Kit & Cutter: Adventures in Pre-Modern Music

K&C: Adventures in Pre-Modern Music pt. 18

Dearest Friends,

Adventures in Pre-Modern Music pt. 18: Cath & Phil Tyler, Rún and guests, The Old Nuns Head, Saturday 18th February, doors 7.30pm, £5

Hey ho whaddaya know – another F-F-F-Folk Night is nearly upon us… meandering through the library, examining the delights on offer, we’re pulling down several slim and lovely volumes to peruse this February…

The Penguin Classics are all grouped together, their well thumbed orange spines so creased it’s sometimes hard to make out the titles. But, yes – here it is – the old favourite we were looking for, Cath & Phil Tyler. Purveyors of Anglo-American folk music using guitar, banjo, voice and fiddle bought together musically through a shared love of traditional narrative song, full voiced sacred harp singing and sparse mountain banjo.

Listen: http://cathandphiltyler.bandcamp.com/

On a different shelf, tucked next to the plays section, there’s a delicate wee book with an intricate design in gold on the cover. Pretty as snowdrops Rún (pronounced Rooooon) feature close-harmony arrangements of songs in Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish and Breton dialects. The four strong all - female group bring new life to old Celtic songs about one-horned cows and gigolos, blackbirds and bogeymen, drinking and debauchery, ardor and arable farming.

Listen: http://run-se.bandcamp.com/

And as a special bonus we will be leafing through the modern, crisp pages of Philip Murray, a 22 year-old songwriter and musician based in London, who gave us an open spot last time around.

We predict this folk night will be serenely, twirling-ly melodic, with emphasis on narrative, cadence, structure… the rise, the fall… and you probably won’t need your reading glasses (unless you do. In which case bring them).

See you then. All our love….

K&C x

Tickets available here (as well as on the door): http://www.wegottickets.com/event/154385

http://www.facebook.com/kitandcutter (Like us on Facebook)

Kit & Cutter Winter Warmer: Adventures in Pre-Modern Music pt. 17

Dearest Friends,

Kit & Cutter Winter Warmer: Adventures in Pre-Modern Music pt. 17

Rapunzel & Sedayne and John Thomas Steel Pan Duo

The Old Nuns Head, Saturday 3rd December 2011, doors 7.30pm, £7 entry

So we were thinking… what would we all really enjoy to ease us into December? It’s a bit murkish and foggy outside so what further delights could our musical adventures together offer up? After some mulling the answer floated into our minds all of a sudden: psyche tinged trad folk and a steel pan band! A steel pan band? And maybe the Sacred Harp choir could come back and do some Christmas songs? Now we were cooking with gas! And so we have a very special show lined up with some extra seasonal trimmings…

Rapunzel & Sedayne: From Lancashire (where women die of love, as Balzac would have it) charming husband and wife team, Rapunzel & Sedayne play traditional arrangements alongside their own compositions with a gentle eccentricity, spontaneity and lovely floating fluting vocals. They specialise in a variety of ancient and traditional instruments including kemence, violin, crwth, flute, kaossilator, 5-string banjo, lap-top harmonium, frame-drum and drones. We don’t even know what some of those are….

Rapunzel & Sedayne

John Thomas Steel Pan Duo: In the winter what better to lift our spirits than the sultry tones of Trinidad and Tobago? John has been performing all over the world since 1976. He has performed on the same bill with folk greats Diana Ross, Liza Minelli and has performed live on stage with Blondie. As well as being an illustrious performer of the steel pan, he is also a sought after teacher with a great deal of knowledge about the history and development of the instrument.

John Thomas: The Pan Man

Let’s get December rolling with Carols, free Xmas buffet, Extra Special Festive Tombola, some rousing Sacred Harp, and as yet undreamed of wintery delights to surprise you with…

And in case it was all getting a bit too cheery for you, your hosts will serenade you with THE WORLDS MOST DEPRESSING CHRISTMAS SONG.

Voilà!

All our love

K&C xx x

PS. Any requests for your favourite carol?

