Twin daughters and a folk-rock whirlwind forced Kathryn Roberts (Vocals / Piano / Woodwind), and Sean Lakeman (Guitar), to sideline their popular duo performances in the mid noughties. Now the Dartmoor based couple have enjoyed a noteworthy return to the fray with their highly acclaimed album, ‘Hidden People’, bringing their own mix of traditional, self-penned songs and covers to the stage.

Two of the British folk scene’s most accomplished performers, Kathryn and Sean have graced stages the world over in a number of guises, however, the intimacy and strength of passion shown as a duo, combined with an eclectic repertoire ensures a rare treat.

With a story that includes music making with the likes of Seth Lakeman, Cara Dillon, Levellers, Kate Rusby and Show of Hands, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman have established themselves as pillars of modern British folk.

On latest album “Hidden People” Kathryn says; “These are stories, first and foremost,” but she warns: “My home-life is so ‘roses round the cottage door’, that I tend to prefer music with an edginess, so some of the tracks on the album are quite dark and brooding, to say the least.” The messages and meanings behind these songs belong to the “hidden people”.

For further details and a taste of their music see their website kathrynrobertsandseanlakeman.com

Tickets £11, £10

In association with Carn to Cove

Moscow Drug Club….is a curious musical place where certain elements of 1930’s Berlin Cabaret, Hot Club de France, Nuevo Tango & Gypsy Campfire meet, have a few to drink and stagger arm in arm into the darkness of some eastern European cobbled street on a mission to find the bar where Django Reinhardt & Tom Waits are having an afterhours jam with the local Tziganes.

Combining their original material with songs by the likes of Jacques Brel, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits & Bertolt Brecht, Moscow Drug Club provide an intoxicating & intimate musical experience.

You are cordially invited to share a wry smile with us as you enter the darkly comic world of Moscow Drug Club…..this way please & mind the stairs!

“The best entertainment we have ever had!” 
“The music, songs and your voice were amazingly evocative, beautiful and inspiring, such originality just like the band’s name.“ Rural touring audiences

FROM THEIR WEBSITE

In the darkness of late winter,
In a shady watering hole South of the river, in Bristol…
North American chanteuse & purveyor of lyrical adventures, Katya Gorrie
And International guitar virtuoso Denny Ilett were having a quiet drink.
A good excuse to come in from the cold.
Through the door walked an old friend who also happens to be a fantastic jazz trumpeter.
The three of them found themselves chatting about the swing music of the 1930’s & 40’s, German Cabaret Songs, and the Parisian songwriters of the 50’s. An idea had started…
Not long after this fateful meeting, the three friends met a young classically trained accordionist from Poland, whose passion for French musette and Argentinian tango was infectious and inspiring. The four musicians started to create a small set of music derived from these ideas. Finally, long time comrade and exceptional double bassist Andy Crowdy was called in to complete the quintet, and Moscow Drug Club was formed.

Early gigs in the bars and clubs of Bristol provided evidence that Moscow Drug Club made a noise that made people happy….

“Moscow Drug Club….brilliantly rendered, crowd pleasing cabaret tuneage raised to the level of magnificence by virtuosic playing!”

“Moscow Drug Club played a beautiful set consisting of musical talent beyond technology, fx pedals and amp make, reminding us all of where music came from and what it is about.”

“Moscow Drug Club’s amazing talent left me and all of those around me baying for more…”

£8 (concessions £6   Children £5)

‘None The Wiser’

Nominated Best Original Song ‘None the Wiser’ BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2014

Folk Singer of the Year & Best Original Song ‘Hollow Point’ BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2011

Criticised by an art school lecturer as having “a remarkable eye for trivia” Chris Wood’s love of small things has made him one of England’s most vivid and arresting song writers. With gentle intelligence he weaves the tradition with his own contemporary parables. Hollow Point is his chilling ballad of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezez and Wood’s feel for the sheer “one thing after another-ness” of life allows us, for the first time, to see the event through the eyes of the victim.

