Ritual Cloak – Divine Invasions

Work on Divine Invasions began as soon as the first album had been finished back in September 2019. The first album saw sparing use of guitar, instead mainly writing around piano. When it came to writing the second, Sanders and Barnett didn’t want to fall into the same routine, choosing to embrace exploring new sounds, experiment with new effects, making guitars sound like synths and using vocals for the first time. The album began taking shape at Ritual Cloak’s studio HQ in Cardiff, but lock-down forced the pair to work separately, and in a very different manner than before. However, this change of circumstance proved extremely fruitful, and has resulted in a collection of songs that would otherwise have not come together had Sanders and Barnett continued to work in their traditional ways. 

The title Divine Invasions is inspired by the Philip K Dick biography. Dick was plagued by nervous breakdowns and driven to near insanity by visions of God.

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Ritual Cloak is comprised of Daniel Barnett, formerly of the band Samoans, and drummer / producer Andrew Sanders. The duo met in 2013 after Daniel answered an ad for a guitarist to join the backing band for singer Jemma Roper. An instant kinship was struck, with both Daniel and Andrew embracing experimentation and a shared love of electronic music. After the split of Samoans in 2018, the pair began playing around with instrumental textures and piano-led ambient soundscapes, all resulting in their well-received debut in 2019. Early tracks such as Everyone Is Hungover So I Walked The Mountain Alone were quickly picked up by BBC Radio Wales and SWN Festival, culminating in their debut live show at the festival shortly afterwards.

The geometric texture t-shirts were designed and printed by Tom Whitehead at The Printhaus, Cardiff. The design is a 2 colour geometric print on dark grey Earth Positive garments (manufactured by solely using renewable green energy from wind and solar power).

Artwork by SnowSkull