(click for larger version) The Housekeeping Society is the latest project from West Yorkshire-based musicians Ric Neale, Spencer Bayles and Ivan Mack. Their upcoming debut is a concept album that concerns itself with the lives and times of a community in a North of England mill town in the 1880s. The trio have worked together musically for a number of years, mostly playing Ric's songs as the Ric Neale Band, with a recent brief detour to record Spence's March Greens EP. Following the 2009 release of acclaimed CDs by both those acts - Ric's 'Someone Else's Home' and The March Greens' 'You Shall Go To The Ball' - a new project was discussed, one where all three would bring songs and ideas to the table. So what inspired the concept? 19th Century mill owners tended to surround their newly-built workplaces with affordable housing and schools to attract workers: as a result, many generations would naturally carry on living and working in the same place as their parents and grandparents, never venturing outside of their own communities. In contrast, Ric, Spence and Ivan all moved away from their home towns to go to University, ending up staying where they studied. This was a position those previous generations mostly wouldn't have had the option of taking, and as such this seemed to be an interesting idea to write some songs about. These, then, are songs about longing, feeling trapped, and realising that there might be other ways of life just out of reach. At the same time, these are also songs about a time of huge change in society, and how different people and institutions chose to embrace it. The late 1880s seemed like as good a time as any to place the characters whose lives and experiences make up the album. Innovations such as the first record players and cars were starting to appear, and notably, this period was the time when ideas started to spread more freely via the development of cheaper printing presses, bringing newspapers and magazines to wider attention; in fact, the first edition of "Good Housekeeping" - from which the band name originated - came out in 1885. - (February 2011)