Sunday 21st October | 8pm

Bella Hardy – Hello Sammy Acoustic Tour

The Wardrobe Theatre

Tickets: £14 / £16 inc BF

Tickets: https://www.headfirstbristol.co.uk

Web: http://thewardrobetheatre.com

FB Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/154865878714999/

Bella Hardy, acclaimed songwriter and traditional music luminary, released Hey Sammy in November 2017, a record that bears the stamps of extensive musical expeditions far from home.  Humanist hymns, ancient Chinese poems, feminist battle cries, and the title track’s reflections on the rise of racism in Britain make this Bella’s most wide reaching and richly rewarding album to date.

In the time since 2015’s 5-star reviewed With The Dawn, Bella temporarily relocated to Nashville where she became immersed in Music City’s culture of collaborative songwriting and also worked happily in the company of horses as a ranch hand. Two music-finding trips to Yunnan Province in Southwest China also saw this BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year Award winner return with a suitcase overflowing with new lyrical and musical notions. These radical changes of life and perspective flow through every word and note of the 11 songs on Hey Sammy – a glorious, accomplished, grown up record, delivered in Bella’s unmistakeable soaring and swooping voice. 

Bella Hardy, BBC Folk Singer of the Year 2014, found her first home in folk music through a childhood love for ballad books. A self-taught “fiddle singer”, she began performing at Cambridge and Sidmouth festivals from the age of 13. Her debut album Night Visiting, released ten years ago, established her reputation as a songwriter when her first original composition Three Black Feathers earned a BBC Folk Award nomination.

“Inspired by feminism, racism, and international travels, this is an accessible proposition, reaching out, standing tall” – The Guardian

“Many young musicians can sing and play beautifully, few are as adventurous and intriguing as Hardy” – Songlines Magazine

http://www.bellahardy.com

Tuesday 6th November | 8pm

Mairearad Green & Anna Massie

The Wardrobe Theatre

Tickets: £12.50 / £15 inc BF

Tickets: https://www.headfirstbristol.co.uk

Web: http://thewardrobetheatre.com

FB Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/185975465427796/

Two of Scotland’s most revered multi-instrumentalists, Mairearad Green (accordion and bagpipes) and Anna Massie (guitar, banjo, fiddle) are a truly captivating duo, providing a highly energetic performance with an instantly warm and friendly stage presence. Having played alongside each other for over ten years, they revel in an intuitive approach to each other’s musical ideas and interpretations, and an “almost telepathic communication” on stage (Hi-Arts), effortlessly showcasing the fruits of duo partnership to the highest level , creating “music more than the sum of just two parts” (The Scotsman).

Mairearad and Anna both grew up in the Scottish Highlands amidst very similar musical backgrounds (most notably, mandolin playing Dads!), and so share an innate understanding of Scottish culture and music. As a duo they have enjoyed many successes, including five stars in The Scotsman and high praise from KT Tunstall, becoming a much-loved live act.

Their three albums – 2009’s eponymous debut, ‘Doubling’ in 2013 and ‘Best Day’ 2015 – have met wide critical acclaim, Mairearad and Anna was recorded live, just the two musicians – the live double act – whilst Doubling features many layered tracks, building a more complex sound, though still just from the two musicians. At the heart of Doubling remains the live duo sets, intricately arranged and executed with symbiotic sympathy, enhancing their “must-see” reputation.

“…the camaraderie and sheer fun of musical collaboration is plainly evident and infectious.” Songlines

“An exuberant, beautifully recorded album…crisp, clean and crystalline.” fRoots

http://mairearadandanna.com

 

Sunday 18th November | 8pm

Dakhla Brass (‘Mumur’ Album Launch) Plus Spindle Ensemble

The Wardrobe Theatre

Tickets: £12.50 / £15 inc BF

Tickets: https://www.headfirstbristol.co.uk

Web: http://thewardrobetheatre.com

FB Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/185254335505570/

Dakhla Brass return to The Wardrobe theatre to showcase their brand new and most expansive album yet – ‘Murmur’. As well as marking the addition of a sixth member, in the form of brilliant double-bassist Riaan Vosloo, the recording of the new album also sees the band working closely with Vosloo’s Nostalgia 77 colleague, producer Ben Lamdin, and recording away from their hometown for the first time (at London’s Fish Factory Studios).

Dakhla brass weave glittering brass threads into intricate musical tapestries like no other band. Propelled by restless percussion, theirs is ‘not exactly’ music – not exactly jazz, not exactly brass band or Arabian or second-line Mardi Gras, yet it draws on all that and more. This is demon stuff, delivered with deadly accuracy by six exceptional musicians-  its in a class of its own.

“A powerhouse. Talent, instinct and creativity make them a real force to be reckoned with” (Sound on Sound Magazine).

“Very modern, great grooves, sound of Jazz coming from the UK that makes it stand out from everywhere else.”  “Dakhla Brass –  here is one of the bands doing great things right now.”  (Jamie Cullum, BBC Radio 2).

http://dakhlabrass.com

Spindle Ensemble are an experimental instrumental quartet from Bristol’s music collective ‘Bloom‘. They perform original compositions by Daniel Inzani that hover cinematically somewhere between jazz, folk and classical idioms, taking inspiration from artists such as Moondog, Eric Satie and Mulatu Astatke. Their debut album, Bea, was released as a luxury gatefold vinyl edition via new label Adderwell Music in Nov 2017.

‘Beautiful sounds, definitely a band to watch’ Fiona Talkington – BBC Radio 3, Late Junction

http://www.spindleensemble.com

 

Monday 3rd December | 8pm

Bruce Molsky

Tickets: £14 / £16 inc BF

Tickets: https://www.headfirstbristol.co.uk

Web: http://thewardrobetheatre.com

FB Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/474495129672862/

He’s a self-described “street kid” from the Bronx who bailed on college and big city life for a cold-water cabin in Virginia in the 1970s. His mission? To soak up the passion that was dramatically upending his parent’s life plan for him  – authentic Appalachian mountain music – at the feet of its legendary pioneers, old masters who are now long gone.

Today, Bruce Molsky is one of the most revered “multi-hyphenated career” ambassadors for America’s old-time mountain music. For decades, he’s been a globetrotting performer, ethnomusicologist and educator, a recording artist with an expansive discography including seven solo albums, well over a dozen collaborations and two Grammy-nominations. He’s also the classic “musician’s musician” – a man who’s received high praise from diverse fans and collaborators like Linda Ronstadt, Mark Knopfler, Celtic giants Donal Lunny and Andy Irvine, jazzer Bill Frisell and dobro master Jerry Douglas, a true country gentleman by way of the Big Apple aptly dubbed “the Rembrandt of Appalachian fiddlers” by virtuoso violinist and sometimes bandmate Darol Anger.

Molsky digs deep to transport audiences to another time and place, with his authentic feel for and the unearthing of almost-forgotten rarities from the Southern Appalachian songbook. Molsky seduces audiences with a combination of rhythmic and melodic virtuosity and relaxed conversational wit – a uniquely humanistic, downhome approach that can make Carnegie Hall feel like a front porch or intimate jam session.

In addition to his many live performances as a solo and with Molsky’s Mountain Drifters, Bruce will be kept away from his home in Beacon, New York, by his work as a Visiting Scholar at the old American Roots Music Program at the Boston’s Berklee College of Music, and through fiddling workshops and summer music camps he conducts for devotees here and abroad.

“Bruce Molsky is one of those great players who ‘gets it’: has all the links to the past but is happy not to be chained to it” – Mark Knopfler

“An absolute master” – No Depression

http://brucemolsky.com