HYYTS + Before Breakfast
The Crescent, York
Saturday 14th December, 7.30pm
Celebrating the release of their new single 'The Only Boyracer Left On The Island' and getting to the end of a very successful year, York's flag-bearing indie band The Howl & The Hum return to The Crescent to play a sellout show for us.
Very last tickets here!
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Sam Lewis
The Basement, York
Tuesday 4th February, 8pm
**PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
With rich soulful vocals, well-crafted songs, roots country and blue-eyed soul Sam Lewis is connecting the dots. Whether crossing genres or state lines, he has pieced together a story people need to hear. Sam Lewis’ debut album ‘Waiting on you’ received a top review from Mojo and featured in the Telegraph’s list of top country albums from 2015.
Watch / Watch
Lewis’ record Loversity released in May 2018 is composed of 14 tracks that Lewis has spent over a year and a half writing and playing for others. Since Waiting on You, his classic style remains present yet matured, with a more refined worldview, “These newer songs have been harder to write, but extremely necessary given the current climate I find the world in.” Recorded at Southern Ground Studios with engineer and co-producer Brandon Bell, the album spans from upbeat songs like the title track “Loversity” to the darker “One in the Same,” an electric guitar heavy ballad with a driving force reminiscent of the Black Keys’ Brothers. While most songs are originals, the record includes “Accidental Harmony”, a lullaby that fellow Nashville songwriter John Mann wrote for his first born child, and “Natural Disaster”, a Loudon Wainwright song that Lewis felt drawn to.
As current events in the world divide the masses based on difference, Sam Lewis’ new album is a soul-filled, catchy collection of reminders that diversity and unity can co-exist.
Sam Lewis has collaborated with everyone from Leon Russell to The Wood Brothers. Chris Stapleton dubbed him “a modern Townes Van Zandt”. And while he’s often labeled with some form of the word ‘soulful’ (some have even compared his voice to molasses), Lewis’ style meets at a juncture of many different genres. There’s something about Sam Lewis that is indescribably different ¬¬ and with his newest project, he’s discovered what most musicians spend lifetimes working for ¬¬ the place where feel ¬good music meets vital social commentary.
While it bears the sonic landmarks of roots music’s most fertile ground, the songwriting of Sam Lewis is born of a landscape that can only be felt, not seen. His music is native to the infinite expanse that is exposed when human attention is full, and focused inward – harvested solely by the nuanced rhythm of love. Sam’s songs are rooted in the energy that defines this harmonious frontier, the space that unifies the human experience in each of us. It’s the anchored spirit in this incubated territory of soul for which Sam Lewis works to celebrate and elevate with the tones of rock & roll, rhythm & blues and a country-folk muse.
Sam is not the first man to turn over this primal soil, but he is unquestionably here to be the one that keeps sowing the field. Lewis laments, “I flip on a radio or stare at my phone, and I hear some familiar sounds and I see some flashy things being made right now – and that’s cool. But it’s real hard to find something that’s being said beyond what’s superficial. And then go I and spin a record by Lee Dorsey and I feel the world lifted with four words and a funky groove, and then I’ll listen to Pops Staples preaching the most earnest spirit with some shake, swagger and sweat thrown on it – and man there it is, there’s the fresh air, there’s the hope. These are the men that paved the path I want to walk on, the path I want to preserve. Everyone is welcome to walk it with me. I hope they do.”
'…he sounds from another time, or timeless. Either way, good.'
**** Sylvie Simmons, Mojo Magazine
'Irresistible…8/10'
Johnny Sharp, The Blues Magazine
'There’s so much soul pouring out of this guy’s pores you could bathe in it. It’s like hearing Al Green for the first time.'
Grant Britt, No Depression
Tickets for this show are £12 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Sorry
The Fulford Arms, York
Tuesday 11th February, 7.30pm
Centred around Asha Lorenz and Louis O'Bryen, two 22-year-old childhood best friends, Sorry were signed by Domino after developing a reputation as the most thrilling new band on London’s underground circuit. Sorry’s lineup is completed by Lincoln Barrett on drums and bassist Campbell Baum alongside a new addition in Marco Pini on synths.
Watch / Watch / Watch
Having spent the past couple of years releasing a string of singles and a pair of video mixtapes that won the band praise from the likes of Pitchfork, The Fader, Vice, Dazed and more, the band are preparing to announce their biggest project to date with new music right around the corner.
