Mumford & Sons Babel Vinyl LP
2013 Grammy Award Winner for Album of the Year!
When Mumford & Sons entered the studio to commence work on their second album, Babel, in August of 2011, they never envisaged it would be to follow-up a debut record that had connected with so many music lovers from all different corners of the globe, and all the roads in-between. Their success is even something the four members struggle to trace. "It sort of just happened," Marcus Mumford has often mused to journalists.
The earliest memories of the band performing together are within the close confines of a rehearsal room in Putney, and of last minute street-side jamming sessions on the pavement outside Bosun’s Locker (a now defunct basement venue on Kings Road in London) ahead of a show.
It was a scene already common to the band as musicians falling in and out of bands of each and every genre. Ben Lovett and Marcus were already working on songs together from their school days, but those songs didn’t realise their full potential until Winston Marshall (armed with a banjo and dobro), and Ted Dwane (double bass, but with a penchant for being a multi-instrumental marvel) had learnt and lived those songs, given them new arrangements, and injected them with a real ‘band’ dynamic.
Even then they were reticent to make it ‘official’. The name Mumford & Sons was eventually chosen as it suggested a wholesome, family business. It suited the relationships that had grown within the band. They were brothers in all but blood relation, and they very quickly became inseparable. As is typical in London, if a good band forms, word tends to travel quickly.
Within a few months, Mumford & Sons were releasing their eponymously named debut EP, through the fledgling independent Chess Club Records label. It featured the first, self-produced recordings of "Roll Away Your Stone," "Awake My Soul" and "White Blank Page" and sold-out instantly.The live shows were rammed to the rafters in London, which was soon replicated across the whole of the UK.
Off the road, Sigh No More is a record that has garnered much acclaim. It’s an album that won the band a UK Brit Award in 2010 (Best Album), and was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize Award in the same year. Outside of Britain, Mumford & Sons picked up two Grammy nominations (Best New Artist, Best Rock Song), and put in a typically assured live performance alongside Bob Dylan covering "Maggie’s Farm" at the awards themselves. Sigh No More has incredibly sold in excess of 4 million copies globally.
Mumford & Sons Babel Track Listing:
1. Babel
2. Whispers In The Dark
3. I Will Wait
4. Holland Road
5. Ghosts That We Knew
6. Lover Of The Light
7. Lovers’ Eyes
8. Reminder
9. Hopeless Wanderer
10. Broken Crown
11. Below My Feet
12. Not With Haste
