Saturday 7 December 2019, 7.30pm
'gorgeous, hazy, distant-but-intimate dream pop' — Gorilla vs Bear
Maria Somerville draws on conventional folk forms alongside post-punk, traditional Irish motifs, starry eyed pop and hypnotic drones to create wholly original music that is borne of her roots in Connemara, Western Ireland.
Her debut album All My People (self-released on 1 March and distributed by Rush Hour), channels the wilderness of the Irish landscape through dense, ethereal soundscapes, bare boned percussion and a heady electronic undertow, interspersed with ghostly vocals that are ever present and all encompassing, like crystalline glints of sunshine peeking through dark stormy clouds.
Her enigmatic and enthralling live show comes in both solo and band shape (born of ties with fellow Irish mavericks Davy Kehoe and the Wah Wah Wino crew).
'With lazily strummed electric guitar and full-bodied organ chords shining through the lo-fi production like a milky sun, she waltzes through the shoegazing ballad with wonderment' — The Guardian
ALISON COTTON is a viola player based in London working in composition and improvisation. Her debut album ’All Is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre’ was released in 2018 firstly on cassette on Bloxham Tapes, followed by a vinyl release on Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Feeding Tube (USA). In July 2019 her longform piece, ‘Behind the Spiderweb Gates’ was released on the Australian label, Longform Editions. As well as the viola, she uses an array of other instruments (her voice, harmonium, percussion, recorder, omnichord, shruti box and piano) to create long, haunting folk drones. Cotton’s new album ‘The Portrait You Painted of Me’, is a 6-track record – her first for Rocket Recordings. ‘Mumurations Over the Moor’ is a wordless piece of layered vocals, drifting like fog towards a sunset over the green undulations of North East England. ‘The Last Wooden Ship’ evokes the shipyards of Sunderland, laced with piano and percussion events, while her voice calls out like a siren urging listeners to a rocky demise.
https://alisoncotton-uk.bandcamp.com
One of the most exciting groups currently performing in the UK, the Tara Clerkin Trio create gorgeous compositions of an undefinable nature, alluding to dub, ambient, psychedelic, and post-rock influences but never settling for simple classification. Their songs loop and build and bloom and have received great acclaim from the likes of The Wire, The Quietus and Pitchfork.