Tickets for this show are £8 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Lisa O'Neill
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Wednesday 12th February, 7.30pm
**PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
We're delighted to welcome a return to Yorkshire for wonderful Irish singer Lisa O'Neill with two new shows.
Watch / Watch
Recently awarded Best Original Track at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards (along with a record breaking five nominations, to go with this year’s four BBC Folk Award nods) Lisa O'Neill follows her acclaimed album Heard a Long Gone Song with a new EP - ‘The Wren, The Wren’ released on Rough Trade’s traditional music imprint River Lea.
“The three songs on this EP are woven together by a mixture of memory and myth. Facts often get lost in folklore which is maybe what gives way to artistic license to rewrite stories and bring them up to date…'The Wren, The Wren' goes so far back that we don't know where or how it originated. It is a bird steeped in myth, folklore and tradition and through the ages has been revered as a symbol of fertility in many cultures, or as in this song, sacrificed even though it is the ‘King of the Birds’.
The tradition of hunting the wren is thought to have originated with the Celtic people and was a celebration of mid-winter. Later, like so many pagan traditions, its story mutated and was incorporated into the Christian calendar on the feast day of St. Stephen, (December 26th) connecting the Wren Boys ritual (Lá an Dreoilín) as the day when the 'traitor wren' betrayed St. Stephen and gave his hiding place away to those hunting him. It was a cruel tradition in which the tiny bird is captured, killed and tied to a pole. Local musicians and dancers would then dress in straw costumes and go door to door entertaining and collecting money for the wren's funeral. These old myths, nursery rhymes and songs have been thought up by adults and then carried in good spirit by the innocent tongues of children, who don't always understand the content of what they sing. Not unlike the prayers children learn in school, they are saying it and singing it before they can understand it and then, before we know it, we've entered the woods in a dreamlike state and are acting out the words we sing. Nature is as cruel as it is beautiful, and you only need to scratch the surface of these old children’s songs to see the hidden darkness beneath...
My song 'John-Joe Reilly', written in 2016 was prompted by these old ways and beliefs. It is written from the point of view of a girl who was wooed into the woods by one of the wren boys, only to be betrayed. Like the wren's chatter, the bould wren boy's tongue broke the girls trust. This is of course a common story in folk songs as it continues to be a common flaw in human behaviour. The fragility of an innocent woman of a certain age has always been a target for prey, and the line between playfulness and abandonment is fine and sadly, the outcome is often fatal. I liken the young woman's position in John-Joe Reilly to the entrapment of the little bird in the wren song. My song is a new spin on an old complaint.
Fortunately, freedom of action and speech for women is not so stifled in this century. I am also glad to report that we do not sacrifice the Queen or King of the birds in Ireland today!
'Come back Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff' written by the Roscommon born Inspector of drains, Percy French the 1880’s, displays a little bit of heaven in County Cavan. This is the place where I was born and reared. Percy French also seems to have carried on a tradition of artistic licence in a little bending of the truth for the sake of the song. The real Paddy Reilly of Ballyjamesduff was known to have disassociated himself from the character who features in this song. Like most Cavan people, I grew up only knowing the chorus to this song. I learned it this year in full and sang it recently for the first time to my Uncle Eugene O'Neill the night before he passed away. It was the most important moment of my singing to date. Sadly, my uncle Teddy O'Neill followed his brother three weeks after…
I am proud to dedicate this EP to these two fine men. Eugene was born on St. Stephens day.” – Lisa O’Neill
Listen to Lisa’s original song ‘John Joe Reilly’ from the EP now.
Lisa O’Neill will tour the UK as a special guest of Calexico and Iron & Wine from November 18th to the 24th before returning for her own headline show at the Union Chapel, Islington on February 6th with very special guest Colm Mac Con Iomaire, as part of an extensive UK Tour.
Press:
'Uncompromising, stunning, soul-shaking stuff.'
The Guardian’s Folk Album of the Year
'Magnificent… about as far from safe as it’s possible to get. A special talent indeed.'
9/10 – Hot Press
'An album that is truly monumental.'
The Irish Herald
'This is as beautiful as it gets.'
The Irish Times
Tickets for this show are £12.50 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue, Jumbo and Crash Records in Leeds or online from here.
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Gill Landry
The Crescent, York
Wednesday 12th February, 7.30pm
**PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
Skeleton At The Banquet is the new album from two-time Grammy award winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Gill Landry.
