Whilst touring during the early months of 2018 in support of Broken Stay Open Sky, their fourth album and first for label Paradise of Bachelors, Red River Dialect uncovered a new depth of communication in their playing, and the follow-up bears the fruit. Abundance Welcoming Ghosts finds the British folk-rock band relaxing into a natural, playful confidence: tangling with the thickets, wading in the river, digging the peat, and disappearing into the mountains. It was recorded at Mwnci Studios, in a quiet valley in Southwest Wales, during four days in August 2018, just a month before the band's songwriter David Morris left the UK for a nine-month meditation retreat at a remote Buddhist monastery on the cliffs of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. This plan had not yet taken shape when he wrote these songs during the spring of 2018. By the time the band reached the studios, the imminent hiatus lent a poignant and celebratory atmosphere to the sessions. The compositions had not been fully formed prior to recording, but any pressure was transmuted into invigoration, resulting in the jubilant energy that adorns even the most turbulent songs. The album title gestures towards a fullness that the songs fulfill, a sonic and lyrical plenitude, but any density achieved by the band opens up further space. This expansiveness bears testament to the skill of long-term collaborator and guide Jimmy Robertson (Michael Chapman, Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode), who engineered and mixed the songs. Guest musicians Joan Shelley, who sings the hidden spaces on "Snowdon" and "Piano," and Tara Jane O'Neil (Rodan, the Sonora Pine), who plays sweet aching slide guitar on "My Friend," complement the core sextet.
