Alasdair Roberts, Cath & Phil Tyler and Jozef Van Wissem

Event information

MIE is honoured to present to you an evening of beautiful traditional folk music by Alasdair Roberts, Cath & Phil Tyler and Jozef Van Wissem.

Alasdair Roberts
(Drag City)

Alasdair is a Scottish folk musician based in Glasgow. His first releases consisted of home-made four-track recordings of his songs under the name Appendix Out and it was at this time that he struck up a friendship with Will Oldham and soon found himself being signed to Drag City.

Alasdair was gradually becoming more and more immersed in the traditional song and balladry of the British Isles, resulting in the first release under his own name, the solo guitar-and-voice album of traditional songs The Crook of My Arm. In 2001 Alasdair also found the time to collaborate with Jason Molina and Will Oldham; the result was the Amalgamated Sons of Rest EP, a brief collection of songs written by the three individuals, covers, traditional songs and one co-written track. He has just released his 6th album, To Long On This Condition, on Drag City.

To listen to Ali Roberts sing his first song of a set is akin to reading the opening page of an engrossing epic - you know there will be monsters, romance, and death ahead, all brought alive by a master weaver of myth, melodies and moralities.

Roberts' repertoire is made up of his own compositions and jewels from the treasure trove of timeless Scottish folk songs he regularly plunders, delivering songs with his own deftly intricate guitar playing and a voice both bold and subject to fragility.

Scottish folk singer Alasdair Roberts is an anomaly. His appropriation of antique songs calls to mind the prospecting of Daniel Day-Lewis's oilman in There Will Be Blood: he performs the subterranean, hardscrabble toil of research, then plunges his drill down deep, coming back with black gold. - The Independent

http://www.dragcity.com/artists/alasdair-roberts

Cath & Phil Tyler

2008 saw Anglo-American duo Cath & Phil Tyler release their debut album 'Dumb Supper' to great critical acclaim across all divides of the modern folk landscape - as Plan B rightly noted, "Dumb Supper is one of those rare modern folk albums that will find a home both in the longstanding 'traditional' music community and among those attracted to the form's more experimental and lo-fi possibilities".

And so it was that they were feted by a bewilderingly multilateral mix of critics from The Wire to Mike Harding to Brainwashed to Bob Harris (for whom they recorded a session too). Fiona Talkington of BBC Radio 3's Late Junction was especially ardent, even arranging their performance at the Royal Opera House, this similarly contrasting with their underground UK tour in the company of Finnish jouhikko player Pekko Kappi.

Cath & Phil released their second cd, 'The Hind Wheels Of Bad Luck' in March 2010 (released digitally December 2009), yet further enhancing their reputation for finding ancient jewels in treasure troves such as the Anne & Frank Warner Collection and the Sacred Harp songbook, adding their own accompaniment and creating new magic.

Their delivery is tantalisingly sparse, Cath's earthen voice oft backed by little more than Phil's virtuoso guitar or banjo playing, Cath occasionally replying with deft fiddle.

"Folk moves into a new era with Cath and Phil. Their combination of earthiness and grit, raw yet hearfelt and beautiful singing and immaculate playing makes this one of the most exciting and most moving albums I've heard in a long while." Fiona Talkington, 'Late Junction'

www.myspace.com/cptyl


Jozef Van Wissem

Composer-lute player Jozef Van Wissem is renowned for his unusual approach of the Renaissance and Baroque lute, probably the most unlikely instruments in the world of contemporary music. He cuts and pastes classical pieces, reverses melodies, adds electronics and processed field recordings The unusual wedlock of composition and improvisation creates an unheard amalgam of contemporary, folk and early music Van Wissem has accomplished the strange feat of bridging the idiom of seventeenth century lute literature and twenty-first century contemporary music. Although he uses subtle electronic sound manipulation, he has largely stayed faithful to the particular timbre, resonance and playing technique of the lute.

Van Wissem first came to be noticed a few years ago because of his radical conceptual approach to Renaissance lute music: He de-constructed existing compositions, for instance by playing them backwards. He also composed his own pieces for lute, using palindromes and mirrored structures. His music therefore does not have a traditional linear progression, nor leads to a climax, it rather stays on the same level of intensity. It doesn't demand concentrated listening, as it will bring the listener to a state of concentrated listening.

"Van Wissem seems to breeze across musical boundaries with an effortless fluency" - Pitchfork Media
http://www.myspace.com/vanwissem