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Landry was originally from Louisiana and started out as a busker on the streets of New Orleans before becoming a contributing member of the band Old Crow Medicine Show with whom he recorded 4 albums and toured from 2004 to 2014. He’s released 4 solo albums to critical acclaim, featuring such artists as Laura Marling, Brandi Carlile, Klara Söderberg (First Aid Kit), The Felice Brothers and Karen Elson among many others. Landry has toured extensively internationally in his own right, and has also supported Mumford & Sons, Brandi Carlile, Ben Harper, Laura Marling, Ben Howard and Bruce Hornsby.
Skeleton At The Banquet is Gill Landry’s fifth solo studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s Love Rides A Dark Horse (Loose/ATO). “This album is a series of reflections and thoughts on the collective hallucination that is America,” he tells us. “With a love song or two thrown in for good measure. I wrote it from within the refuge of a small flat, in a small village in western France where I spent last summer. I found it to be a good place for seeing the forest through the trees, so to speak.”
The album was recorded and produced in Los Angeles by Gill and Seth Ford-Young (Tom Waits, Edward Sharpe). It features Landry on vocals, guitars, pedal steel, keys & harmonica, Seth Ford-Young on bass, Josh Collazo on drums, Stewart Cole on trumpet and Odessa Jorgensen on violin.
Tickets for this show are £12 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Lisa O'Neill
The Black Swan, York
Thursday 13th February, 7.45pm
We're working with our friends at The Black Swan Folk Club to promote a very intimate show with wonderful Irish singer Lisa O'Neill.
**PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
Watch / Watch
Recently awarded Best Original Track at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards (along with a record breaking five nominations, to go with this year’s four BBC Folk Award nods) Lisa O'Neill follows her acclaimed album Heard a Long Gone Song with a new EP - ‘The Wren, The Wren’ released on Rough Trade’s traditional music imprint River Lea.
“The three songs on this EP are woven together by a mixture of memory and myth. Facts often get lost in folklore which is maybe what gives way to artistic license to rewrite stories and bring them up to date…'The Wren, The Wren' goes so far back that we don't know where or how it originated. It is a bird steeped in myth, folklore and tradition and through the ages has been revered as a symbol of fertility in many cultures, or as in this song, sacrificed even though it is the ‘King of the Birds’.
The tradition of hunting the wren is thought to have originated with the Celtic people and was a celebration of mid-winter. Later, like so many pagan traditions, its story mutated and was incorporated into the Christian calendar on the feast day of St. Stephen, (December 26th) connecting the Wren Boys ritual (Lá an Dreoilín) as the day when the 'traitor wren' betrayed St. Stephen and gave his hiding place away to those hunting him. It was a cruel tradition in which the tiny bird is captured, killed and tied to a pole. Local musicians and dancers would then dress in straw costumes and go door to door entertaining and collecting money for the wren's funeral. These old myths, nursery rhymes and songs have been thought up by adults and then carried in good spirit by the innocent tongues of children, who don't always understand the content of what they sing. Not unlike the prayers children learn in school, they are saying it and singing it before they can understand it and then, before we know it, we've entered the woods in a dreamlike state and are acting out the words we sing. Nature is as cruel as it is beautiful, and you only need to scratch the surface of these old children’s songs to see the hidden darkness beneath...
My song 'John-Joe Reilly', written in 2016 was prompted by these old ways and beliefs. It is written from the point of view of a girl who was wooed into the woods by one of the wren boys, only to be betrayed. Like the wren's chatter, the bould wren boy's tongue broke the girls trust. This is of course a common story in folk songs as it continues to be a common flaw in human behaviour. The fragility of an innocent woman of a certain age has always been a target for prey, and the line between playfulness and abandonment is fine and sadly, the outcome is often fatal. I liken the young woman's position in John-Joe Reilly to the entrapment of the little bird in the wren song. My song is a new spin on an old complaint.
Fortunately, freedom of action and speech for women is not so stifled in this century. I am also glad to report that we do not sacrifice the Queen or King of the birds in Ireland today!
'Come back Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff' written by the Roscommon born Inspector of drains, Percy French the 1880’s, displays a little bit of heaven in County Cavan. This is the place where I was born and reared. Percy French also seems to have carried on a tradition of artistic licence in a little bending of the truth for the sake of the song. The real Paddy Reilly of Ballyjamesduff was known to have disassociated himself from the character who features in this song. Like most Cavan people, I grew up only knowing the chorus to this song. I learned it this year in full and sang it recently for the first time to my Uncle Eugene O'Neill the night before he passed away. It was the most important moment of my singing to date. Sadly, my uncle Teddy O'Neill followed his brother three weeks after…
I am proud to dedicate this EP to these two fine men. Eugene was born on St. Stephens day.” – Lisa O’Neill
Listen to Lisa’s original song ‘John Joe Reilly’ from the EP now.
