A triple-bill of three superb headline solo artists, tickets limited to 40 places only.
Venue: The Harrison
28 Harrison Street, Kings Cross, London WC1H 8JF, Ph 020 7278 3966
£8.00 Adv BUY NOW / £10.00 Door
New Roots Presents: THE NEW ROOTS SESSIONS
A series of Friday and Saturday night events at the Harrison in Kings Cross featuring three superb headline solo artists on a triple-bill. Fully seated, tickets limited to 40 only- advance purchase advised.
When Josienne Clarke signed to the illustrious Rough Trade Records, its founder Geoff Travis told The Guardian that she writes, “songs that rearrange your internal emotional landscape… reinventing the popular song structure.” With a rare gift for poetic melancholy, the songs Josienne has recorded with the guitarist Ben Walker have also been described as “extraordinary” (Mojo), “gently exquisite” (The Observer) and “full of depth” (The Telegraph). In 2016 American Songwriter magazine named Josienne one of the best songwriters of the year. Her elegant, nuanced and emotionally affecting singing style (Cerys Matthews described her as having a voice that can “trickle back over centuries”) has brought comparisons to the great Sandy Denny, but present too are elements of Nina Simone and Gillian Welch; all three are important influences on her work.
With a BBC Folk Award in 2015 for best duo with Ben Walker (and an additional nomination in 2017), a new project, PicaPica, with Samantha Whates, Adam Beattie & Sonny Johns (also signed to Rough Trade), an invitation from 6 Music DJ Cerys Matthews to act and sing in The National Theatre’s revival of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, Josienne Clarke continues to be one of the most impressive, accomplished and downright heart-breaking singers, lyricists and composers of her generation.
Tobias Ben Jacob has been called ‘stand out new Folk’ by BBC6 Music and ‘inventive and thrilling’ by R2 Magazine, garnering airplay and glowing reviews from Mark Radcliffes‘ Radio 2 Folk Show, BBC 6’s Tom Robinson, Amazing Radio, BBC Introducing, BBC Bristol, FRUK, Fatea, Spiral Earth, Louder Than War and ‘Whispering’ Bob TV along the way. Blessed with a wonderfully emotive voice and a talent for songwriting that ranges from the intimate to the epic, he played in ‘The Roots Union‘ alongside Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin (winners of Best Duo at the BBC Folk Awards.) Career highlights to date include a session for BBC’s ‘Late Junction’ on Radio 3, sharing the stage with Fleet Foxes J.Tillman, and appearances at Glastonbury, Green Man, Secret Garden Party, Larmer Tree and Electric Picnic.
‘Inventive and thrilling’ R2: Rock n Reel
‘Definitely one to watch out for’ Late Junction .BBC Radio 3
‘Stand out new folk… superb.. excellent’ Chris Hawkins, BBC Radio 6
London based Dubliner Louis Brennan is a singer-songwriter in the folk tradition. His folk however aren’t the field hands and travelling minstrels of yore but the repressed middle managers and ennui-ridden urbanites of late stage capitalism. They populate tales of bad sex, half-drunk commutes and interpersonal claustrophobia delivered in Brennan’s cracked baritone, at times intensely intimate, at times broad, peppered with pitch-black humour.
“A master storyteller with a voice like rolling thunder” GQ
“His ability to twist and turn a simple phrase can render the most innocent line into something utterly heartbreaking” CLASH
New Roots 