Joan Armatrading presented Chris with the 2011 BBC Radio Two Folk Singer Of The Year award before inviting him as special guest onto her Autumn 2012 tour. They played 51 cities and Wood found himself eavesdropping on conversations from pound shops to tea rooms, army recruiting centres to hotel saunas collecting the poetry of recession. His response is, None The Wiser, a fourth solo album released in Summer 2013. With humble hymns and sweeping statements from Alzheimers to William Blake, Wood lovingly takes the pulse of his homeland in what could be his best album yet.

Wood has worked and collaborated with a long list of artists, most recently Dizraeli, Billy Bragg, Eliza and Martin Carthy in Simon Emerson’s Imagined Village. His duet with Eliza added to the “Villager’s” winning another Folk Award for “Best Traditional Song”.

The Irish Times dubbed him ‘the renaissance man of English folk’ because his work extends beyond song writing into commissions for Radio 3 Between The Ears, Late Junction and The Essay. He has written for The Times and lectured at Newcastle and Limerick Universities. His setting of Blake’s Jerusalem features in Paul Gilroy’s lecture on poetry and music at Kings College London and Wood’s lyric Walk This World With Music is included in Michael Morpurgo’s latest collection.

Praise for ‘None The Wiser’: 

INDEPENDENT  ✰✰✰✰✰
“The title track alone is a masterpiece”

EXPRESS  ✰✰✰✰✰
“Wood has honed his songwriting to perfection here… heartbreaking purity.”

THE GUARDIAN  ✰✰✰✰
“Remarkable for the settings as much as the lyrics.”

THE IRISH TIMES ✰✰✰✰✰
“Nobody comes even close to equaling his bird’s-eye-view”

MOJO ✰✰✰✰
“a rarefied talent, both as writer and interpreter.”

SONGLINES
“a quietly powerful, astute and vivid set of songs…A folk–soul album”

£12 with £11 concessions.

Visit chriswoodmusic.co.uk

Anglo-American singer songwriter Sarah Gillespie has received critical acclaim for her 3 albums that mix elements of jazz, folk and blues with her trademark poetic lyricism. The Guardian’s jazz critique John Fordham describes Gillespie as “(joining) Bob Dylan’s lyrical bite and languid delivery to the forthrightness of Joni Mitchell, with a little rap-like percussiveness thrown in, she is an original.”

Playing tonight with renewed jazz composer Tom Cawley on piano and Ben Bastin on double bass, Gillespie will be performing a mix of songs from her new album ‘Glory Days’ as well as revisiting her back catalogue.

Tickets £9, £8

Visit Sarah’s website

‘Humorous impressionistic lyrics oscillate between the intimate and the infinite’
The Independent ★★★★
‘Vividly powerfully lyrics and  glorious melodies.
Rock n’ Real Magazine ★★★★★
‘Glory Days.. her best mix yet of hooky tunes and smart lyrics’.
Mojo ★★★★
‘Joni Mitchell/Melanie-esque voice, foot-tapping music, and captivating lyrics.’
BUZZ Magazine ★★★★★
‘The interplay between her acoustic guitar and Gilad Atzmon’s clarinet sparkles, and the words tumble out unstoppable and direct.’
The Financial Times ★★★★
‘Glory Days reveals Gillespie’s song writing to be as sharp and astute as ever and her poetic muse undimmed. It also charts her rise to prominence as an instrumentalist’.
The Jazz Mann ★★★★
Is she the new Joni Mitchell? PJ Harvey? Bob Dylan even? Mixing jazz-folk artistry and punk attitude, third album Glory Days (Pastiche) recalls all three in places but Gillespie’s spiky lyrical gift is utterly distinctive.
London METRO 

Jim Moray is one of the most consistently inventive musicians working in English traditional music today. Winner of five BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, after five ground-breaking albums he is at the forefront of a new folk revival in the UK, and hailed as a pivotal influence by a new generation of folk musicians. In 2013 he celebrated both 10 years since his landmark debut album ‘Sweet England’ and the success of his 2012 career best ‘Skulk’. Now he brings material from his forthcoming album of traditional ballads out on the road for an evening of storytelling music at its best.