Lisa O’Neill will tour the UK as a special guest of Calexico and Iron & Wine from November 18th to the 24th before returning for her own headline show at the Union Chapel, Islington on February 6th with very special guest Colm Mac Con Iomaire, as part of an extensive UK Tour.
Press:
'Uncompromising, stunning, soul-shaking stuff.'
The Guardian’s Folk Album of the Year
'Magnificent… about as far from safe as it’s possible to get. A special talent indeed.'
9/10 – Hot Press
'An album that is truly monumental.'
The Irish Herald
'This is as beautiful as it gets.'
The Irish Times
Tickets for this show are £13 in advance (£11 for concessions).
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Ye Vagabonds
Red River Dialect
The Crescent, York
Monday 17th February, 7.30pm
A co-headline show from two of the brightest lights in British alternative folk music. Irish siblings Ye Vagabonds have stormed the years awards polls after the release of their second record, The Hare's Lament. South Coast six-piece Red River Dialect are a dynamic folk-rock band who've just released their triumphant second album for Paradise Of Bachelors (Steve Gunn, Itasca, Michael Chapman).
**PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
Ye Vagabonds
Winner of Best Traditional Track – BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2019
Winner of ‘Best Group’, ‘Best Album’ and ‘Best Traditional Track’ at RTE Awards 2019.
Brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn grew up playing music together around their hometown of Carlow, a small town in the southeast of Ireland. After moving to Dublin in 2012, they quickly became a staple of the live music and session scene in Ireland, playing their own original songs as well as folk songs from Ireland, Scotland, England and America.
In 2014 they came to the attention of Arbutus Yarns’ music filmmaker Myles O’Reilly, whose videos gained international attention for the brothers for the first time.
After a chance meeting at Electric Picnic in September 2015, the brothers performed onstage with Glen Hansard, who invited them to open for him on his European tour the following October.
Their debut EP Rose & Briar was released on October 7th 2015. Since then, they have been busy touring Ireland, the UK and Europe, opening for acts such as Villagers, Roy Harper and Lisa Hannigan (whose band they played in for her Irish tour, June 2016). They have played sold out headline shows in Ireland, France, Switzerland and the UK.
They have made numerous television and live radio appearances in Ireland, and were also part of ‘Imagining Home’, a live broadcast concert in the National Concert Hall of Ireland, 2016, curated by Glen Hansard, Philip King and Gary Sheehan.
In October 2017 they launched their debut, self-titled album to great acclaim. “Ye Vagabonds” comprises of harmony rich folk music, influenced by Irish traditional music, Appalachian singing, and the 1960’s folk revival. It includes ten mellow tracks weaved with thoughtful lyrics, thickly layered with strings and droning harmonium.
Their second album ‘The Hare’s Lament’ is scheduled for release on 22nd March 2019.
'They remind me of my first days at ‘Les Cousins’ in Soho in 1965… Ye Vagabonds are a modern expression of a tradition that is truly robust and important to these islands.'
Roy Harper
Red River Dialect
Red River Dialect are currently a six-strong band of human animals, brewing a lightly carbonated folk-rock from the psycho-spiritual malt of David Morris’ songwriting. Morris began molting and recording songs in 2002, and from 2006 the majority of these songs were performed as Red River Dialect; either solo or with a revolving configuration of musicians from the folk and improv scenes in Falmouth, a harbour town in the Celtic region of Cornwall.
In 2008 Simon Drinkwater joined Morris, playing mostly guitars, and the pair recorded and self-released the duo album White Diamonds in late 2010. Around this time Morris and Drinkwater met Coral Kindred-Boothby, who joined them in their performance of a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Billy 4” at an open mic night, playing a spare harmonium. Kindred-Boothby introduced them to Ed Sanders, who, despite insisting he had only begun playing the violin six weeks previously, was cajoled into joining. The band’s former drummer, Hugh Cowling, joined in early 2011, and the songs that became the 2012 long-player “awellupontheway” quickly took shape; recorded in July 2011, two months before most of the band went on their way to other parts of the UK.
