Dust In The Sun: A Legendary Lost English Folk Masterpiece

Dust In The Sun

Dust In The Sun is a finished album, presented as a lost record from the 1970s folk revival, released alongside its accompanying novel. Both works occupy the same imagined landscape and were developed in parallel, not as adaptation but as twin expressions of a single body of work.

The album stands independently as a complete folk record. The novel traces the conditions of its making, and the forces surrounding it.

This campaign exists to formalise the release of both.

The work is complete. 

This campaign places the project into the world in its intended form.

The album

The album is complete and mastered.

It is a coherent body of songs shaped by the long traditions of English folk music, with emphasis on narrative, atmosphere, and continuity. It is not a soundtrack or companion piece. It stands alone.

The recording process draws directly on the sound world of the 1970s folk revival. Arrangement, microphone technique, room sound, and performance approach are treated as part of the tradition, not neutral tools.

Vinyl and CD editions are already in production.

Physical editions

This release prioritises permanence.

The vinyl and CD editions are the primary forms of the work, not secondary formats. Packaging is restrained and archival in tone, reflecting the project’s relationship to lost recordings and recovered artefacts.

A limited edition of 99 vinyl records will be issued as reproductions of the lone surviving copy from the ill-fated 1976 pressing. These copies echo the material character of that object, presenting the record as something recovered rather than newly manufactured.

These are the only physical editions planned for this release.

These editions will be delivered first.

The story

In the summer of 1976, Bounty Records (London) Ltd was in trouble.

Founded on enthusiasm rather than capital, the label had overreached through a series of costly decisions and an unwavering belief that conviction would eventually balance the books.

Dust In The Sun, recorded that year by Jon Loomes in a small Welsh village far from London’s industry circuits, was intended as a final roll of the dice. An uncompromising folk record, made without concession to fashion or market.

Before the album could be properly distributed, a fire at the pressing plant destroyed almost the entire run.

What followed was not a clean ending, but a slow dispersal. Within weeks, Bounty Records entered insolvency. Its catalogue was scattered. Its offices shuttered. Its final release effectively erased.

Master tapes were lost or misfiled. Paperwork disappeared. Artist agreements were left unresolved.

Dust In The Sun passed from failed release into absence, and from absence into myth.

Loomes himself disappeared.

For years the record existed only as rumour. With just a handful of copies believed to have survived, collectors whispered of it in the early 1990s, when a single battered LP surfaced bearing library stamps, nicotine stains, and a set of songs that resisted dismissal.

Stories grew. Some claimed it was a lost masterpiece of mid-1970s British folk. Others insisted it was cursed, that misfortune followed all who came into even the slightest contact with it. Many dismissed it as an elaborate hoax.

As with all good folklore, the truth became inseparable from the telling.

The novel

The novel exists as a full draft.

It traces the making of the record and the landscape in which it emerged, exploring themes of loss, recovery, and the persistence of creative work over time.

The narrative, characters, and structure are complete. The work now enters its final editorial phase, focused on clarity, shape, and precision.

It will be published as the final component of the project.  It is not a companion piece, but the other half of the work.

What remains to be done

The remaining work on the novel consists of:

• incorporating reader feedback
• tightening structure
• removing redundant material
• completing a small number of missing sections

This is editorial work, not exploratory development.

Delivery

The album will be delivered first, in its physical formats.

The novel will follow once the final editorial phase is complete.

This campaign funds the release and publication of the project as a whole.