Richard Dawson
The Crescent, York
Monday 5th October, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
**THIS SHOW IS NOW SOLD OUT**
We're extremely pleased to be working again with our friends at Let's Go Baboon to bring the mighty Richard Dawson back to York, and this time with his band. Tickets on sale now so do not hang about!
A singular voice, part savant-genius, part court jester, his music echoing with voices past, present and future.
Richard Dawson, the black-humoured bard of Newcastle, returns to release his sixth solo album 2020. Where critically-acclaimed predecessor Peasant (2017) gave a voice to the citizens of the ancient early medieval northern kingdom of Bryneich via a set of narratives as bawdy as Chaucer and as epic and bloody as Beowulf, 2020 is an utterly contemporary state-of-the- nation study, that uncovers an equally tumultuous and even bleaker time. Here is an island country in a state of flux; a society on the edge of mental meltdown. This is England today.
Watch / Watch
Nuanced and challenging, the ten songs also conversely feature Dawson’s most melodic moments yet. Many of his musical trademarks – unexpected time signatures, strange flourishes and welcome digressions,sounds simultaneously harsh and honeyed, sensitive and abrasive – are in place, but more than ever such disparate components are corralled to create a highly focused collection that offers a thoroughly dire diagnosis of the UK, yet is shot through with flecks of hope.
Dawson tours these bold, lyrically unflinching songs with three piece band.
'At times deeply, painfully intimate, but also witty, bawdy, surreal, disquieting, nostalgic, brash and fearlessly individual'
The Quietus
'Dawson rewards you generously, with kitchen-sink realism, a psychedelic take on fable, and an almost pugilistic sense of compassion'
The Observer
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Tom Robinson Band
'Never Too Late - 70th Birthday Tour'
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Wednesday 9th December, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
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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Aoife O'Donovan
'Songs & Strings'
Hallé St. Peters, Manchester
Friday 22nd Januray, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
It's a great pleasure to bring wonderful singer-songwriter Aoife O'Donovan to the newly refurbished Hallé St. Peters in Manchester in May.
**PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL BE A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
Recognized for her ethereal voice and substantive songwriting, Aoife O’Donovan is also known for her collaborations. Called “a vocalist of unerring instinct” by the New York Times, O’Donovan is one of the most sought after vocalists and songwriters of her generation and her career has allowed her to collaborate with some of the most eminent names in music across a wide variety of genres.
The most recent example is I’m With Her, the band comprised of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and O'Donovan. Their debut album See You Around, released in February 2018, has garnered praise from NPR, who instantly hailed the collection as "willfully open-hearted”, and The Guardian called their sound both "ethereal and purposeful”.
As a solo artist, O’Donovan has released two studio albums. In the Magic Hour (2016), a 10-song album full of the singer’s honeyed vocals mixed with gauzy, frictionless sounds: splashing cymbals, airy harmonies, and the leisurely baritone musings of an electric guitar. Mojo described the record as “exhilarating and exploratory,” while the New York Times named “The King of All Birds” one of the Best Songs of 2016. Aoife toured 2016 in support of the album and ended that year releasing a live album Man In A Neon Coat: Live From Cambridge with her touring band. Her debut solo album, 2013's Fossils, is a moody collection of original songs with a country lilt. The record received critical acclaim and was featured on a number of “Best of 2013” lists including NPR Music, American Songwriter, New York Magazine, and No Depression. In 2018, Aoife contributed an original song titled “Are You There”to the film What They Had, an official selection at both Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals.
Watch / Watch / Listen
O'Donovan
spent the preceding decade as co-founder and front woman of the string
band, Crooked Still. She is the featured vocalist on The Goat Rodeo
Sessions, the Grammy-winning album by Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar
Meyer and Chris Thile and its one-third of the female trio Sometimes
Why. Throughout her career, she has also collaborated with artists such
as Alison Krauss and jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas, and is currently a
member of the house band on the radio variety show Live From Here.
Tickets for this show are £19.50 in advance.
You can get tickets online from here.
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Eliza Carthy Restitute Live
The Crescent, York
Sunday 24th January, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
**THIS IS A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
Eliza Carthy MBE should by now need no introduction. A multi-award winning singer, songwriter and musician from a formidable English music dynasty.
Describing herself simply as a “modern English musician”, Eliza Carthy herself is one of the most recognisable faces of the English folk revival. Her first “solo” album of traditional music in 14 years, Restitute is literally a homely affair, recorded as it was at Eliza’s home in the picturesque Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire.
The band for the Restitute tour comprises Eliza Carthy, Ben Seal, Ben Somers, Willy Molleson and David Delarre – with support slot and special guest appearance from Saul Rose.
In addition to the Restitute material, the band will perform songs from brand new recordings of original songs by Eliza Carthy & Ben Seal – taken from their forthcoming album Northern Glowerhouse presents Through that Sound my Secret was Made Known.
Tickets for this show are £22.50 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Squid
The Crescent, York
Tuesday 26th January, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
**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
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Eliza Carthy MBE should by now need no introduction. A multi-award winning singer, songwriter and musician from a formidable English music dynasty.
Describing herself simply as a “modern English musician”, Eliza Carthy herself is one of the most recognisable faces of the English folk revival. Her first “solo” album of traditional music in 14 years, Restitute is literally a homely affair, recorded as it was at Eliza’s home in the picturesque Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire.
The band for the Restitute tour comprises Eliza Carthy, Ben Seal, Ben Somers, Willy Molleson and David Delarre – with support slot and special guest appearance from Saul Rose.
In addition to the Restitute material, the band will perform songs from brand new recordings of original songs by Eliza Carthy & Ben Seal – taken from their forthcoming album Northern Glowerhouse presents Through that Sound my Secret was Made Known.
Tickets for this show are £22.50 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Squid
The Crescent, York
Tuesday 26th January, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
**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
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Porridge Radio
The Crescent, York
Sunday 31st January, 7.30pm
A new album released by the super-cool Secretly Canadian label has propelled Porridge Radio from a word-of-mouth gem of Brighton’s DIY scene to one of the country’s most exciting upcoming bands. Last here opening for BC Camplight and we're very pleased to see them return.
Listen / Watch / Watch
Porridge Radio released their debut studio album, Every Bad, in March on Secretly Canadian.
A barrage of singles released since 2019, saw the band propelled from a word-of-mouth gem of Brighton’s DIY scene to one of the country’s most exciting upcoming bands.
Birthed from open mic nights around the seaside town, Margolin initially performed bedroom-recorded songs to rooms of polite, unassuming audiences who stared at her quietly while she screamed in their faces. She soon decided to form a band through which to channel her new love of performing and songwriting – and be noisier while she was at it – so Porridge Radio was born.
While the band have self-released numerous demos and a garden-shed-recorded album (2016’s Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers) on Memorials of Distinction, Every Bad is a culmination of what has been in their head for some time; the record they have been waiting for the means to record.
It arrives full of grand, sweeping amibition – with vocals so urgent that it often feels like it is moved by compulsion rather than choice, with all the rawness of early Karen O, and influences as disparate as Charli XCX and The Cranberries.
Single “Sweet” is a creeping self-examination, striking in its minutely observed details, while December release “Lilac” is dominated by a repeated, anxiety-quelling mantra: “I don’t want to get bitter / I want us to get better.”
These mantras and repetitions are something of a signature and nowhere is it more deftly put to work than on Every Bad’s closer “Homecoming Song,” with its decisive, self-awarely poppy percussion, and howling final cry: “There’s nothing inside.”
It’s an apt ending for a record which feels like it is so honestly reckoning with emotions; there’s a sense that by the time you finish, everything has been vomited up – there really is nothing left. “It captures a lot of the feeling from the rest of the album of just needing to get something out, and learning how to do something,” Margolin says.
Speaking the emotional drive behind the record, Margolin explained “A lot of it was figuring out how I want to exist in relation to others, and how to process my own feelings, how to be vulnerable, how to show people how I feel. I struggle with being vulnerable and being open, so that’s something I do through songs.”
And thank goodness she does. Though these songs are deeply personal explorations, expressed via a weird, beautiful musical language all Porridge Radio’s own, they extend a hand to every listener who has felt conflicted, held two feelings in their hearts at once, or flailed around the depths of their own choices and relationships. For those of us who know how that feels, Every Bad is a funny, profound little comfort.
Tickets for this show are £11 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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British Sea Power
The Crescent, York
Thursday 18th February, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
**THIS SHOW IS NOW SOLD OUT**
Celebrating their twentieth year in show business, Berkshire six-piece indie-rock band British Sea Power play The Crescent for the first time...now in February 2021.
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Los Bitchos
The Crescent, York
Saturday 20th February, 7.30pm
Los Bitchos started off as a recording project after listening to a lot of Peruvian instrumental Cumbia from the 60s and 70s (Los Destellos ‘A Patricia’ is the song that got them together as a band), their sound can be described as The Shadows on a Tequila fuelled field trip to South America, whilst also channeling psychedelic rock and surf vibes.
Watch!