A fragmented period was to follow, with the band meeting up to play shows and write new material as and when they could. Kindred-Boothby and Morris were living in London, others in Brighton, Cornwall and even “up North.” In 2014 Morris borrowed some field recorded equipment, and used it to put down a set of twelve songs, without an idea of what they might become; a time when writing songs was the only way to work through a time of mourning. They started to coalesce into a solo album, but then gradually the rest of the band came to visit one by one, adding their singing strings to the songs. It was during this time that pianist Robin Stratton joined the band, and his piano became a key voice on the resulting LP Tender Gold and Gentle Blue.
That LP was without percussion or electrified instruments, and in its wake the desire to jack in to some amplification was auspiciously met with a chance encounter. Kiran Bhatt auditioned in the early summer of 2016 on some pots and pans in a kitchen with Kindred-Boothby and Sanders, the morning after a party at the home of artist, and close collaborator with the band, Hannah Rose-Whittle. The chemistry was strong, and over the summer of 2016 the band wrote and recorded the forthcoming LP Broken Stay Open Sky.
Recorded in rural Southwest Wales shortly before David Morris moved to a remote Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia, Abundance Welcoming Ghosts, Red River Dialect’s fifth album, captures the band finding fresh joy in their music, relaxing more deeply into a natural, playful confidence: tangling with the thickets, wading in the river, digging the peat, and disappearing into the mountains. Joan Shelley and Tara Jane O’Neil join the expedition.
The band hopes that paragraph six of this ongoing hagiography will include tales of European and North American tours, solo albums from the multi-talented members, and further collective brews. Heck, maybe they’ll even make it beyond the shores of late-capitalism. Hopefully we all will.
Tickets for this show are £12 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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The Magpies
The Crescent, York
Saturday 7th March, 7.30pm
**PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
Celtic Connections Danny Kyle Award winner Bella Gaffney (guitar, banjo, vocals) hails from Bradford. She writes folk inspired songs which she performs along with her own original arrangements of traditional pieces. Bella released her second album 'Heaven Knows' in the summer, and has supported folk luminaries including Jon Boden, Cara Dillon and Altan. She has appeared at festivals including Celtic Connections, Southwell Folk Festival, Bromyard folk festival, Moseley Folk Festival, Beverley Folk Festival, HebCelt and many more.
York-based Polly Bolton (mandolin, banjo, vocals) first picked up the mandolin as a child and has been touring internationally in various line ups since her early teens. She has performed at festivals including Wilderness, Boomtown Fair, Deer Shed, Festa do Avante! (Portugal), Beverley Folk Festival, Musicport, Towersey and Broadstairs Folk Week, as well as slots with Tcha Limberger & Mozes Rosenberg, LAU and Hot Club of Cowtown. Polly is endorsed by Eastman™ (www.eastmanguitars.com).
Watch / Watch
The Magpies formed in their hometown of York in the autumn of 2017. Initially a duo project between Bella Gaffney and Polly Bolton, 2018 saw the lineup expand to a quartet, with the original pair joining forces with acclaimed cellist Sarah Smout and fiddle ace Holly Brandon.
Based on a deeply felt musical friendship, they work collaboratively, arranging material led by powerful vocals and glittering instrumental ornamentation. They each draw on their transatlantic influences to create a unique blend of Celtic and bluegrass folk, transporting audiences to distant lands and capturing imaginations with their enthralling live show.
Over the summer of 2018 they were exceptionally well received, performing at festivals such as Cambridge Folk Festival, main stage at Wickham Festival, Towersey Festival, Deer Shed Festival, Grassington and a sold out EP release show at The Great Yorkshire Fringe. The first transatlantic trip for the band took place in February 2019, when they performed at Folk Alliance International in Montreal.
The summer will see them perform at many festivals including Glastonbury, Larmer Tree, Warwick, Costa del Folk, and Shambala, whilst recording their debut full band album for release in early 2020.
'A natural chemistry... all three voices blend and harmonise beautifully... the mix of styles offers so much promise.'
Folk Radio UK
'Very well liked by the punters! A proper hit.'
Bev Burton, Cambridge Folk Festival
Tickets for this show are £8 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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The Trials Of Cato
Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
Friday 13th March, 7.30pm
**PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
Originally from North Wales and Yorkshire, The Trials of Cato formed whilst living in Beirut, and spent a year boiling down the roots of their sound into a hybrid of traditional inPluences that intrigued Lebanese audiences in the country’s biggest venues. Returning home from Beirut in the winter of 2016, they have since torn a shape very much their own into the canvas of the UK folk scene.