You can buy tickets here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/145206

Also, see what Stewart Lee has to say about our main act: http://www.stewartlee.co.uk/album_review_archive/r-rapunzel_sedayne-songs_from_barley_temple.htm

Oct 22 Kit & Cutter: Adventures in Pre-Modern Music pt. 16‏

Dearest Friends,

Kit & Cutter: Adventures in Pre-Modern Music pt. 16
Dan Quinn & Will Duke and Ayarkhaan, The Old Nuns Head, SE15
Saturday 22nd October 2011, doors 7.30pm, £5 entry

Siberia and Sussex: October began with a blazing heat wave that had us all tall shouldered and smiling, gliding around in our lightest clothes, before descending over night into a grey drizzle with an under bite of frost. The seasons are out of joint… And in a tucked away corner of South East London we play host to warm sounds from English hearths and a blast of unearthly throat-singing from the Siberian wastelands of Yakust.

Will Duke and Dan Quinn play traditional songs from our small densely populated island on melodeon and concertina. Redolent in the busy history, and steeped in the sounds of the South, they perform with a dry wit and friendship built over many years as musical comrades. They sing in unison with a natural sympathy rarely found outside of families. It’s a treat to be welcomed into their company for the evening.

Will Duke & Dan Quinn - danquinn.co.uk

Ayarkhaan hail from a very different landscape. Yakust is on the outskirts of Siberia, where less than a million people inhabit a space as large as India. This isolation has helped the preservation of this most distinctive of musical traditions: the three striking ladies who comprise the band sing in unearthly harmony, play the local variant of the Jews harp, the Khomus, and imitate the sounds of nature, birds and air. Not to be missed.

Ayarkhaan - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8JIqcNYyAI

As if this weren’t enough… and we’re a pretty breathless with excitement considering these two acts… we have floor singers, projections, the raffle de jour, old school reggae on the rub and some murder ballads for good measure. Tell everyone. Bring friends, lovers and enemies,

All our love

K&C x

Misty water-coloured memories…

Memories… from the corners of my mind xx

Here are the Breakspears Southern Harmony singers giving it some at the Magpies’ Nest folk club in Angel…. x

BABY COME BACK!

Dear Friends

Jeff Warner, Wagon Tales & the Breakspears Southern Harmony Singers, The Old Nuns Head, Nunhead 21^st May 2011. Doors 7:30pm, £5 to get in.

Like any young modern women we just wanna run a folk club – not too big an ask you might have thought. All that’s needed is a pub, a banner, some massively brilliant raffle prizes and a musician or two. Heavens above, finding a new venue has not been a walk in the park.

Any port in a storm…

Not to be defeated, we have found a temporary mooring at the Old Nun’s Head in, you guessed it, Nunhead: nestled between Peckham and New Cross this charming enclave keeps it local and is, ahem, a little less chaotic than the Deptford Arms. We think you’ll like it.

And to tempt you back into our arms we have a triple bill of American traditions:

Jeff Warner

Among the nation’s foremost interpreters of traditional music, from the lumber camps, fishing villages and mountaintops of America, Jeff’s songs connect 21st century audiences with the everyday lives–and artistry–of 19th century Americans. Jeff grew up listening to the songs and stories of his father Frank Warner and the traditional singers his parents met during their folksong collecting trips through rural America. On a whistle stop visit to these shores, catch him while you can…

Wagon Tales

Push the tables against the walls – the Wagon Tales are an energetic bluegrass band who play up tempo bluegrass with a raw blues sound. They pride themselves on their rich vocal harmonies and the ability to create a good old knees up.

Breakspears Southern Harmony Singers

A twelve-strong group following the tradition of Sacred Harp singing from a 200 yr old songbook of gallant, rousing anthems, saturated in 4-part harmonies and intricate lyrical layers.

Three acts – that’s THREE – plus floor spots, the raffle London has been missing like billy-o, Brand New Venue, plastic flowers, dancing, singing along, and general ebullience abounding… Come back to us! We’ve missed you… All our Love,

K&C x