The Crescent, York
Saturday 20th February, 7.30pm
Los Bitchos started off as a recording project after listening to a lot of Peruvian instrumental Cumbia from the 60s and 70s (Los Destellos ‘A Patricia’ is the song that got them together as a band), their sound can be described as The Shadows on a Tequila fuelled field trip to South America, whilst also channeling psychedelic rock and surf vibes.
Watch!
Los Bitchos are fronted by multi-instrumentalist Serra Petale on lead guitar. She’s flanked by Carolina Faruolo (guitar), Agustina Ruiz (keytar), Josefine Jonnson (bass), and Nic Crawshaw (drums / percussion). Currently the gang reside in London but the members hail from as far and as wide as Perth (Australia), Montevideo, Stockholm, and Croydon.
In a short space of time they have already supported and toured with Mac De Marco, Ty Segall, The Black Lips, Bill Ryder Jones, Bodega, Methyl Ethel, The Murlocs and Kikagaku Moyo.
The girls have also smashed out sun-tinged sets at The Great Escape, All Points East, Test Pressing and Simple Things Festival as well as a whole host of European Festivals. The first non-bedroom recording ‘Pista (Great Start)’ has been championed by key tastemakers Cheryl Waters (KEXP), NME, Les Inrocks and Marc Riley at BBC 6 Music and was produced by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand.
Follow up banger ‘The Link Is About To Die’ premiered on NME and Les Inrocks and snared them a live KEXP session at Transmusicales which takes place in early December.
In a short space of time they have already supported and toured with Mac De Marco, Ty Segall, The Black Lips, Bill Ryder Jones, Bodega, Methyl Ethel, The Murlocs and Kikagaku Moyo.
The girls have also smashed out sun-tinged sets at The Great Escape, All Points East, Test Pressing and Simple Things Festival as well as a whole host of European Festivals. The first non-bedroom recording ‘Pista (Great Start)’ has been championed by key tastemakers Cheryl Waters (KEXP), NME, Les Inrocks and Marc Riley at BBC 6 Music and was produced by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand.
Follow up banger ‘The Link Is About To Die’ premiered on NME and Les Inrocks and snared them a live KEXP session at Transmusicales which takes place in early December.
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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You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Siv Jakobsen
Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
Tuesday 2nd March, 7.30pm
Norwegian singer-songwriter Siv Jakobsen started the campaign for her forthcoming LP in January and it almost seems as if that was another era. Her North American tour got cancelled less than 48 hours after touching down in NYC, she then returned directly into quarantine. The LP ‘A Temporary Soothing’ was experiencing manufacturing delays, record stores were shutting, and she had another big European tour coming up to promote the record that was also pushed into the future.
Album Stream / Video / Live Sessions
Siv was left cooped up in her Oslo home with her boyfriend and her old dog - suddenly with nothing to do in what was meant to be one of the busiest periods of her life. However, as she started to connect with people via live stream shows she realised that her new music had a context she could never have predicted. She wrote and recorded an album meant to offer ‘A Temporary Soothing’ - to tackle anxiety, stress and feelings of isolation. Songs took on new meaning and the record suddenly had an unexpected place in the turbulent times we find ourselves in.
The final single before the LP “A Feeling Felt or a Feeling Made” represents one of the album’s key themes; the struggle Siv faced between being healthy and productive. Following her debut LP ‘The Nordic Mellow’, Siv started to fear that she wouldn’t be able to create if she was happy. This resulted in Siv questioning whether she purposely created friction, loneliness in order to create. It’s a feeling best summed up in the single’s most striking line, “A hollow in my insides, I’m keeping it clear / For the flicker, the flame, the friction that I need”.
"I wrote a feeling felt or a feeling made in the first months after getting off of my last album - campaign. I was feeling increasingly insecure about my work and also an increasing dread about my own possible destructiveness in relation to my creative process. I kept asking myself if I am the creator or enabler of the friction that allows and helps me to write songs because I feel such a strong need to write, perform and release music.”
Siv’s LP features collaborations with a handful of great musicians Siv has come to love such as producer Chris Bond (Ben Howard, Nick Mulvey) and mixing engineer Zach Hanson (Bon Iver, Tallest Man on Earth, Waxahatchee). It is scheduled for August 21st and her UK/EU release tour will now take place in Feb/March, with new dates in Birmingham and Leeds added to the UK run.
Siv Jakobsen first caught the public’s attention back in 2015, with the release of her beautifully intimate EP “The Lingering”. After spending the best of two years touring extensively around Europe and the UK, supporting several acclaimed artists including Bear’s Den, Benjamin Francis Leftwich and Damien Jurado, Jakobsen entered the studio in the summer of 2016, to record her debut album The Nordic Mellow. The 10-song collection was a testament to Siv’s bold lyricism and stunning vocal ability, transporting the listener into her world from the very first note.
The Nordic Mellow garnered critical acclaim from the likes of Bob Boilen (NPR) and amassed over 15 million streams. Critics commended Jakobsen for her ability to create beautifully atmospheric and honest songs, void of any sort of emotional filter, whilst also receiving comparisons to legendary artists such as Nick Drake.
Tickets for this show are £10 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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The final single before the LP “A Feeling Felt or a Feeling Made” represents one of the album’s key themes; the struggle Siv faced between being healthy and productive. Following her debut LP ‘The Nordic Mellow’, Siv started to fear that she wouldn’t be able to create if she was happy. This resulted in Siv questioning whether she purposely created friction, loneliness in order to create. It’s a feeling best summed up in the single’s most striking line, “A hollow in my insides, I’m keeping it clear / For the flicker, the flame, the friction that I need”.
"I wrote a feeling felt or a feeling made in the first months after getting off of my last album - campaign. I was feeling increasingly insecure about my work and also an increasing dread about my own possible destructiveness in relation to my creative process. I kept asking myself if I am the creator or enabler of the friction that allows and helps me to write songs because I feel such a strong need to write, perform and release music.”
Siv’s LP features collaborations with a handful of great musicians Siv has come to love such as producer Chris Bond (Ben Howard, Nick Mulvey) and mixing engineer Zach Hanson (Bon Iver, Tallest Man on Earth, Waxahatchee). It is scheduled for August 21st and her UK/EU release tour will now take place in Feb/March, with new dates in Birmingham and Leeds added to the UK run.
Siv Jakobsen first caught the public’s attention back in 2015, with the release of her beautifully intimate EP “The Lingering”. After spending the best of two years touring extensively around Europe and the UK, supporting several acclaimed artists including Bear’s Den, Benjamin Francis Leftwich and Damien Jurado, Jakobsen entered the studio in the summer of 2016, to record her debut album The Nordic Mellow. The 10-song collection was a testament to Siv’s bold lyricism and stunning vocal ability, transporting the listener into her world from the very first note.
The Nordic Mellow garnered critical acclaim from the likes of Bob Boilen (NPR) and amassed over 15 million streams. Critics commended Jakobsen for her ability to create beautifully atmospheric and honest songs, void of any sort of emotional filter, whilst also receiving comparisons to legendary artists such as Nick Drake.
Tickets for this show are £10 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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Rachael Dadd
The Crescent, York
Sunday 14th March, 7.30pm
We're delighted to welcome Rachael Dadd and her band to York for a headline show in March. A key member of Bristol's experimental-folk scene Rachael has been making highly engaging records since 2004 and is a regular collaborator of Kate Stables (TITK), Rozi Plain and her husband ICHI.
Watch / Listen
'Rachael Dadd is one of the most talented wise prolific and important women of our times'
Kate Stables (This is the Kit)
Living half her time as a traveling musician in Japan, witnessing how other people create things, connecting with other cultures and landscapes; all this is a furnace for innovative song writing. Contemporary folk multi-instrumentalist Rachael Dadd is on a strong path with so much interest and support from DJs, tastemakers, her contemporaries and key people in the music industry. She has been gaining the reputation as a pioneering and thought provoking artist unafraid to push the boundaries of folk and pop.
Rachael Dadd's 6th album, produced with Marcus Hamblett (Villagers / Laura Marling), 'Flux' is a response to external and internal tides: the flow of life up-rooted; a protest against the flow of recent political history; a diary of the flow within the intimate space of home. Collaborators include multi-instrumentalist Emma Gatrill (Willie Mason / Matthew and the Atlas), drummer Rob Pemberton (Emily Barker / Low Chimes) , bassist Jim Barr (Portishead) and vocalists Kate Stables and Rozi Plain (This is The Kit).
Flux follows Rachael’s highly acclaimed album We Resonate which came out on French label Talitres and Sweetdreams Press (Japan), and a string of releases on Broken Sound (UK), Lost Map (UK), Sweetdreams Press and Angel’s Egg (Japan). She has received wide support from DJs on B BC 6 Music, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3 Late Junction , BBC radio 4, Xfm, France Musique on which she was invited for a 6 song session.
In 2016 her solo Piano and Projection show received an Emerging Excellence Award . She has toured this formation as well as full band and solo across venues and festivals in the UK, Europe, Australia and Asia. Her countless festival performances include End of the Road, Green Man, Glastonbury , Truck , Farmest , Wilderness, Le Festival Les Femmes s'en Mêlent (France), Mandrea Festival (Italy), Woodford (Australia), Women in (E)Motion (Germany), and so many more.