Watch
Back in the UK, they set to performing tirelessly up and down the country, leading to BBC Radio 2’s Mark Radcliffe hailing them as “one of the real discoveries on the folk circuit in recent times.”
Musical development in the run up to their debut album proper was swift and sure, with Hide and Hair winning acclaim and receiving repeated national airplay on BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music.
The Trials of Cato’s rapid ascent shows no signs of abating with the band recently nominated for the Horizon Award and Best Album Award in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Praised for the diversity of their material and inPluences, The Trials of Cato live show “invariably stuns audiences wherever they play.” (FATEA)
Whether plying their trade busking, performing in front of thousands at festivals across Europe, or frequently selling out their own shows, The Trials of Cato have the wind behind them.
Press:
'One of the real discoveries on the folk circuit in recent times'
Mark Radcliffe, BBC Radio 2
'Swaggering… glossy results'
The Guardian
One of the most impressive debut folk albums of the year'
★★★★ Songlines
'A band name on everyone’s lips… few debut albums have as much vitality and impact'
fRoots
Tickets for this show are £12 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue, Jumbo and Crash Records in Leeds or online from here.
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Squid
The Crescent, York
Wednesday 18th March, 7.30pm
**THIS SHOW IS NOW SOLD OUT**
The hotly tipped post-punk, disco-funk phenomenon Squid are back with new single ‘The Cleaner’ and the news of an EP called ‘Town Centre’ which is coming out on 6th September via Dan Carey’s Speedy Wunderground label - the first EP from the legendary producers singles label. Physical release of the EP will be 15th November.
Watch / Watch / Watch
On ‘The Cleaner,’ Squid are at their dynamic best; making good on the angular funk of ‘The Dial’ and the disco-punk of ‘Houseplants’ that has seen them receive love from radio, press and fans everywhere they’ve been. ‘The Cleaner’ is inspired by moving to London, trying to adjust to the pace and lifestyle of the city and all the issues that throws up. As with any Squid track, ‘The Cleaner’ is bursting with ideas and a clear energy and determination within the band to embrace different musical styles.
Dan Carey on Squid and The Cleaner: “I love Squid so much. To record with them is such a joy - the room is a sea of ideas and enthusiasm without any clashes of ego; every suggestion is given full attention. This, combined with their musicianship results in beautifully inventive music, underpinned by a hard steady groove and topped with lyrics that are important and surreal. When I first saw squid I was blown away. In the middle of being blown away, they played The Cleaner. In the middle of The Cleaner I was blown away by the middle bit of The Cleaner. So I was 3 levels down, and I thought ‘Yes...Squid”
Squid have built their name on the back of a run of fine singles and their incendiary live shows - including three packed sets at this year’s Glastonbury Festival - which displays an energy and conviction that is positively transcendent in its chaos and fever.
Formed in Brighton, Squid is the brainchild of Ollie Judge (Drums & Lead Vocals), Louis Borlase (Guitars & Vocals), Arthur Leadbetter (Keyboards, Strings), Laurie Nankivell (Bass & Brass) and Anton Pearson (Guitars & Vocals).
Press:
'A more aggressive spin on the funky post-punk of Television and Talking Heads'
Stereogum
'A rich blend of psychedelia, Europop and punk noise'
The Line of Best Fit
'Intense, weird songs that scan like David Byrne conducting LCD Soundsystem'
Drowned In Sound
'Vigorous post-punk that winds itself into tight coils before springing apart'
NME
'A unifying sense of ingenuity and vessel bursting energy'
DIY
Tickets for this show are £8.50 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Lucy Wainwright Roche
The Basement, York
Tuesday 31st March, 8pm
**PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
Those familiar with Lucy Wainwright Roche are aware of her bell tone voice, her unshakable melodies, and her knack for wise, wry lyrics that clench the heart. It’s no surprise that Wainwright Roche is the daughter of Suzzy Roche (The Roches) and Loudon Wainwright III, half-sibling to Rufus and Martha Wainwright. She grew up steeped in music.
But Lucy has carved out her own career as a touring singer/songwriter and recording artist, having sold over 50,000 copies of her fourcritically acclaimed solo recordings released on her own label: Eight Songs, Eight More, Lucy, and There’s a Last Time for Everything. Other recordings include a collaboration with her sister Martha Wainwright on Songs In the Dark, a collection of lullabies, and two duet recordings with her mother Suzzy Roche: Fairytale and Myth (winner of Vox Pop Independent Music Awards) and most recently Mud and Apples.