Recording his first album ‘Sweet England’ while still studying classical composition at Birmingham Conservatoire in the day and playing drums in power-pop bands by night, Jim Moray emerged onto the UK folk scene seemingly fully formed in 2003. His provocative reimagining of English traditional music blended with orchestral flourishes, guitars and electronics soon found him awarded the unprecedented combination of ‘Best Newcomer’ and ‘Best Album’ at the 2004 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. After notching up a live reputation with performances at Glastonbury, Cambridge Folk Festival and WOMAD, and alongside Richard Thompson and Oysterband, Jim followed this with  ‘Jim Moray’ in 2006,  ‘Low Culture’ in 2008 (fRoots critics poll best album award and Mojo folk album of the year), ‘Modern History in 2010, and ‘Skulk’ in 2012.

Jim has also branched out as producer of his sister Jackie Oates’ award-winning ‘Hyperboreans’ album and been awarded Honorary Life Membership of Birmingham Conservatoire for outstanding achievement in music.

Tickets £11/£10

The Founders of Bellowhead

Twice winners of the BBC Folk Award for Best Duo

Spiers and Boden gave a storming performance at the Tolmen Centre in Spring 2013, and we are delighted to welcome them back a year later, when we expect another sell-out show. Their spring tour will be their last for the forseeable future, so this is one not to miss.

Described by The Guardian as “the finest instrumental duo on the traditional scene” and twice winners of the BBC Radio 2 folk award for Best Duo, Spiers and Boden have made the genre of spontaneous, punky English folk very much their own stomping ground.  Loud, proud, and with just a few acoustic instruments, they create a multitude of textures upon which they present traditional stories and dance music which have taken them on to the main stages of major festivals.

“Technically they stand head to head with the best of their generation…Jon Boden plays fiddle with an earthy vigour that’s utterly compelling and sings in a frantic breathless manner as if the hounds of hell are taking lumps out of his backside, while John Spiers harmonises and plays urgent driving melodeon to a very high standard indeed…halfway to reinventing the style without even realising it…” fRoots Magazine

“Dynamics, drive and passion” BBC Radio 2 folk website

Winners of the Best Duo category at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in both 2004 and 2006, and a Critic’s choice nomination at the BBC World Music Awards, and nominees for the same award in 2009, John & Jon are also founding members of the wildly ambitious eleven piece big-band folk phenomenon, Bellowhead (BBC Folk Awards for Best Live Act in 2005, 2007, 2008, Observer Top 20 albums of 2007).

Jon Boden (singer, fiddle, guitar, stomp-box) follows in the footsteps of many of the great folk-singers with his theatrical style.  Born in 1977 in Chicago, he grew up in Winchester and graduated in Medieval Studies from Durham and Composition for Theatre from the London College of Music.  As well as forming half of Spiers & Boden and singing lead vocals in Bellowhead, Jon has also found time to release his own, self-penned album of contemporary indie rock songs, ‘Painted Lady’.

John Spiers (melodeon, concertina) was born in Birmingham and grew up in Abingdon (home to one of the few truly traditional morris sides) with a morris dancing father.  He has a Masters degree in Natural Sciences from King’s College Cambridge and has carved his own space in the folk scene with his unique blending of traditional squeezebox styles with his knowledge of contemporary dance music to create an infectious acoustic groove which provides the infectious rhythm of Spiers & Boden.