Rachael regularly tours with long time friends and collaborators This is the Kit and Rozi Plain, as well as David Thomas Broughton, Francois and the Atlas Mountains and Alessi`s Ark. Rachael co-curated Bristols SHHH festival (a celebration of quiet & diverse music), instigated the group exhibition DIY Is All You Need with fellow musicians and artists, and curated and hosted Rachael Dadd and Friends at Kings Place, London. In Japan she has written for some top names such as UA and Gontiti, and performed to an audience of 4000 at Tokyo’s famous NHK Hall. With a First in fine art, Rachael puts great attention into the conceptual and visual through her music videos, album artwork, hand-made merchandise and exhibitions.
Press:
'Bold art folk...accomplished fusion of words, acoustic strumming and wild percussive textures.'
Uncut Magazine
'Rachael Dadd can’t stop creating beautiful things, both tactile and musical'
John Kennedy (Xfm)
'Breaks the conventions of pop to reassemble a sound of raw, jagged beauty.'
Aesthetica Magazine
'Rachael Dadd is a musician and textile artist who creates surprisingly accessible poly-rhythmic, acoustic art-pop; utilising voice, ukulele, prepared piano, clarinet, and a plethora of percussive objects both musical and mundane. An intriguing and really rather lovely record.
fRoots Magazine
'...effortlessly authentic/heartfelt songwriting & next level far out musicianship. A true artist. With every LP her life experience possesses and enchants her music, stirring further its ever inspiring melting-pot of ideas.'
Julian Peck, Sunday Best
'Rachael Dadd is our most celebrated female artist on Folk Radio UK. Her 4th LP sees her revelling in untrodden ground alongside fellow leftfield folk guests as she combines pop with experimentation bringing both excitement and surprise.'
FRUK
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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This Is The Kit
The Citadel, York
Sunday 14th March, 7.30pm
This is The Kit are pleased to announce their new album ‘Off Off On’ which will be released by Rough Trade Records on October 23.10.2020. This is the fifth album by the band and is the follow up to 2017 critically acclaimed album ‘Moonshine Freeze’.
Kate Stables decided to work on the new record with producer Josh Kaufman, New York-based musician, Hold Steady collaborator and member of Bonny Light Horseman and Muzz. Stables first met him when working with Anaïs Mitchell on a cover of the Osibisa song Woyaya, their paths later crossing at the PEOPLE residencies in Berlin and Brooklyn.
“We were on the same page about a lot of musical ideas, as well as doing things I wouldn’t do musically. It was a lovely mixture of ‘you’re exactly in my brain and exactly at the opposite end of my brain.’” After the band – completed by Rozi Plain (bass/vocals), Neil Smith (guitar), Jesse D Vernon (guitar, keyboards), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drum/vox), – reunited for the cold-water rehearsals in Wales, they headed to Wiltshire’s Real World Studios, just finishing in time for everyone to get home for lockdown.
Kate explains the meaning behind the song ‘This Is What You Did’ “It’s a bit of a panic attack song. The negative voices of other people that are you’re own voice. Or are they? Hard to say when you’re in this kind of a place. How to get out of this place? Needing to get outside more. Cosmically topical what with these recent days of inside all the time. Knowing the things, you should do because they’re good for you and make you feel better but for some reason you still stay inside and fester in your own self-doubt and regret and self-loathing. Fun times! We all get into negative mind loops sometimes. Especially when you’re not getting the fresh air and outside time you need to stay healthy.”
Watch / Watch / Watch
Since 2008’s debut album Krulle Bol, This Is the Kit have unpicked emotional knots and woven remarkable stories, but even by their high standards, Off Off On is a beautifully clear distillation of Stables’ song-writing gifts. By the end of 2018, This Is the Kit had finished touring their last album, the talismanic Moonshine Freeze, but Stables’ natural impulse to start the next record was diverted when she was invited to join The National on tour – a continuation of the role she took on their album I Am Easy to Find.
“I think it did me loads of good,” laughs Stables. “It was so brilliant when I was writing to be away from my songs and the responsibility of overseeing a band or a project - just to forget about that for a while and be a minion in someone else’s band was brilliant, I loved it. I think it really helped my writing and my getting through whatever I needed to get through.”
Kate Stables decided to work on the new record with producer Josh Kaufman, New York-based musician, Hold Steady collaborator and member of Bonny Light Horseman and Muzz. Stables first met him when working with Anaïs Mitchell on a cover of the Osibisa song Woyaya, their paths later crossing at the PEOPLE residencies in Berlin and Brooklyn.
“We were on the same page about a lot of musical ideas, as well as doing things I wouldn’t do musically. It was a lovely mixture of ‘you’re exactly in my brain and exactly at the opposite end of my brain.’” After the band – completed by Rozi Plain (bass/vocals), Neil Smith (guitar), Jesse D Vernon (guitar, keyboards), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drum/vox), – reunited for the cold-water rehearsals in Wales, they headed to Wiltshire’s Real World Studios, just finishing in time for everyone to get home for lockdown.
Kate explains the meaning behind the song ‘This Is What You Did’ “It’s a bit of a panic attack song. The negative voices of other people that are you’re own voice. Or are they? Hard to say when you’re in this kind of a place. How to get out of this place? Needing to get outside more. Cosmically topical what with these recent days of inside all the time. Knowing the things, you should do because they’re good for you and make you feel better but for some reason you still stay inside and fester in your own self-doubt and regret and self-loathing. Fun times! We all get into negative mind loops sometimes. Especially when you’re not getting the fresh air and outside time you need to stay healthy.”
Watch / Watch / Watch
Since 2008’s debut album Krulle Bol, This Is the Kit have unpicked emotional knots and woven remarkable stories, but even by their high standards, Off Off On is a beautifully clear distillation of Stables’ song-writing gifts. By the end of 2018, This Is the Kit had finished touring their last album, the talismanic Moonshine Freeze, but Stables’ natural impulse to start the next record was diverted when she was invited to join The National on tour – a continuation of the role she took on their album I Am Easy to Find.
“I think it did me loads of good,” laughs Stables. “It was so brilliant when I was writing to be away from my songs and the responsibility of overseeing a band or a project - just to forget about that for a while and be a minion in someone else’s band was brilliant, I loved it. I think it really helped my writing and my getting through whatever I needed to get through.”
Tickets for this show are £18 in advance.
You can get tickets via the artist's pre-sale here.
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You can get tickets via the artist's pre-sale here.
__________________________________________________
Ren Harvieu
The Crescent, York
Friday 26th March, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
Ren Harvieu is back with new album Revel In The Drama, due 3rd April via Bella Union and will appear at The Crescent in May.
The album is a brilliant and bolder take on her timeless pop classicism, a compelling diary of a struggle with self-belief and a celebration of liberation and survival, seven years after her Top 5 debut album and having overcome a life-threatening injury. Think of Revel In The Drama as Harvieu’s second debut album; a new beginning.
The album was co-produced by Romeo Stoddart (Magic Numbers) and he'll joined on stage by band mate and sister, Michele Stoddart, as part of Ren's 5-piece band.
Watch / Watch / Listen
Press:
'Harvieu is the kind of Salford lass you can imagine a young Morrissey raving about… a fully formed star.'
The Guardian
'Accessibly sumptuous…between easy-listening seductress and torch-song belter, her voice is soulful and dreamy with just a tang of something muskier in its sweetness.'
The Daily Telegraph
'Hers is an arresting voice, soft and sweet, but dark in hue and sharp with melancholy, like a vinegar smoothie.'
NME
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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Mr Ben & The Bens
The Fulford Arms, York
Saturday 3rd April, 7.30pm
A team effort with our friends at Safe Suburban Home Records and Bingo Records to bring Lancaster DIY pop-stars Mr Ben & The Bens to York for the first time in September!
Born as a recording project in a barn in Northern Lancashire in 2012, Ben Hall recorded and self released 10 albums under the guise of a naively drawn character 'Mr Ben'. After releasing the sellout split EP on Bingo Records in 2017 the side project now turned live outfit with their first gig actually happening live on BBC Radio 6. After releasing two more sellout records with Bingo and numerous UK tours the 4 piece are known for their captivating, costume clad, joyous, pop performances. Mr Ben & the Bens sound like they were baptised in water from the church of indie classics, the songs of the Lancaster Polymath echo Belle & Sebastian, Teleman, & Gorkys Zygotic Mynci his genuinely original modern songwriting.
After the celestial adventures of Mr Ben and the Bens’ previous issue, band-leader Ben Hall finds all the magic he needs on earth with his new album, Life Drawing, released in July 2020 via Bella Union. On 2019’s Who Knows Jenny Jones?, Hall plotted the story of a young, shy Pitsmoor woman who returned from an alien encounter newly armed with serious disco-dancing know-how. Life Drawing, meanwhile, looks closer to home for its inspiration – Sheffield and thereabouts – for twelve brightly plaintive, character-driven vignettes, set to warm, acoustic, indie-folk-pop backdrops after its predecessor’s close encounters of the synth-driven kind.