For over a decade, as a solo act, armed with a guitar, a deadpan sense of humour, killer songs, and avoice that makes tough guys cry, Lucy has built a solid following across the US and Europe. As an opening act she has often appeared with such luminaries as The Indigo Girls, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Neko Case, and she’s one of a few who can step out alone in front of a thousand strangers and play an entire set to a rapt audience.
Website / Watch
On most recent release ‘Little Beast’, Lucy ups the ante with a dynamic, emotional recording masterfully and artfully co-produced with Jordan Brooke Hamlin. This collection of songs is an urgent and poetic call to a world gone awry. The journey from song to song is downright cinematic. One minute she eases us in with her flat-footed authenticity, and the next she lets loose with her wild side, and we imagine her howling at the moon. In ‘Heroin’, the first single from the album, Lucy Wainwright Roche is hugging hairpin turns on the outside lane and you know it’s true. Sometimes chasing love is dangerous business.
Tickets for this show are £10 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Pictish Trail
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Saturday 4th April, 7.30pm
Genius weirdness from the Lost Map head-honcho as a new album has him getting the band back together to celebrate.
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Something of a sonic hermit, Pictish Trail has spent large parts of the past few years tucked away in his caravan on the Hebridean isle of Eigg, feverishly working on the follow up to Secret Soundz Vol. 1 & 2, his critically- acclaimed double album of DIY electronic folk-tinged croft pop, released in 2014. Future Echoes is the mesmerising result. Written in remote seclusion but recorded in the bustling heart of London, it reunites Pictish Trail with Adem Ilhan, who produces the majority of the record. Johnny and Adem previously wrote music together in 2010 under the name Silver Columns, releasing the hugely well received album Yes And Dance via London taste-makers Moshi Moshi. Future Echoes features additional production and mixing from Rob Jones (Cocknbullkid, Sweet Baboo, Slow Club) and drumming from Alex Thomas (Squarepusher, Air) and was mastered by Guy Davie at Electric Mastering.
A very personal musing on mortality, the death of friendships and the finality of things, Future Echoes represents the most confident, cohesive and pop-savvy collection of music Pictish Trail has written to date. The album’s opener and first single ‘Far Gone (Don’t Leave)’ takes its cues both musically and thematically from the Coen brothers’ Fargo, adding a tongue-in- cheek hip-hop beat, raspy Casio keyboard bassline and echo-slathered vocal over the top of an ominously queasy sample. ‘Dead Connection’ is a dizzying and very danceable dispatch of ghostly electro all about attempted discourse with the dead and accepting that what is gone is gone. ‘Half-Life’ slows things down at the album’s half way stage for a by-turns shuddering and twinkling take on decaying and yet somehow still interminable relationships, while closer ‘After-Life’ is a twisted polyrhythmic psychedelic disco opus, with a chorus sung in a Jimmy Somerville-worthy falsetto, reflecting on reincarnation and life lived on repeat. Which is exactly what you’ll be putting Future Echoes on by the time you get that far.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Lynch is also busy running his own musical empire from the remote Hebridean island Eigg (56°54’N, 06°10’W) he calls home. Following ten successful years running Fife’s infamous Fence Records, Lynch moved on to pastures new and founded Scotland’s most exciting new label Lost Map Records in 2013.
Tickets for this show are £14 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue, Jumbo and Crash Records in Leeds or online from here.
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Nadia Reid
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Wednesday 15th April, 7.30pm
We're teamed up with our friends at Hee Haw to help bring Nadia back to Leeds in April!
No one ever got anywhere by standing still. As an artist, you must move to grow. It’s a sentiment Nadia Reid knows well. Leaving her beloved New Zealand for America to record her third album with strangers, what she didn’t expect was a family awaiting her; teaming up with Spacebomb, her evocative travel tales push explorations of love, personal growth and deep reflection beyond boundaries she ever thought possible.
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“Out of My Province is definitely a travelling album; they are road songs,” tells Nadia, of the album, written during a period of intensive touring following the release of her critically acclaimed LP, Preservation. Between European tours, appearing on Later…with Jools Holland and singing with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Out of My Province is the sound of a young artist growing in profile and dexterity before international audiences and whose world has changed before her eyes.
Tickets for this show are £11 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue, Jumbo and Crash Records in Leeds or online from here.
