Rachel Unthank & the Winterset

Forging links between folk worlds old, new and other, Rachel and her set have blown a bracing northeasterly gale through traditional English song, casting it in an endlessly inventive and playful new mould.

Transcendent and grounded music folds around unsentimental old, new and imaginatively borrowed stories of booze, brawls, abuse, loss, fear, infantile death, depravity, and sorrow.

Dancing down the leftfield and singing in their own lilting Geordie accents, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset are the “inheritors, curators and gleeful distorters” (Ian MacMillan) of Tyneside’s traditions. Discreetly provocative arrangements draw on elements of blues, jazz, music hall, burlesque cabaret, classical, and leftfield contemporary music, making their take on folk music peerless, fearless and wholeheartedly brave.

Fans as disparate as Robert Wyatt, Kate Rusby, Paul Morley, Nic Jones, Phil Jupitus and Joan As Policewoman have joined the chorus of adulation from the press.

Further reading

The Breath announce new album and reveal first new song

The Breath have announced details of a new album, Land of My Other, ten original tracks of raw, gorg...

Sheila Chandra companion listening release: Out in the Real World

Out in the Real World, is a digital-only collection of remixes, demo recordings and outlier tracks.

Track of the day: ‘Steal’ by Bob Holroyd. Remixed by Luca Bacchetti

Originally released as part of the Mangled Pianos single last summer, ‘Steal’ has been reworked...

Track of the day: ‘We Are Part Mineral’ by Hannah Peel & Paraorchestra

Hannah Peel & Paraorchestra share new single, ‘We Are Part Mineral’, the latest to be taken from...