The rumour is…

Rumour Den is the vehicle for the melancholic, dark, reality-infused songs written by long-time writing partners AJ Gilmore (lyrics & vocals) & Steve Simms (guitar & music). They hail from Northern Ireland, but their songs could be about anyone from anywhere – the themes are universal – love, loss, loneliness, alienation, helplessness in the face of power

Rumour Den only existed as more than Gilmore & Simms for brief periods in the early 00s and early 10s. They recorded an album, ‘Melancholics Anonymous’, in 2001 but neither were happy with it on completion; felt it did not match the vision they had in their heads for their music, and so never promoted it with any real conviction. It would not be too big an exaggeration to say that for Gilmore & Simms, music can be a blessing and a curse…or an addiction of sorts. And every time they think they have escaped, eventually it pulls them back in. So it was, late last year when the idea to reimagine some old material with a new sound sparked something within the pair and no sooner had they reworked this older material, than ideas for new material within that sound came pouring out. The pair had well and truly fallen off the wagon…it was a relapse. And so ‘Relapse’ became the title of this new collection of songs and it will be released towards the end of the year. In the run-up to that release, Rumour Den will be releasing a song a month starting with ‘Sea of Trees’. ‘Sea of Trees’ is the anglicised name of Aokigahara Forest near Tokyo, a place infamous with the local people; a place where people go when living becomes too much and do so with such horrifying regularity that it makes people wonder if the place itself is haunted. Gilmore is acutely aware of the sensitive nature of this subject – it is not to be glorified nor used as a cheap horror thrill. In ‘Sea of Trees’ Gilmore asks the question ‘can a place be manifestly evil and can the souls of the dead seep into the soil and call to other souls to join them, like sirens calling unwary sailors onto the rocks’? The story is told by one of those drawn to the deathly quiet place. The clues to its true nature are there…but will he listen? Listen to ‘Sea of Trees’ to find out.