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Tom Robinson Band
'Never Too Late - 70th Birthday Tour'
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Thursday 21st May, 7.30pm
Although many of Tom Robinson's 70s contemporaries such as The Jam, Elvis Costello and Ian Dury have spawned tribute bands, to the best of his knowledge no such act has ever attempted to cover his own back catalogue. Which of those songs, he wondered, would a Tom Robinson tribute band choose to assemble a full-on crowdpleasing set?
There'd have to be the songs co-written with Elton John and Peter Gabriel. Also those unexpected comeback hits of the 1980s such as War Baby and Atmospherics. Not to mention the stone-cold punk-era classics that launched his career: Motorway, Power In The Darkness, Up Against The Wall, Too Good To be True and of course the anthemic Glad To Be Gay.
In 2020 the veteran broadcaster and songwriter will mark 70 years on the planet by embarking on a month-long tour with his incendiary live band playing highlights from his own 45 year career in music. There may not have been a Tom Robinson tribute act until now - but as the chorus of his debut single puts it: "2-4-6-8... ain't never too late".
Bio:
After a stint in the acoustic trio Café Society, culminating in a 1975 album produced by Ray Davies, Tom founded his own group TRB (Tom Robinson Band) with the late Danny Kustow in 1976. The group were early supporters of Rock Against Racism and the following year their debut single 2-4-6-8 Motorway became one of the landmark singles of the UK punk era.
Mild notoriety followed in 1978 when Radio 1 banned Tom's follow-up anthem "Glad To Be Gay" and subsequent hits included Up Against The Wall and TRB's debut album Power In The Darkness which went gold in the UK and Japan.
His third band Sector 27 was produced by Steve Lillywhite and and went on to play Madison Square Garden in 1981, opening for The Police. After the group's management went bankrupt, Tom fled to Hamburg to avoid going the same way, and then became first UK musician ever to tour East Germany, backed by local musicians.
Tom returned to chart success as a solo artist in 1983 with War Baby and Atmospherics: Listen To The Radio; and co-wrote songs with Peter Gabriel, Elton John and Dan Hartman. In the 1990s, following a one-man tour of Ireland, he signed to Cooking Vinyl records and released three critically acclaimed solo albums.
As a broadcaster Tom won his first Sony Radio Award in 1997 for his BBC London documentary "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away". Ever since helping launch BBC Radio 6 Music in 2002 (and helping save it from closure in 2010) he has worked fulltime at the station, where he won a second Sony in 2011 and currently presents three shows a week.
Tickets for this show are £21 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue, Jumbo and Crash Records in Leeds or online from here.
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Joan Shelley
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Sunday 24th May, 7.30pm
Yay! Finally we get to see Kentucky native and collaborator with the stars, Joan Shelley back in the UK again for some of her own shows. Cannot wait.
Joan Shelley is a songwriter and singer who lives near Louisville, Kentucky not far from where she grew up. Like the River Loves the Sea is her fifth album. She draws inspiration from traditional and traditionally-minded performers from her native Kentucky, as well as those from Ireland, Scotland, and England, but she’s not a folksinger. Her disposition aligns more closely with that of, say, Roger Miller, Dolly Parton, or her fellow Kentuckian Tom T. Hall, who once explained—simply, succinctly, in a song—“I Witness Life.”
She’s not so much a confessional songwriter, although Like the River… gets closest to such subjectively emotional impressions as perhaps any album to date, and she sings less of her life and more of her place: of landscapes and watercourses; of flora and fauna; of seasons changing and years departing and the ineluctable attempt of humans to make some small sense of all—or, at best, some—of it. Her perspective and performances both have been described, apparently positively, as “pure,” but there’s no trace of the Pollyanna and there’s little of the pastoral, either: her work instead wrestles with the possibility of reconciling, if only for a moment, the perceived “natural” world with its reflection—sometimes, relatively speaking, clear; other times hopelessly distorted—in the human heart, mind, and footprint.
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Since the 2015 release of her album Over and Even, Shelley has crossed the US and Europe several times as a headlining artist, sharing shows with the likes of Jake Xerxes Fussell, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Doug Paisley, Daniel Martin Moore, the Other Years, and Michael Hurley. She has opened for Wilco, Chris Smither, Andrew Bird, and Richard Thompson. Jeff Tweedy produced her previous record at The Loft in Chicago and her current record Like the River Loves the Sea was recorded at Greenhaus Studios in Iceland.
Tickets for this show are £11 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue, Jumbo and Crash Records in Leeds or online from here.
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