A “cloudy thread of narrative” is present, Hall explains, but this time it’s left open for listeners to map routes through it. “The idea with the title is that the songs are character sketches, and their stories coalesce in a place that has a bit of all the towns in the North of England I’ve lived in. Bits of myself in the stories came out unintentionally, so I’d like it if the listener could find those semi-truths from the songs and place them into their own experiences.”
The band have shared a video for first single “Beast In The House” which can be viewed HERE.
Of the video Ben Hall says: “Beast in the House deals with the theme of an ostracised individual in a community through no fault of their own. For the film we decided to explore the idea of a witch hunt but with a slightly warped narrative - an angry medieval mob was amassed from our closest friends. The group are driven mad by mass hysteria and the focus of the narrative is towards the ridiculousness of their journey to single out individuals within their community, for something as trivial as an insect bite (whilst recording the album last summer I was actually suffering the effects of Lyme disease). We juxtapose their story with the serene day to day life of a woman who is unknowingly about to be hunted.”
Watch / Watch / Listen
Press:
‘Delightful pop melancholy, at at the forefront of individual Northern creative talents’
★★★★★ Narc Magazine
'Shimmering with jangling optimism'
Piccadilly Records
'Perfect pop, record of the week'
BBC 6 music, Marc Riley
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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Pictish Trail
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Saturday 3rd April, 2021, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
Genius weirdness from the Lost Map head-honcho as a new album has him getting the band back together to celebrate.
Watch / Watch
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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Penelope Isles
The Fulford Arms, York
Wednesday 7th April, 7.30pm
One of our fave current live bands, Penelope Isles return to York! Now in April 2021.
Watch / Watch / Watch / Listen
Like breaking open a rock to discover a crystal inside. Shimmering, intimate and beautifully destructive, this is the experience of Penelope Isles. Siblings Jack and Lily Wolter make music that reveals a curiosity and sensitivity to the world around them. The four-piece band from Brighton via the Isle of Man have a sound that unfolds both dramatically and softly. Nostalgic, but undeniably new, Penelope Isles’ debut LP ‘Until The Tide Creeps In’ is released March 2019 on Bella Union Records. For the lovers of early Arcade Fire, Grandaddy and Mogwai.
'Until The Tide Creeps In is a record totally out of step with any modern music scene, and all the more timeless and special for it.'
DIY Magazine
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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Grace Petrie
The Crescent, York
Sunday 11th April
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
**THIS IS A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
‘She writes the sort of songs you want to pin the lyrics of on your bedroom wall, or on the office door, to remind you and everyone else who might read them what is important and true’
Buzz Magazine
‘”Hello,” said Grace Petrie sweetly. “I’m a protest singer.” Murmurs of approval. “Actually I’m a socialist, feminist, lesbian, left wing protest singer…” The place erupted.’
The first lines of The Guardian review of Cambridge Folk Festival 2017
Watch / Watch / Watch
A folk singer, songwriter and activist from Leicester, UK, she has been writing, recording and touring relentlessly for ten years. Her unique takes on life, love and politics, and the warmth and wit with which they are delivered, have won over audiences everywhere, across the alternative, folk, political and comedy scenes.
She has racked up tour supports with Emmy the Great and Billy Bragg, and in 2019 supported Frank Turner on his UK arena tour. She has made her mark in the comedy scene regularly supporting comedians Robin Ince and Josie Long on tour and she has also collaborated with some of the most respected names in folk, including Leon Rosselson, Roy Bailey and Peggy Seeger. She regularly tours sold out shows across the UK and has appeared at an eclectic genre-crossing mix of festivals Latitude, Musicport, Blissfields, Shrewsbury Folk Festival, Greenbelt, Cambridge Folk Festival and in 2019 played The Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury Festival.
Through all of this she has quietly become one of the most respected songwriters working in the UK today. She has been a frequent guest on BBC Radio 4’s the Now Show, has appeared on Channel 4’s Random Acts and has been featured in The Guardian, Diva Magazine and The Independent On Sunday and in 2019 is nominated as Musician Of The Year in the Diva Awards.
In May 2018 a Kickstarter campaign for her first full studio album, after five previous available-at-gig-only albums. She raised £10,000 in just 24 hours and went on to achieve £18.000 in the two week campaign. The album, ‘Queer As Folk’, was released in September 2018 and has gone on to be named a top 10 Folk Album of 2018 by Mojo magazine.
Press:
‘She offers hope and solidarity, born out of absolute conviction and with no trace of empty sloganeering….this wake-up call is one to be both welcomed and wholeheartedly embraced.’
fRoots
‘Petrie has delivered a personal and political statement of the highest quality in a magnificent tradition.’
Morning Star
‘An album of personal and political power, passion and perception, it is hugely persuasive proof that Petrie most deservedly earns her place at the table.’
Folk Radio
‘She’s the urgent, pulsing, compassionate talent this world desperately needs.’
Deborah Frances-White writing in The Observer
‘Probably the most intelligently crafted album you’ll hear this year’
****R2
‘Just when you thought that what folk music needs right now is a strident left-wing female causing a bit of carnage, here’s Grace Petrie.’
**** Mojo
Tickets for this show are £14 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
__________________________________________________
Nadia Reid
Aoife Nessa Frances
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Monday 12th April, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
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.
Watch / Watch / Watch
“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.
Very wonderful Irish singer Aoife Nessa Frances is opening this show too which we're excited about. Her album on BaDaBing at the beginning of the year was wicked and you can check it out here.
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.
__________________________________________________
Native Harrow
The Basement, York
Saturday 24th April, 8pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
“I dug myself out from the well to make Closeness a record about love”, professes Devin Tuel, from the Eastern Pennsylvania home she shares with her partner, Stephen Harms. Together the two make up the folk rock outfit, Native Harrow. “When I sat down to begin what would become Closeness I felt that above all, I wanted to make it clear that, while the clock is moving, we can hold onto one another and maybe there will be tears but there will also be laughter.”
Watch / Watch / Watch
Closeness, the fourth LP from Native Harrow, exists at the intersection of two winding roads; time and motion. The album opens like the shot of a cannon with “Shake”, a rocking confessional about riding anxiety’s elevator. If this is any indication of where the band have been since last we heard from them (2019’s, Happier Now), time has moved on and with it life has evolved and unfolded.
Time moves away, takes what it can carry ... I have seen how it ends, thru the edges of time ... Time turns away so quickly, quiet as it goes ... It’s the same every time ... Time’s gonna get harder but you’ve gotta carry on ... Watch the weeks go by, my how the years have gone by ... I can’t quiet my head of the sounds of time rolling by ... From the winding years, there is a season for all to unfold ... Time moves forward, and I gave up that chase.
Today, the band are reflecting on not only this new record but how now, months after its recording wrapped, it feels ever prescient. Tuel takes us back to when she was writing the album and the early days of Closeness’ conception, “For this record I really wanted to tell stories. Our stories from the last two years, from the weeks leading up to recording, tales from other lifetimes, and stories from where I fear this world is heading.”
When it came time to record the songs, the band decamped to Reliable Recorders in Chicago, IL to once again work with drummer and engineer, Alex Hall. The 10 tracks of Closeness were recorded over two sessions; three December days in the dying light of 2019 and the first three new days of January 2020. Similar to the process of making Happier Now, the sessions were firstly focused on documenting trio performances that captured Tuel’s master vocal takes live in the room, guitar in hand, with Harms on bass and Hall on drums.
Closeness elaborates on the group’s radiant warmth and timeless nostalgia with the inclusion of new sounds and experiences. The combustible fuzz-driven opener “Shake” gives way to slices of 70s FM groove (“The Dying of Ages” and the desert funk of “If I Could”), 60s art pop (“Even Peace” and the expansive orchestral “Sun Queen”), and the kind of graceful folk (“Smoke Burns”) and folk soul (the compassionate conviction of “Carry On”) the band is best known for. The intricate polyrhythms and grinding Moog synthesizer (“Same Every Time”), the fully realized vintage jazz combo (“Turn Turn”), and the exquisite piano ballad (the penultimate “Feeling Blue”) provide glimpses down previously unexplored streets and find the band stretching out and confidently illuminating their expansive aspirations.
Press:
'exquisite. expect forays into desert funk, warm ‘70s groove, jazz and piano balladry.'
Uncut Magazine
'Laurel Canyon-style folk rock with shades of Joni Mitchell'
★★★★ - The Times
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.
__________________________________________________
The Crescent, York
Sunday 11th April
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
‘She writes the sort of songs you want to pin the lyrics of on your bedroom wall, or on the office door, to remind you and everyone else who might read them what is important and true’
Buzz Magazine
‘”Hello,” said Grace Petrie sweetly. “I’m a protest singer.” Murmurs of approval. “Actually I’m a socialist, feminist, lesbian, left wing protest singer…” The place erupted.’