“Anyone who needs convincing that the current folk revival is becoming as intriguing, varied and experimental as it was back in the 1960s should check out the remarkable career of John Spiers and Jon Boden. In just a few years, they have established themselves as the finest instrumental duo on the traditional scene, and the contemporary equivalent of Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick….” The Guardian

Spiers & Boden’s retrospective album ‘The Works’ was released July 2011 to mark their 10 year anniversary.  Spring 2014 marks their final tour together for the foreseeable future.

www.spiersandboden.com

£13  (no concessions)

We open our autumn season with an unusual treat from the world of contemporary folk music, with the father-and-daughter line-up of Steve and Martha Tilston.  Both of them are well-known and popular performers, but it is rare that they appear on the same stage so this is a chance not to be missed.  They will perform separate sets but will also perform a few numbers together.

Steve Tilston has been described as “a complete guitarist,” “a singer songwriter of rare talent” and “absurdly accomplished.”  He’s the writer of the classic The Slipjigs and Reels, The Naked Highwayman and Here’s to Tom Paine and his songs have been covered by a who’s who of the folk scene. His career was marked by the release in 2010 of Reaching Back, a 5-CD boxed-set retrospective, and he’s also published a powerful historical novel.  Celebrating 40 years in the business, he’s on as great form as ever. His last album The Reckoning garnered him the “Best Original Song” accolade at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards last year, plus invitations to appear on Later with Jools Holland and BBC4’s Songwriters’ Circle. Perhaps best known for his song-writing prowess, Steve is also a blinding, dazzling guitarist with a style echoing the elaborate rhythmic “folk baroque” of Bert Jansch and Davy Graham, but also drawing from classical, roots and the tradition to create a sound that has been called quintessentially Tilston.

• A great narrator on top form. The Observer ****
• …dominated by Tilston’s exquisite guitar work … The Guardian ****
• …songs of great heart, delivered with authority and instrumental panache. The Scotsman 
• Another superb set from the good Mr Tilston, who just can’t seem to put a finger wrong. FROOTS

STOP PRESS: Steve’s latest album Happenstance is due for release on September 3^rd and should be available for you to buy at the venue.

Martha Tilston displays a comparable originality with lyrics and an equally compelling stage presence as her father, but her musical style is totally different. She originally trained as an actor, but the tug of her musical lineage set in, and by her late teens, she had taken up the acoustic guitar and taught herself the fine art of fingerpicking, finding her voice — a shivering, autumnal bird-song evocative of a young Joni Mitchell — along the way.

She released her lo-fi debut, Rolling, in 2003, while touring Ireland as support for troubadour Damian Rice. Tilston’s earthy compositions and delicate melodies earned her a growing audience, but she declined the lucrative offers from established record labels, choosing instead to set up her own label, Squiggly Records. She funded the pressing of her next record, 2005’s Bimbling, through the sale of the album’s canvas-painted artwork.  By 2007, she was opening the Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury with songs from her album Milkmaids and Architects, garnering a nomination for Best New Act at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

Her songwriting eschews the hoary ‘moors and maids’ folk imagery of old for gentle, probing meditations on modern concerns such as consumerism, urbanization and unheard voices, but she also finds space for haunting love songs, and one-off originals such as Old Tomcat, her sensual personal paean to Leonard Cohen. She’s performed at demos and marches, and played a set at Climate Camp in 2009, but Tilston considers herself too nomadic to hitch her star to any wagon. “I feel strongly about not getting stuck in any one scene; I try to weave my music through the world without becoming ingratiated to any one group.” And as her latest album, Machines of Love and Grace confims, it’s a creative independence that pays off.

From reviews of Machines of Love and Grace:

• “eloquently explores the relationship between technology and the human condition” BBC
•  “her voice is as lovely as ever…a fine and evocative album” Folk Radio UK 
• “Tilston’s tough personal approach makes for an engaging, unusual album” Guardia 

We can safely expect an engaging, unusual evening from the two Tilstons.

Tickets £10/£9 concessions

Pre-concert meals available at our cafe, pre-booking essential.

Further information:
tolmen@constantinecornwall.com
01326 341353