits, their show is part concert, part performance art, and unlike anything ever seen before.
This fictional world they create allows them a rare artistic freedom, both as writers and performers onstage and in the studio.
“It is a kind of performance art,” Berkeley explains. “We are, in a sense, characters in a fiction we have dreamed up and re-create with our audiences every night.”
Parker adds: “maybe the most surprising benefit of the ‘act,’ is that it allows us to be more honest and direct both in our songwriting and in what we say between our songs about human struggles. The costumes, in the end, somehow enable us to be more ourselves.”
The first episode of Madmen Cross The Water, released today, 15 October, features musical excerpts of songs Wild Wind and How To Build A Boat.
The podcast illustrates the full story behind both pieces of music, which have also been released as singles today. Find out more on the Sons Of Town Hall website.