The first lines of The Guardian review of Cambridge Folk Festival 2017
Watch / Watch / Watch
A folk singer, songwriter and activist from Leicester, UK, she has been writing, recording and touring relentlessly for ten years. Her unique takes on life, love and politics, and the warmth and wit with which they are delivered, have won over audiences everywhere, across the alternative, folk, political and comedy scenes.
She has racked up tour supports with Emmy the Great and Billy Bragg, and in 2019 supported Frank Turner on his UK arena tour. She has made her mark in the comedy scene regularly supporting comedians Robin Ince and Josie Long on tour and she has also collaborated with some of the most respected names in folk, including Leon Rosselson, Roy Bailey and Peggy Seeger. She regularly tours sold out shows across the UK and has appeared at an eclectic genre-crossing mix of festivals Latitude, Musicport, Blissfields, Shrewsbury Folk Festival, Greenbelt, Cambridge Folk Festival and in 2019 played The Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury Festival.
Through all of this she has quietly become one of the most respected songwriters working in the UK today. She has been a frequent guest on BBC Radio 4’s the Now Show, has appeared on Channel 4’s Random Acts and has been featured in The Guardian, Diva Magazine and The Independent On Sunday and in 2019 is nominated as Musician Of The Year in the Diva Awards.
In May 2018 a Kickstarter campaign for her first full studio album, after five previous available-at-gig-only albums. She raised £10,000 in just 24 hours and went on to achieve £18.000 in the two week campaign. The album, ‘Queer As Folk’, was released in September 2018 and has gone on to be named a top 10 Folk Album of 2018 by Mojo magazine.
Press:
‘She offers hope and solidarity, born out of absolute conviction and with no trace of empty sloganeering….this wake-up call is one to be both welcomed and wholeheartedly embraced.’
fRoots
‘Petrie has delivered a personal and political statement of the highest quality in a magnificent tradition.’
Morning Star
‘An album of personal and political power, passion and perception, it is hugely persuasive proof that Petrie most deservedly earns her place at the table.’
Folk Radio
‘She’s the urgent, pulsing, compassionate talent this world desperately needs.’
Deborah Frances-White writing in The Observer
‘Probably the most intelligently crafted album you’ll hear this year’
****R2
‘Just when you thought that what folk music needs right now is a strident left-wing female causing a bit of carnage, here’s Grace Petrie.’
**** Mojo
Tickets for this show are £14 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
__________________________________________________
Nadia Reid
Aoife Nessa Frances
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Monday 12th April, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
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.
Watch / Watch / Watch
“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.
Very wonderful Irish singer Aoife Nessa Frances is opening this show too which we're excited about. Her album on BaDaBing at the beginning of the year was wicked and you can check it out here.
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.
__________________________________________________
Native Harrow
The Basement, York
Saturday 24th April, 8pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
“I dug myself out from the well to make Closeness a record about love”, professes Devin Tuel, from the Eastern Pennsylvania home she shares with her partner, Stephen Harms. Together the two make up the folk rock outfit, Native Harrow. “When I sat down to begin what would become Closeness I felt that above all, I wanted to make it clear that, while the clock is moving, we can hold onto one another and maybe there will be tears but there will also be laughter.”
Watch / Watch / Watch
Closeness, the fourth LP from Native Harrow, exists at the intersection of two winding roads; time and motion. The album opens like the shot of a cannon with “Shake”, a rocking confessional about riding anxiety’s elevator. If this is any indication of where the band have been since last we heard from them (2019’s, Happier Now), time has moved on and with it life has evolved and unfolded.
Time moves away, takes what it can carry ... I have seen how it ends, thru the edges of time ... Time turns away so quickly, quiet as it goes ... It’s the same every time ... Time’s gonna get harder but you’ve gotta carry on ... Watch the weeks go by, my how the years have gone by ... I can’t quiet my head of the sounds of time rolling by ... From the winding years, there is a season for all to unfold ... Time moves forward, and I gave up that chase.
Today, the band are reflecting on not only this new record but how now, months after its recording wrapped, it feels ever prescient. Tuel takes us back to when she was writing the album and the early days of Closeness’ conception, “For this record I really wanted to tell stories. Our stories from the last two years, from the weeks leading up to recording, tales from other lifetimes, and stories from where I fear this world is heading.”
When it came time to record the songs, the band decamped to Reliable Recorders in Chicago, IL to once again work with drummer and engineer, Alex Hall. The 10 tracks of Closeness were recorded over two sessions; three December days in the dying light of 2019 and the first three new days of January 2020. Similar to the process of making Happier Now, the sessions were firstly focused on documenting trio performances that captured Tuel’s master vocal takes live in the room, guitar in hand, with Harms on bass and Hall on drums.
Closeness elaborates on the group’s radiant warmth and timeless nostalgia with the inclusion of new sounds and experiences. The combustible fuzz-driven opener “Shake” gives way to slices of 70s FM groove (“The Dying of Ages” and the desert funk of “If I Could”), 60s art pop (“Even Peace” and the expansive orchestral “Sun Queen”), and the kind of graceful folk (“Smoke Burns”) and folk soul (the compassionate conviction of “Carry On”) the band is best known for. The intricate polyrhythms and grinding Moog synthesizer (“Same Every Time”), the fully realized vintage jazz combo (“Turn Turn”), and the exquisite piano ballad (the penultimate “Feeling Blue”) provide glimpses down previously unexplored streets and find the band stretching out and confidently illuminating their expansive aspirations.
Press:
'exquisite. expect forays into desert funk, warm ‘70s groove, jazz and piano balladry.'
Uncut Magazine
'Laurel Canyon-style folk rock with shades of Joni Mitchell'
★★★★ - The Times
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.
__________________________________________________
The Crescent, York
Thursday 29th April, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
Watch / Watch / Watch / Watch
Willie J Healey operates within his own lane. This is a musician who can write about any topic that grabs his attention: from wry observationals and the innocence of young love, through to gothic visitations from the devil and alien abductions. He’s unconstrained by genre, moving at will between scrappy garage-rock, evocative Americana and sumptuous psychedelia. And it's all his own work, the product of obsessively writing song after song in his studio/garage/bedroom.
As an unconventional musician, it’s little surprise that he’s an unorthodox character too. On social media, he comes across as easy-going and carefree. In person, he’s unguarded, considered and immediately friendly. It’s unfathomable to imagine him being angry, but he’s adamant that he’ll do anything to protect his creative integrity, much like his hero Neil Young. He’s a curious mix between a young man with the world at his feet and an old soul.
As such, it makes perfect sense that he puts a contemporary filter on timeless ‘70s-flavoured sounds. It’s all there in his forthcoming EP ‘Hello Good Morning’ and his new album that will follow next year. It continues his relationship with new music champions YALA! Records, who released his previous EP ‘666 Kill’ in 2018.
Willie’s story both starts and continues in the sleeping working class town of Carterton. “I call it the armpit of Oxfordshire,” he jokes, “but it’s my armpit and I love it.” Music wasn't his immediate calling. Instead, his father encouraged him to try his hand at boxing. As Willie deadpans, “As a young ginger unconfident child, we thought it wasn’t such a bad idea for me to do something that might build my confidence.”
Boxing evolved into the first long-term obsession of his life. He trained Monday to Friday from the ages of ten to seventeen, competing in 42 amateur bouts. “Boxing used to scare the hell out of me the whole time,” he admits. “For a lot of boxers it’s scary. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. It was an obsession and I loved the routine of it as well.”
The turning point came when a careers advisor suggested - for surely the first time in history - that music could be a better option. “For me music was a break from boxing. It was my little secret.”
Willie hung up his gloves and embarked upon a music diploma. Giving up his long-term training schedule was scary because he suddenly had so much free time. His approach to music was “self-taught, trundling along, swinging in the dark and working it out.” He completed the course, and then joined his dad as an “appalling” plasterer’s assistant until an opportunity in music arose.
Although he briefly lost sight of that goal, he got there in the end. A self-released EP resulted in him signing a deal with Columbia. He made ‘People and Their Dogs’, an album that he’s immensely proud of. It also helped him fulfill another dream when he had the opportunity to mix it at the Wilco Loft in Chicago.
The end of that deal was “sobering and insignificant.” He carried on doing what he was going to do regardless - writing at home in the garage. Unsure of his next step, Willie challenged himself to write and record an EP within a week. Lacking the finances to call on a full backing band, he played almost every instrument himself. The result was the gothic-tinged Americana of the ‘666 Kill’ EP, which was released by Felix White’s YALA! Records.
As new songs progressed, Willie delved further into his own experiences. But escaping the garage was also important. He’d relax in a local cafe, wait next to morning commuters at the train station and sit alone in the cinema - all with a notepad in hand to document any interesting details or snippets of conversation that he overheard. “I turned into a creep for a while,” he smiles self-deprecatingly. “People must've thought I was writing a to-do list.”
Willie soon demoed a wealth of material and was then introduced to Loren Humphrey - at various points drummer for The Last Shadow Puppets, Florence + The Machine, Tame Impala and Lana Del Ray as well as a producer. Loren landed in London, fresh from a world tour, and spent a couple of days staying at the Healey family home as the duo worked on pre-production.
