Music / Bristol Folk Festival
Preview: Bristol Folk Festival
Last year’s Bristol Folk Festival was a triumph.
Senegalese Kora nestled next to Americana, wonderful singers of beautiful songs shared space with old timey folk tunes. It was everything that makes modern folk and roots music perfect.
The Folk Festival returns this year with a line-up that is mouth-watering, to say the least.
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If Eliza Carthy (playing at The Trinity on April 29th) is guaranteed to bring the high-octane foot stomping and swirling, The Longest Johns (The Trinity on 30th April) to stir the blood with some raucous sea shanties.
Then Lady Maisery will, without a shadow of a doubt, supply “the most exquisite vocal harmonies” that you have ever heard. They open the festival on April 28 in the fitting setting of the Bristol Cathedral.
Lady Maisery are Hannah James (accordion and percussion), Rowan Rheingans (Viola and banjo) and Hazel Askew (harp and harmonium) and have been regular visitors to Bristol over the last decade.
Whilst all three are fabulous musicians in their own right, it is when all three harmonise that their unparalleled magic happens. They become a band of heart stopping, transcendent, cosmic beauty.
In the past their sets have included folk ballads that are hundreds of years old and self-penned hymns to female activists, hypnotic and transportive paeans to nature and an astonishing cover of Bjork’s Hyperballad.
Hearing these songs – these voices – in such a majestic place is sure to be one of the highlights.
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Their most recent album, Tender, does away with traditional songs altogether and is, at times, both angry and political. This is undercut by a bittersweetness that gives the album depths and layers.
Add to this the simple joy of hearing three voices soar around one another and Lady Maisery are memorable and delightfully distinctive.
Of Lady Maisery, Dr Anna Rutherford, the creative director of the Bristol Folk Festival, says: “Their glorious harmonies will rise up into the medieval architecture and send a shiver down the spine of the city.
“It’s an honour to share the music of these wonderful artists in this stunning space.”
The Dean of Bristol, the Very Reverend Mandy Ford, says: “I can’t wait to hear the gorgeous sounds of contemporary folk in our ancient and beautiful setting.”
For anyone that loves The Unthanks then Lady Maisery might just be your next favourite band. Their storytelling is just as heartfelt and their musicianship unmatched.
Tickets for the opening concert are available at www.bristolfolkfestival.org
Main photo: Somhairle Macdonald
Read next:
- Review: Bristol Folk Festival – ‘From Senagalese Kora to Americana, the festival made a triumphant return’
- Bristol Folk Festival announce music lineup
- Bristol Folk Festival 2020 to open with concert in Bristol Cathedral
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