MASHAM: Town Hall

Tuesday 12th April, 2022

6:30pm

Event information

“The Unthanks are capable of such beauty that sometimes I can hardly bear to listen to them.” Martin Freeman

We are delighted to be hosting a warm-up gig for The Unthanks as they return to live touring after two years off the road. The rich and colourful sound of their eleven-piece ensemble showcases their forthcoming new album Sorrows Away, alongside favourites such as Magpie, The King Of Rome, and Mount The Air.

Folk music can commonly and affectionately be defined as low culture, but The Unthanks aspire to prove that the beauty and truth present in the oral history of the people, is anything but common.

Since the release of the technicolour BBC Folk Album of the Year, Mount The Air, in 2015, The Unthanks have both scaled up to symphonic levels with Charles Hazelwood and the BBC Proms, and stripped down to the unaccompanied singing they grew up with for Diversions Vol 5. They’ve written six scarecrow soundtracks for Mackenzie Crook’s beautiful adaptation of Worzel Gummidge, while finding time to interpret the work of female writers including Emily Bronte, Molly Drake and Maxine Peake. But projects and diversions aside, Sorrows Away is the long-anticipated follow-up to Mount The Air, and as the title suggests, promises to be a blues-buster and a step into the light for a band known more for melancholy and well, sorrow!

“They run from the very root of folk music to the very tip of the branch.” Elvis Costello

At the nucleus of a constantly evolving unit is the traditional upbringing of Tyneside sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank, and the arrangements and writing of composer, pianist, producer and Yorkshireman Adrian McNally. Using the traditional music of the North East of England as a starting point, they add in influences from Miles Davis to Tom Waits to King Crimson, earning a Mercury Music Prize nomination and international acclaim along the way. Their approach to storytelling makes easy bedfellows of tradition and adventure, direct social commentary and sophisticated harmony, heart-breaking empathy and glacial minimalism, earning them an army of writer and performer admirers.

“It hits you in your soul rather than your head. I love them.” Adrian Edmondson