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| Thurs 5 |
Crooked Still (USA)
Purveyors of the nu-folk, bluegrass movement, Crooked Still are equal parts ambassador and innovators as evidenced on their newest release Some Strange Country available May 18th on Signature Sounds. The musical prowess of this defiantly non-traditional bluegrass quintet is on display as radically re-imagined traditional fare blends seamlessly alongside four original compositions and a surprising take on the Rolling Stones’ “You Got The Silver”.
For their fourth effort, Crooked Still were snowed into the studio with Grammy award winning producer and engineer Gary Paczosa (Alison Krauss and Union Station, Tim O’Brien, Dolly Parton) in Charlottesville, Virginia. The isolation left little room for distraction and fueled more ambitious collaboration – quasi-orchestral string arrangements, and unique vocal distortion techniques. Special guest vocalists include Ricky Skaggs, Tim O’Brien, Sarah Jarosz, and Annalisa Tornfelt.
On Some Strange Country, Crooked Still has honed in on their unique refraction of roots music, recording their most personal, visionary album yet. “The music is not just ‘alternative bluegrass’ or whatever people used to call it,” Brittany Haas remarks. “It’s at another level now: artful, but still grounded in that funky, string band thing.”
Some Strange Country is expansive yet intimate – a powerful document of five distinct musical voices working in concert to explore and redefine their relationship to tradition. More info... $24.50 inc GST and booking fees
or $25 @ door if not sold out
Doors open 7pm Show 8pm |
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| Fri 6 |
Swamp Thing (NZ)
Sorry folks, Swamp Thing have cancelled... hope you can make it along to another great show instead! |
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| Sat 7 |
Jesca Hoop (USA)
If you grow up singing traditional folk tunes in four-part harmony, then leave to become a homesteader in the wilderness areas of Northern California and Wyoming, it seems inevitable that at some stage you’ll distill the stars, the smoke from a campfire, some new legends, evening birdsong, gather it all up into an old hoop skirt, pick up your guitar and take to the road. With the 2010 release of her second album Hunting My Dress, Hoop’s adventurous songwriting and idiosyncratic vocals earned favorable comparisons to such cutting-edge forbears as Björk, Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell. Comparing new miracles to old is odious, but it does help to focus that searchlight into the musical wilderness from which Hoop has emerged.
Amidst a very, very varied career, including singing back-up for ‘Peter Gabriel’ in 2011, Hoop spent time as a nanny for ‘Tom Waits’ and ‘Kathleen Brennan's three children. Though not comparable in style to Waits, there’s a certain depth and darkness that makes them as being of the same family. Waits says, "Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night." When she released her first record, Kismet Acoustic, the Los Angeles Times considered Hoop one of ten Southern California artists "new and notable in 2007" with her “darkly seductive, genre-bending songs that dabble in everything from folk and pop to dub and cabaret.” Since then, Hoop has toured with Polyphonic Spree and Matt Pond PA, Elbow and Mark Knopfler, Greg Laswell and Andrew Bird, refining and redefining her sound. More info...
$15 inc GST and booking fees
or $18 @ door if not sold out
Doors open 7.30pm Show 8.30pm
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| Sun 8 |
Hawksley Workman
Enigmatic Canadian singer songwriter Hawksley Workman is preparing for his second visit to Australian soil in January next year, leaving behind the depths of a bleak Ontario winter for our sunny summer shores. Landing early in the New Year, his live dates commence in New South Wales on 4th January, and wind up in South Australia ten days later. Delivered from the mythic Muskoka wilderness, the Juno Award winning Workman arrived on the scene just over a decade ago with a fearlessness rooted in an undeniable vocal panache. Around the time of the release of his debut album ‘For Him and The Girls’, Hawksley published a string of letters in an Ontario newspaper to an imaginary love, Isadora, capturing the imagination of the public and encouraging a devoted fanbase.
Blessed with unbridled creativity, Hawksley has produced eighteen albums, including those for Juno Nominated artists such as Tegan and Sara, Great Big Sea and Justin Rutledge. As a performer, he’s headlined prestigious venues like Massey Hall in Toronto and The Olympia in Paris, as well as opening for heroes Morrissey, David Bowie and The Cure. Without doubt one of the most intriguing artists to emerge from Canada, don’t miss the opportunity to catch Hawksley Workman live as he tours his new album, ‘Full Moon Eleven’ in January 2012. More info... $22.50 inc GST and booking fees
or $23 @ door if not sold out
Doors open 7pm Show 8pm |
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| Fri 27 |
Passenger (UK) + Stu Larsen + Tim Hart (Boy & Bear)
The brainchild of 26-year-old Brighton born singer/songwriter Mike Rosenberg, Passenger is redefining the troubadour for the 21st century. Formerly a five-piece band, Passenger has now pared back to basics, quite literally A classic journeyman musician, cut from the same mould as Van Morrison, Neil Young and John Prine, Passenger has the unique ability to move from the humorous to heartbreaking with every song.
After a year spent crisscrossing the UK and US with his debut album Wicked Man’s Rest, Passenger’s markedly stripped down and soulful second album Wide Eyes Blind Love was brought to the public as it was created: on the road. This is music as Passenger means it to be, unvarnished and honest, just pure talent and powerful tunes that tap straight into the heart of the crowd.
Passenger set about recording a series of collaborations with musical friends met along the way. Flight Of The Crow is the remarkable result of Passenger’s intrepid journey, with Australian artists Lior, Josh Pyke, Katie Noonan, Boy & Bear, Kate Miller Heidke, Philadelphia Grand Jury, Brian Campeau and Elana Stone, Matt Corby, Jess Chalker and Dead Letter Chorus all lending their voices to this serendipitous creative venture. Flight Of The Crow was recorded in Sydney’s famous BJB studios over February and March of 2010, and co-produced by Berkfinger (AKA Simon Berkleman from Philadelphia Grand Jury).
This is the stuff of legend, with Passenger clearly evoking the humble, hardworking creativity of the troubadours of old. More info... $17.50 inc GST and booking fees
or $18 @ door if not sold out
Doors open 7.30pm Show 8.30pm |
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