John Metcalfe’s Tree in Dolby Atmos
With these new 360˚ mixes Metcalfe’s initial intentions for the album are, finally, truly deliver...
Fri, 02 February 24
The Bairns
Rachel Unthank & the Winterset
Released 19 August 2007
- Felton Lonnin
- Lull I
- Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk
- I Wish
- Blue's Gaen Oot O'The Fashion
- Lull II : My Lad's A Canny Lad
- Blackbird
- Lull III : A Minor Place
- Sea Song
- Whitethorn
- Lull IV : Can't Stop It Raining
- My Donald
- Ma Bonny Lad
- Fareweel Regality
- Newcastle Lullaby
Liner notes
Forging links between folk worlds old, new and other, Rachel and her set have blown a bracing north-easterly 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. “If the effect is austere, it is never bleak. Rather the starkness is graceful, gripping and utterly thrilling” says Nigel Williamson in HMV Magazine.
Described as “a bewitching, dream-like, down-to-earth masterpiece” in the Observer Music Magazine’s Top 50 Albums of the 2007, The Bairns is already a classic in it’s own lifetime, featuring as either the top or only folk album in every 2007 end-of-year poll it featured in.
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.
Their debut album Cruel Sister won Mojo Folk Album of the Year, and new album The Bairns has been described as “utterly gorgeous” by The Guardian as “a work of towering quality” by The Telegraph and Rachel Unthank & The Winterset were nominated for Best Group, Best Live Act, Best Album and The Horizon Award at 2008 BBC Folk Awards, winning the Horizon Award.
Further Listening
-
Released 10 August 2017
Recorded at Real World Studios, these are four acoustic interpretations of tracks from the The Breath's debut album Carry Your Kin. Stuart McCallum's stripped back guitar beautifully frames Ríoghnach Connolly's moving vocals —at times heartbreakingly sad, always deeply moving. -
Released 28 April 2016
‘Anian’ is 9Bach's third album. Like 2014's ‘Tincian’ it begins in North Wales, but broadens out through Greek and Near Eastern influences into an emotional tour de force. Angry, sad, but most of all passionate at the state of the world, the album taps into a truly universal language.
Further reading
Jasdeep Singh Degun makes history at Royal Philharmonic Society Awards
The Leeds-based musician was the first sitar player to receive the 'Best Instrumentalist' award.
Fri, 08 March 24
Exploring Colombian artist Savan’s music inspired by Yagé medicine ceremonies
The new Real World X release is an eight-track aural journey to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
Fri, 29 March 24
Real World Sessions: Owen Spafford & Louis Campbell, 5 December 2023
New folk duo Owen Spafford & Louis Campbell visited the studio to record a new EP for Real World X.
Tue, 05 March 24