He made an immediate impression on Willie and you feel that they share an unlikely bromance. The pair stood out in the village: Loren looking like “he’d stepped out of a time machine from a ‘70s episode of Top of the Pops” and towering over Willie, whose style is more American tradesman than suave superstar.
They then headed to the Echo Zoo studio in Eastbourne with a hectic plan of recording fifteen songs in nine days. Recording live to tape was an indulgence, but one which enabled them to embrace a particular mindset. For example, the slow motion agony of waiting for a tape to rewind left Willie with the anticipation that he had to get the next take right. It fitted Loren’s purist approach, while Willie was happy to focus on playing rather than having to do everything himself.
Those sessions yielded both the album and the ‘Hello Good Morning’ EP. Lead track ‘Songs For Johanna’ takes Willie’s pop nous to new heights, as if YALA! labelmates The Magic Gang teamed up with Elvis Costello. It’s a snappy tale of age-old teen dilemmas: love triangles, confused sexual identity and unrequited passions.
The idea, says Willie, came from his ability to tap back into that angst. “There’s so much confusion and all these emotions. Friends and family tell you that it’s all insignificant, but you don’t know that until you’re through it. Everything will pass.”
The rest of the EP also pulsates with his freewheeling, out-of-time approach. Inspired by John Lennon’s ‘Gimme Some Truth’, ‘Polyphonic Love’ is a bluesy/grunge hybrid - a simple plea to simplify life and leave the creativity to Willie. It’s followed by his purest love song to date, the Tame Impala meets ELO slow jam ‘For You’ and the rousing orchestration of the Brian Wilson-flavoured ‘Thousand Reasons’.
It tees Willie up to finally make the impact that his prodigious talents deserve. But what does he consider success to be?
“With boxing the goal was clear - I want to win. But with music, how do you define winning? If you never play a gig but sit at home each night playing guitar and it makes you happy, in my book you’ve won.”
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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BC Camplight
The Social, Hull
Friday 30th April, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
BC Camplight celebrate the release of new album 'Shortly After Takeoff' with a short tour in the spring including this show for us at The Welly in Hull.
“This is an examination of madness and loss,” says Brian Christinzio, the inimitable force behind BC Camplight. “I hope it starts a long overdue conversation.”
Fired by his ongoing battle with mental illness, Shortly After Takeoff is the final, and finest, chapter of what Christinzio calls his “Manchester Trilogy”, following 2015’s “How To Die In The North” and 2018’s “Deportation Blues”. All three albums were created after the native Philadelphian had moved to Manchester. Like Deportation Blues, Shortly After Takeoff spans singer-songwriter classicism, gnarly synth-pop and ‘50s rock’n’roll, with Christinzio’s similarly distinctive, flexible vocal carrying a fearless approach to lyrical introspection, but the new album is a major leap forward in songwriting sophistication and lyrical communication.
“It’s important to stress that this isn’t a redemption story,” he says. “I'm a guy who maybe lives a little hard and I’m in the thick of some heavy stuff. But as a result, I think I've made my best record.”
Watch / Watch
Tickets for this show are £15 in advance.
You can get tickets online from here.
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Katy J Pearson
The Fulford Arms, York
Monday 3rd May, 7.30pm
It isn’t especially obvious which year you fell asleep in, nor which one you’re moving through in dreamland, but two things are for sure: you’re definitely asleep, and you definitely won’t be getting much further in this beat up, broken down Mustang.
The Fulford Arms, York
Monday 3rd May, 7.30pm
It isn’t especially obvious which year you fell asleep in, nor which one you’re moving through in dreamland, but two things are for sure: you’re definitely asleep, and you definitely won’t be getting much further in this beat up, broken down Mustang.
You’ve seen enough low-rent Westerns to know that a swing-doored, spit-and-sawdust bar waits for you somewhere off in the shimmering heat lines of the horizon. Inside, a sublime voice — stardust and moonshine, perhaps pressed into the wax five decades ago, or perhaps only last week — wafts from a jukebox grille, regaling you with tales of tight hearts, needles in haystacks, cloudy night skies, minor miracles, rodeo kings and bolted horses. You don’t know it yet, but the orator of these tales is Katy J Pearson, and the songs which soundtrack your hazy, slumber-induced solitude are those of her debut album, Return.
Back in the realm of the roused, Return symbolises the re-entry of Pearson into music-making after a previous, collaborative project with her brother fell foul of the pressures of a major label record deal. “I didn’t write for about seven months”, Pearson reflects. “I was just like nope, I’m gunna become a gardener, this isn’t happening. Return is about the whole experience of beginning to enjoy writing again, really”. Over the course of two-and-a-half years, between her parents’ house in Gloucestershire, her Bristol bedroom, and nearby community arts space The Island, Pearson honed her craft as a solo artist, learning to rely on her creative instincts, and bringing forth an album just as shaped by the South-West of England as the rich musical history of America’s Southern States. Consequently, she says, “these are the most honest and proper songs I’ve written; songs that have come from my own being, rather than a room with a guy prodding me to tell a traumatic story of my life and then write about it”.
The songs were strengthened and evolved in a live setting — including in support of Olden Yolk and Cass McCombs on their respective UK and European tours — before being taken to the studio of producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, M. Ward, Perfume Genius, Gruff Rhys), where they were captured in their final form. The result is a jewel in the dirt by the side of the highway; ten songs which slide effortlessly between lovelorn country, lo-fi folk and glistening, unforgettable pop.
Wheedling strings and warm brass herald album opener ‘Tonight’, a classic tale of girl-meets-boy-on-the-dancefloor. Sleek, country-inflected ballads (‘Beautiful Soul’, ‘Hey You’, ‘Something Real’) bleed into sparse acoustic heartwrenders like ‘Return’, which chronicles Pearson’s journey to the brink of her art and back again (I’ve been waiting to return, and tell you what I’ve learned…I’ve changed she sings, against backing vocals which boast all the quiet splendour of a Sufjan Stevens arrangement).
On ‘Miracle’, mechanical drum beats and synths are perfectly counterbalanced with baroque incidentals and pastoral imagery— think Stevie Nicks taking a dip in a West Country river — whilst on ‘Take Back the Radio’, Pearson basks in the sun in an open-top car, dashboard stereo blaring her triumphant return to the airwaves — subsequently a 4-week fixture on the playlist at BBC 6 Music. ‘On the Road’ is similarly celebratory of a fortune back on track, whilst album closer ‘Waiting for the Day’, a stripped-back, longing acoustic number, showcases the sheer beauty of Pearson’s voice, conjuring a campfireside recital under the stars. And nowhere is Pearson’s talent more sparkling than on lead single ‘Fix Me Up’ — an unbelievably hooky country-pop crescendo about wishing for salvation, but ultimately working things out on your own, written at the peak of her creative tumult. “When I wrote it, I thought: this feels special, and I’m normally extremely self-critical”, she says. “But with this one I was like woah, this is one of the best things I’ve written, ever. I didn’t wanna just throw it out when no-one would hear it — I’ve sat on it for three years basically, but it’s been worth the wait.”
And so, with the release of Return, the clouds are finally parting on a talent which has long nurtured itself in the grey. Katy J Pearson drives out from the murk on full beam: songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, and without doubt, the one behind the wheel.
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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Wheedling strings and warm brass herald album opener ‘Tonight’, a classic tale of girl-meets-boy-on-the-dancefloor. Sleek, country-inflected ballads (‘Beautiful Soul’, ‘Hey You’, ‘Something Real’) bleed into sparse acoustic heartwrenders like ‘Return’, which chronicles Pearson’s journey to the brink of her art and back again (I’ve been waiting to return, and tell you what I’ve learned…I’ve changed she sings, against backing vocals which boast all the quiet splendour of a Sufjan Stevens arrangement).
On ‘Miracle’, mechanical drum beats and synths are perfectly counterbalanced with baroque incidentals and pastoral imagery— think Stevie Nicks taking a dip in a West Country river — whilst on ‘Take Back the Radio’, Pearson basks in the sun in an open-top car, dashboard stereo blaring her triumphant return to the airwaves — subsequently a 4-week fixture on the playlist at BBC 6 Music. ‘On the Road’ is similarly celebratory of a fortune back on track, whilst album closer ‘Waiting for the Day’, a stripped-back, longing acoustic number, showcases the sheer beauty of Pearson’s voice, conjuring a campfireside recital under the stars. And nowhere is Pearson’s talent more sparkling than on lead single ‘Fix Me Up’ — an unbelievably hooky country-pop crescendo about wishing for salvation, but ultimately working things out on your own, written at the peak of her creative tumult. “When I wrote it, I thought: this feels special, and I’m normally extremely self-critical”, she says. “But with this one I was like woah, this is one of the best things I’ve written, ever. I didn’t wanna just throw it out when no-one would hear it — I’ve sat on it for three years basically, but it’s been worth the wait.”
And so, with the release of Return, the clouds are finally parting on a talent which has long nurtured itself in the grey. Katy J Pearson drives out from the murk on full beam: songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, and without doubt, the one behind the wheel.
