York's prog rockers are mostly free again, reports CHARLES HUTCHINSON.

MOSTLY Autumn are independent once more, cut free from the umbilical cord of their £500,000 deal with Classic Rock Productions after four years.

The York prog rockers are releasing their fifth studio album - or sixth if The Unexpected Album, Music Inspired by The Lord Of The Rings is included - and this time the recording is on their own label, Autumn Records Ltd.

Storms Over Still Water has been launched already, at the London Astoria no less on June 4, and will be on shop shelves from August 8 to complement mail-order sales that have already reached the 2,000 mark.

Singer Heather Findlay says Mostly Autumn made the decision to cut loose once more after a conversation between Classic Rock producer Bob Carruthers and band leader Bryan Josh. "Bob said 'We can keep it ticking over or you can take it to where you want to be; you can take it to a new level yourselves, or you can stay the same level with us'," she recalls.

Mostly Autumn, with their Celtic take on the grandiose Seventies rock of Genesis, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull, had conquered Europe and could call the tune for their next step. "We turned down two big labels, which was a pretty big decision to make, but this is our chance to have a bite of the cherry ourselves and bring money into Autumn Records," Heather says. "Fortunately the two companies have said that if it doesn't work out we can get back in touch next year."

Yet you sense no such step will be necessary. Mostly Autumn launched their new label and website for their latest album and back catalogue on April 20 (with a big party in the Lake District), and now comes the promotional push in Europe.

After their invitation to play a headline show at Vizela in Portugal last weekend, the seven-piece band are on a "very hippie-fied" festival bill tonight in Burg Herzberg, Germany, and hold the Dutch launch of the album tomorrow in Zoetermeer, not far from Amsterdam.

Bryan will be swishing from gig to gig on his new, British-made Rocket 3 motorbike - "I had a little ride on it in Portugal; it's a bit of a beast," Heather says - while she will fly in today. All the band, however, are travelling in the same direction on Storms Over Still Water.

"Spookily the title ended up being concurrent with events that have been happening," says Heather. "Bryan wrote the title track in January and I'd written Carpe Diem at the end of December in response to the Tsunami, and so the record is quite eco-themed without preaching.

"There's far less folk music than on previous Mostly Autumn albums; it's far more mainstream and a lot heavier, but it's certainly no departure; we've always been diverse and eclectic and we could easily go back to full-on folk for the next album."

Heather considers Storms Over Still Water to be a turn for the darker. "It wasn't intentionally that way, but with the songs we were each writing, it ended up like that, with a kind of running theme of ghosts past, although there are positive feelings there too. Tomorrow, the closing track, reminds me of an uplifting title sequence when a film ends."

Darker maybe, but there is a contentment about Heather after breaking away from the flow of DVDs, anthologies, bootleg-quashing live albums and side projects of their Classic Rock Legends days. "It was mainly a back catalogue label and wasn't really geared up to signing up new acts but Bob Carruthers was passionate about us and invested money in us and got us to the point where we are now playing big venues.

"But there were side projects that we had to do, like being our own support act as Mostly Floyd, doing a Pink Floyd set. To a lot of people that gave the wrong message of not getting on with our own album, though the record sold really well. I said I wouldn't do those shows, so I'd stay in the dressing room waiting to do Mostly Autumn's set or I'd watch them doing the Floyd songs with real passion - but I just didn't want to do them!

"By the time we got to do the new record, there were creative frustrations to come out, and maybe that's led to the heavier sound - we've just been called melodic hard rockers for the first time by Classic Rock magazine."

Mostly Autumn play the Blakey Ridge Music Festival, The Lion Inn, Blakey Ridge, North York Moors, July 28.

Updated: 09:26 Friday, July 15, 2005