House of Cards presents: Chris Helme (ex Seahorses/The Yards) & Band, London Album Preview Show

Event information

Chris Helme is a singer-songwriter, who shot to prominence in the mid-nineties when he was invited to front John Squire's post-Stone Roses band, The Seahorses. An album and several hits followed but, sadly, the band split during the production of the second album.

His much anticipated second solo album, 'The Rookery' will be previewed live, in advance of its full release this summer.

' We recorded the album last year in a country house called The Rookery in the Yorkshire Dales. I'd been there before on family holidays with Chris Farrell, the guitarist from The Yards. We always thought it would be more fun to record somewhere like that than in a sterile studio environment, and we were right. The house dictated the mood of the music. It was a great place to be, we just set up and off we went '

www.chrishelme.co.uk

Sam Forrest (Nine Black Alps)

Creating semi-acoustic, part-psychedelic bundles of rustic pop joy inside The Factory Of Unprofessional Sound deep in the heart of the English countryside, Sam has emerged with another wicker basket of wonder-The Edge Of Nowhere.

This latest offering, released March 5th, is a true gem amongst his ever-growing solo collection. Known as front man of sludgy din makers, Nine Black Alps, Sam put out his first solo offering, Down The Hillside, in 2008 a year after the Alps' released second album Love/Hate and were freed from their Island Records contract.

If that isn't enough, Sam also became a record producer, working with Benjamin Francis Leftwich and Chris Helme as well as throwing a fourth Nine Black Alps album to tape. Somehow, he's found time to record The Edge... an album that bursts with dry, vintage acoustics, bending backwards guitars, waltzes of wonder and hushed vocals of eerie lyrics from the darkest woods of England.

http://www.samforrest.com/

Emma Tricca

Based initially in Marlow, Emma learnt traditional songs and played in the clubs of Oxford, where she was noticed by eminences like Roy Harper and Phil Guy. A move to London saw Emma hone her music at open mic nights all over the city, before gathering a band of like-minded musicians . Given both her itchy feet and love of the Greenwich Village folk musicians, it was perhaps inevitable that Emma would make the pilgrimage to New York, living there and in Texas for a while before returning to the folk clubs of London. In the summer of 2006 she was spotted playing at the Green Man festival in Wales by DJ and Finders Keepers/Twisted Nerve record boss Andy Votel and his partner, the singer-songwriter Jane Weaver. The meeting led Emma to be invited by Jane and Andy to play a night they were involved in as part of Jarvis Cocker 2007 Meltdown festival. Both her performance and her contribution to the attendant compilation.

www.emmatricca.com