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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Jake Xerxes Fussell
The Basement, York
Tuesday 11th May, 8pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
Durham, North Carolina singer and guitarist Jake Xerxes Fussell (yes, that’s his real middle name, after Georgia potter D.X. Gordy) grew up in Columbus, Georgia, son of Fred C. Fussell, a folklorist, curator, and photographer who hails from across the river in Phenix City, Alabama (once known as “The Wickedest City in America” for its rampant vice, corruption, and crime.) Fred’s fieldwork took him, often with young Jake in tow, across the Southeast documenting traditional vernacular culture, which included recording blues and old-time musicians with fellow folklorists and recordists George Mitchell and Art Rosenbaum (which led Jake to music) and collaborating with American Indian artists (which led Jake eventually to his graduate research on Choctaw fiddlers.)
As a teenager Jake began playing and studying with elder musicians in the Chattahoochee Valley, apprenticing with Piedmont blues legend Precious Bryant, with whom he toured and recorded, and riding wild with Alabama bluesman, black rodeo rider, rye whiskey distiller, and master dowser George Daniel. He joined a Phenix City country band who were students of Jimmie Tarlton of Darby and Tarlton; he accompanied Etta Baker in North Carolina; he moved to Berkeley, where he hung with genius documentary filmmaker Les Blank and learned from Haight folkies like Will Scarlett (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Brownie McGhee) and cult fingerstyle guitarist Steve Mann; he appeared on A Prairie Home Companion. He did a whole lot of listening, gradually honing his prodigious guitar skills, singing, and repertoire. In 2005 he moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where he enrolled in the Southern Studies department at Ole Miss, recorded and toured with Rev. John Wilkins, and in 2014, began recording his first solo album.
Jake’s 2015 self-titled debut record, produced by and featuring William Tyler, transmutes ten arcane folk and blues tunes into vibey cosmic laments and crooked riverine rambles. Collaborating with Tyler and engineer Mark Nevers in Nashville was a conscious decision to depart cloistered trad scenes and sonics for broader, more oblique horizons. Tyler, a guitar virtuoso known for his own compositions that untether and reframe traditional six-string forms and techniques, helmed the push boat in inimitable fashion, enlisting crack(ed) Nashville session vets Chris Scruggs (lap steel, bass, mandolin: Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Marty Stuart), Brian Kotzur (drums: Silver Jews), and Hoot Hester (fiddle; Bill Monroe, Ray Charles) to crew.
In 2017 Fussell followed his celebrated self-titled debut with a moving new album of Natural Questions in the form of transmogrified folk/blues koans. This time these radiant ancient tunes tone several shades darker while amplifying their absurdist humor, illuminating our national, and psychic, predicaments. What in the Natural World features art by iconic painter Roger Brown and contributions from three notable Nathans—Nathan Bowles (Steve Gunn), Nathan Salsburg (Alan Lomax Archive), and Nathan Golub (Mountain Goats)—as well as Joan Shelley and Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah).
On Out of Sight, his third and most finely wrought album yet, guitarist, singer, and master interpreter Fussell is joined for the first time by a full band featuring Nathan Bowles (drums), Casey Toll (bass), Nathan Golub (pedal steel), Libby Rodenbough (violin, vocals), and James Anthony Wallace (piano, organ). An utterly transporting selection of traditional narrative folksongs addressing the troubles and delights of love, work, and wine (i.e., the things that matter), collected from a myriad of obscure sources and deftly metamorphosed, Out of Sight contains, among other moving curiosities, a fishmonger’s cry that sounds like an astral lament (“The River St. Johns”); a cotton mill tune that humorously explores the unknown terrain of death and memory (“Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues”); and a fishermen’s shanty/gospel song equally concerned with terrestrial boozing and heavenly transcendence (“Drinking of the Wine”).
Watch / Watch / Watch
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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Sunday 16th May, 7.30pm
Hull/Leeds based five-piece bdrmm release their much anticipated debut 'Bedroom' on July 3, via Sonic Cathedral.
The 10-track album was recorded late last year at The Nave studio in Leeds by Alex Greaves (Working Mens Club, Bo Ningen) and mastered in Brooklyn by Heba Kadry (Slowdive, Beach House).
It’s a hugely accomplished debut and a real step up both sonically and lyrically from their early singles, which were rounded up on last year’s If Not, When? EP. Musically, there are nods to The Cure’s Disintegration, Deerhunter and DIIV, while the band reference RIDE and Radiohead. There are also echoes of krautrock and post-punk, from The Chameleons to Protomartyr, plus the proto-shoegaze of the Pale Saints’ The Comforts Of Madness, not least in the cross-fading of some tracks, meaning the album is an almost seamless listen.
Listen / Watch / Listen
As a result, Bedroom becomes an unexpected and unintentional concept album, running through the different stages of a break-up set against the backdrop of the ups and downs of your early twenties. “The subject matter spans mental health, alcohol abuse, unplanned pregnancy, drugs… basically every cliché topic that you could think of,” reveals frontman Ryan Smith. “But that doesn’t mean they ever stop being relevant. It’s a fucker growing up, but I’m lucky enough to have been able to project my feelings in the form of this band, surrounded by four of the best people I’ve ever met.”
And that band name, in case it needs explaining, is pronounced the same way as the album title. “I never thought I’d get to the stage where I would have to explain it so much,” says Ryan. “We have been pronounced as Boredom, Bdum and my old boss actually thought we were a ska band called Bad Riddim. We’re all sarcastic cunts, so Bedroom spelt correctly seemed like the perfect title.”
He’s right. The perfect title for the perfect debut album.
bdrmm – from bedroom to Bedroom
Inspired to write and record a track in his bedroom after hearing Washed Out’s ‘Feel It All Around’ back in 2016, bdrmm frontman Ryan Smith decided to hastily form a band after the resulting demo got picked up and played by BBC Radio 1. He recruited his younger brother, Jordan, guitarist Joe, synth player Dan and drummer Luke. Like all the best bands, there is something ever so slightly wrong about them, something out of balance – not least because they range in age from teenagers to their mid-30s.
They played incessantly, supporting the likes of Fat White Family, Her’s and Viagra Boys, and began recording at The Nave in Leeds, with producer Alex Greaves. A pair of self-released singles (‘Kare’ and ‘The Way I Want’) were followed by two more for London indie Permanent Creeps (‘C:U’ and ‘Heaven’). Word of mouth grew thanks to coverage from the likes of So Young and The Line Of Best Fit and, when Steve Lamacq played them on his late-night Recommends show, Sonic Cathedral were listening.
The label reissued ‘C:U’ with new song ‘Question Mark’, followed by ‘Shame’ and then all the singles compiled on an EP titled If Not, When? The band won over legions of new fans – not least Lauren Laverne, Huw Stephens and John Kennedy – and set about making their debut album.
“We put a lot of hard work into creating Bedroom,” says Ryan. “It’s been really difficult, too, we all have personal things going on. Everybody needs an escape from the bleak reality of modern-day existence and, for us, this band is it – and I really hope we can be somebody else’s, too.”
Tickets for this show are £5 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
__________________________________________________
The 10-track album was recorded late last year at The Nave studio in Leeds by Alex Greaves (Working Mens Club, Bo Ningen) and mastered in Brooklyn by Heba Kadry (Slowdive, Beach House).
It’s a hugely accomplished debut and a real step up both sonically and lyrically from their early singles, which were rounded up on last year’s If Not, When? EP. Musically, there are nods to The Cure’s Disintegration, Deerhunter and DIIV, while the band reference RIDE and Radiohead. There are also echoes of krautrock and post-punk, from The Chameleons to Protomartyr, plus the proto-shoegaze of the Pale Saints’ The Comforts Of Madness, not least in the cross-fading of some tracks, meaning the album is an almost seamless listen.
Listen / Watch / Listen
As a result, Bedroom becomes an unexpected and unintentional concept album, running through the different stages of a break-up set against the backdrop of the ups and downs of your early twenties. “The subject matter spans mental health, alcohol abuse, unplanned pregnancy, drugs… basically every cliché topic that you could think of,” reveals frontman Ryan Smith. “But that doesn’t mean they ever stop being relevant. It’s a fucker growing up, but I’m lucky enough to have been able to project my feelings in the form of this band, surrounded by four of the best people I’ve ever met.”
And that band name, in case it needs explaining, is pronounced the same way as the album title. “I never thought I’d get to the stage where I would have to explain it so much,” says Ryan. “We have been pronounced as Boredom, Bdum and my old boss actually thought we were a ska band called Bad Riddim. We’re all sarcastic cunts, so Bedroom spelt correctly seemed like the perfect title.”
He’s right. The perfect title for the perfect debut album.
bdrmm – from bedroom to Bedroom
Inspired to write and record a track in his bedroom after hearing Washed Out’s ‘Feel It All Around’ back in 2016, bdrmm frontman Ryan Smith decided to hastily form a band after the resulting demo got picked up and played by BBC Radio 1. He recruited his younger brother, Jordan, guitarist Joe, synth player Dan and drummer Luke. Like all the best bands, there is something ever so slightly wrong about them, something out of balance – not least because they range in age from teenagers to their mid-30s.
