Stornoway Beyonder — the album, its tracklist and release date

What is known about the Stornoway Beyonder album so far

The Stornoway Beyonder album was announced on 30 March 2026, on the day the band sold out the Royal Albert Hall, and they played new songs from it that night. It is their fifth studio album, their third for Cooking Vinyl, and the Beyonder release date is 25 September 2026.

The band have described the songs as drawn from tribal transformation myths — stories of people turning into something else — which is a larger frame than anything they have worked with before, and a natural one for a group that has spent twenty years writing about the boundary between people and the rest of the living world.

The environmental work continues alongside it. The band contributed “River of Voices” and “Leave Your Light On” to a collection built as a soundscape of Britain’s rarest species and habitats.

The tracklist

There is no full Stornoway Beyonder album tracklist in public yet. What is confirmed is the three songs released ahead of it — “Marco Polo”, “Fire and Water” and “The Book of Time” — and that the Ladysmith Black Mambazo collaboration recorded in Durban is on the record. The tracklist below will be completed from the sleeve rather than from a pre-release listing, which is why it is short today.

The three singles

“Marco Polo” came first, released on announcement day. Its video, directed by Susie Attwood — who has also played violin with the band since 2010 — premiered on 22 April, Earth Day, in a live question-and-answer session hosted by the actor and naturalist David Oakes.

“Fire and Water” and “The Book of Time” followed over the summer.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

It is the first time a Stornoway Beyonder album credit has gone to a group from outside the band’s own circle, and the only collaboration confirmed for the record so far.

On 15 April 2026, during a live broadcast from Maida Vale Studios for Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2, the band announced a collaboration with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, funded through the Music Export Growth Scheme. It was recorded in South Africa the following month, in Durban.

That Maida Vale session also carried an arrangement of “Sea of Love”, and put the band in the small group of artists who have done both a Live Lounge and a Sofa Session — a list that otherwise runs to Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Crowded House, Arcade Fire and a handful of others.

The launch, the release date and the tour

The official launch concert returns the band to the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford — the building they first played in October 2009, and where the Bonxie campaign ended — to mark World Rivers Day, with what is billed as the largest scratch choir the city has assembled.

The Stornoway Beyonder shows begin after release: a tour follows that October, and another the following February, with the musician and field recordist Alice Boyd supporting. Both were preceded by a summer of festival headline slots: Beverley Folk, Compton, the Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Found Festival.

The Beyonder release date is 25 September 2026, and this page carries the full tracklist and the chart placing once the record is out. Everything above is what the band and their label have said publicly.