They played incessantly, supporting the likes of Fat White Family, Her’s and Viagra Boys, and began recording at The Nave in Leeds, with producer Alex Greaves. A pair of self-released singles (‘Kare’ and ‘The Way I Want’) were followed by two more for London indie Permanent Creeps (‘C:U’ and ‘Heaven’). Word of mouth grew thanks to coverage from the likes of So Young and The Line Of Best Fit and, when Steve Lamacq played them on his late-night Recommends show, Sonic Cathedral were listening.
The label reissued ‘C:U’ with new song ‘Question Mark’, followed by ‘Shame’ and then all the singles compiled on an EP titled If Not, When? The band won over legions of new fans – not least Lauren Laverne, Huw Stephens and John Kennedy – and set about making their debut album.
“We put a lot of hard work into creating Bedroom,” says Ryan. “It’s been really difficult, too, we all have personal things going on. Everybody needs an escape from the bleak reality of modern-day existence and, for us, this band is it – and I really hope we can be somebody else’s, too.”
Tickets for this show are £5 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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Joan Shelley
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Wednesday 26th May, 7.30pm
**RESCHEDULED DATE. ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID ALTHOUGH REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM YOUR POINT OF PURCHASE**
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.
Listen / Watch
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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Robyn Hitchcock
The Crescent, York
Tuesday 28th September, 7.30pm
**PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A SEATED SHOW WITH ALL SEATS UNRESERVED**
Robyn Hitchcock is one of England's most enduring contemporary singer/songwriters and live performers. A surrealist poet, talented guitarist, cult artist and musician's musician, Hitchcock is among alternative rock's father figures and is the closest thing the genre has to a Bob Dylan (not coincidentally his biggest musical inspiration).
Since founding the art-rock band The Soft Boys in 1976, Robyn has recorded more than 20 albums as well as starred in ‘Storefront Hitchcock’ an in concert film recorded in New York and directed by Jonathan Demme.
Blending folk and psychedelia with a wry British nihilism, Robyn describes his songs as ‘paintings you can listen to’. His most recent album is self-titled and marks his 21st release as a solo artist. Out on April 21 2017, the album is produced by Brendan Benson (The Raconteurs). Hitchcock describes it as a "ecstatic work of negativity with nary a dreary groove."
Recent press:
'A gifted melodist, Hitchcock nests engaging lyrics in some of the most bracing, rainbow-hued pop this side of Revolver. He wrests inspiration not from ordinary life but from extraordinary imaginings...'
Rolling Stone
'These 10 gems slither, rock, roll, glide and shapeshift, coalescing around Hitchcock’s typically anxious, strained but striking and immediately identifiable vocals.'
American Songwriter
'Beloved of everyone from Led Zeppelin to REM, Hitchcock has only enhanced his status with this wonderful outing.'
Hot Press
'Witty, moving and seriously catchy, Robyn Hitchcock is a glorious return for a man who wasn’t really gone in the first place.'
Paste Magazine
Tickets for this show are £16 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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A Certain Ratio
The Crescent, York
Sunday 7th November, 7.30pm
The Crescent, York
Sunday 7th November, 7.30pm
We're delighted to bring post-punk legends ACR back to York for the first time since 1980!
Formed in 1978 with a core line-up of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson, adding Tony Quigley, Denise Johnson and Matt Steele for touring and studio contributions, Manchester’s A Certain Ratio embraced the ethic and culture of the late seventies post-punk explosion, sounding like nothing else around them and refusing to fit in.
ACR have released 10 albums throughout their career to date and add the 11th album in 2020 with ACR Loco, an eclectic yet cohesive record, moving seamlessly from the endlessly dreamy album opener ‘Friends Around Us’ to the infectious funk-strut of ‘Bouncy Bouncy’, via the poignantly beautiful ‘Always In Love’ and closing on the riotous ‘Taxi Guy’, a track that inconceivably manages to take in jazz, Brazilian music and acid house all in one seven-minute thumper.
Shortly after forming, having seen A Certain Ratio on one of their many live shows, Joy Division’s manager Rob Gretton, put them in touch with Tony Wilson, a well-known local TV personality who was then in the process of setting up a record label. A Certain Ratio were one of the first to record for the fledgling Factory Records, and they debuted with their 7″ single, ‘All Night Party’/’The Thin Boys’.
Hailed universally as pioneers of what became known as “punk funk” thanks to the success of ‘Shack Up’ on both sides of the Atlantic, their sound is not easily pigeon holed and their influence can never be understated. The band introduced the avant-garde elements of funk, jazz, electronics, tape loops and technology to the pop song, wrapping it in a post punk aesthetic, adding great clothes and the coolest haircuts.
ACR’s studio albums The Graveyard and the Ballroom (1980), To Each (1981), Sextet (1982), I’d Like To See You Again (1982), Force (1986), Good Together (1989), ACR:MCR (1990), Up in Downsville (1992), Change The Station (1996) and Mind Made Up (2008) have all been re-released by Mute, who worked with the band on an extensive ACR 40th Anniversary campaign that included the release of the compilation ACR:SET (2018) and ACR:BOX (2019). The latter included ‘Dirty Boy’, a brand new track featuring Magazine and Bad Seeds legend Barry Adamson, as well as the now-classic, previously-unreleased cover of Talking Heads’ ‘Houses in Motion’, originally recorded for Grace Jones to perform vocals on in 1980, only she never turned up!
ACR Loco comes fresh off the back of their most successful tour in over 20 years, “We’ve done the 40 year celebration thing,” says Jez. “It’s about the future now and where we’re going next.”
Having influenced generations of musicians – from Talking Heads, LCD Soundsystem, Happy Mondays, Franz Ferdinand, ESG, Factory Floor, The Orielles, Sink Ya Teeth and Andrew Weatherall, The Guardian’s Dave Simpson paid tribute to the band’s Cult Hero status: “Once you start listening to A Certain Ratio, it’s difficult to stop”.
It might have been 12 years since the last ACR album but as far as Martin is concerned, the group has always been in a sense of motion and now find themselves in an ideal place where the band’s history and future are in perfect coalescence, “1980 doesn’t feel that long ago to me,” he says. “Where we’re at now just feels like a continuation.”
ACR have released 10 albums throughout their career to date and add the 11th album in 2020 with ACR Loco, an eclectic yet cohesive record, moving seamlessly from the endlessly dreamy album opener ‘Friends Around Us’ to the infectious funk-strut of ‘Bouncy Bouncy’, via the poignantly beautiful ‘Always In Love’ and closing on the riotous ‘Taxi Guy’, a track that inconceivably manages to take in jazz, Brazilian music and acid house all in one seven-minute thumper.
Shortly after forming, having seen A Certain Ratio on one of their many live shows, Joy Division’s manager Rob Gretton, put them in touch with Tony Wilson, a well-known local TV personality who was then in the process of setting up a record label. A Certain Ratio were one of the first to record for the fledgling Factory Records, and they debuted with their 7″ single, ‘All Night Party’/’The Thin Boys’.
Hailed universally as pioneers of what became known as “punk funk” thanks to the success of ‘Shack Up’ on both sides of the Atlantic, their sound is not easily pigeon holed and their influence can never be understated. The band introduced the avant-garde elements of funk, jazz, electronics, tape loops and technology to the pop song, wrapping it in a post punk aesthetic, adding great clothes and the coolest haircuts.
ACR’s studio albums The Graveyard and the Ballroom (1980), To Each (1981), Sextet (1982), I’d Like To See You Again (1982), Force (1986), Good Together (1989), ACR:MCR (1990), Up in Downsville (1992), Change The Station (1996) and Mind Made Up (2008) have all been re-released by Mute, who worked with the band on an extensive ACR 40th Anniversary campaign that included the release of the compilation ACR:SET (2018) and ACR:BOX (2019). The latter included ‘Dirty Boy’, a brand new track featuring Magazine and Bad Seeds legend Barry Adamson, as well as the now-classic, previously-unreleased cover of Talking Heads’ ‘Houses in Motion’, originally recorded for Grace Jones to perform vocals on in 1980, only she never turned up!
ACR Loco comes fresh off the back of their most successful tour in over 20 years, “We’ve done the 40 year celebration thing,” says Jez. “It’s about the future now and where we’re going next.”
Having influenced generations of musicians – from Talking Heads, LCD Soundsystem, Happy Mondays, Franz Ferdinand, ESG, Factory Floor, The Orielles, Sink Ya Teeth and Andrew Weatherall, The Guardian’s Dave Simpson paid tribute to the band’s Cult Hero status: “Once you start listening to A Certain Ratio, it’s difficult to stop”.
It might have been 12 years since the last ACR album but as far as Martin is concerned, the group has always been in a sense of motion and now find themselves in an ideal place where the band’s history and future are in perfect coalescence, “1980 doesn’t feel that long ago to me,” he says. “Where we’re at now just feels like a continuation.”
Tickets for this show are £20 in advance.
You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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You can get tickets in person from the venue and Earworm Records in York or online from here.
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