We are delighted to announce that this Christmas four of our favourite acts will be playing for us at the wonderful St Mary's Creative Space, Chester. 

 

Joining us on Thursday 14th December will be Sweet Giant, Tom Blackwell, Toria Wooff and dbh. 

 

Tickets £12 advance from Grey n Pink Records or See Tickets.

 

SWEET GIANT

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Much like the mycelium spreading unseen through the soil, Sweet Giant are a crew of assorted creatures who found themselves and each other in some of London’s coziest crevices. Brought together by a shared love of the wild side, Sweet Giant bursts forth from the underground, like a fruiting body emerging from the forest floor.​

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With spitting amplifiers and rattling drums, buzzing oscillators and runaway echo, Sweet Giant are putting the weird and the wonderful back into rock and roll.

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The band fully embrace a DIY ethos; writing, recording, producing and creating artwork from their hand-built London studio - lovingly dubbed 'Big Vision Studios'.

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TOM BLACKWELL

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Anyone who has seen Tom Blackwell perform in one of the small, forgotten venues across the North of England he has haunted for over a decade will have witnessed a truly sublime singer-songwriter distilling his blues, folk, soul and gospel influences into what Bob Harris has rightly described as, 'Wonderful, heartfelt music'.

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In 2018 Blackwell released the first of his Memphis series of albums. The new recordings are minimal, unadorned. There is nothing wasted or unnecessary cluttering the sound, just emotive vocals framed by quiet guitar and harmonica. 

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The essence of everything Blackwell does is in his singing voice - as plaintive and soulful an instrument as you could hope to hear. On stage he may punctuate with mournful harmonica and emphasise with expressive guitar, but it is the vocal that is the heart-rending centre of his art.

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Blackwell sings his songs as if he is living them. Authentic songs that feel as if they are coming to you rolling across the plains and through dusty mid-Western streets. Songs that present all the emotional texture and depth of classic Americana - telling stories of bruised hopes, and fragmented settlements between yearning and loss - yet in a distinct, English voice. 

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Honest, without artifice, Blackwell's music just is what it is, and that is something genuinely remarkable.

 

TORIA WOOFF

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Awash in a haze of burnt orange and golden browns, Toria Wooff’s world is a colourful palette of opposing plains. A painter, poet, songwriter and storyteller, her songs are steeped in gothic romanticism, pagan and Germanic tradition, enchanted by an alchemy of ‘70s sound and vision where she magically blends the raw power of Led Zeppelin with Alice Cooper’s raven hues to forge her own spellbinding folk-rock concoction. 
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In an age when punk politics’ grey skies can overwhelm, Toria Wooff’s own darkness offers unexpected solace and leaves an equally poignant mark. Fuelled by the thunder of individual spirit and a beating wild heart, her debut EP Badlands shone a light through sorrow’s cracks whilst extending a withered autumnal branch between stormy skies and solstice aligning her with Mother Nature’s tour de force. “I’m proud to be a young woman who sings and writes songs, and don’t apologise for being drawn to the gloomier things in life,” she says.

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With the sonic rabbit hole well and truly open, Toria encountered Joan Baez, Crosby Stills and Nash, Pink Floyd, and Townes Van Zandt. Her roots entwined to the windswept valleys of Lancashire, the rural setting provided a fitting backdrop to the music as she began to sense a connection with the Celtic and Gaelic folklore of her mother’s Scottish heritage. Making past times strangely present with pagan-like spirituality, Toria’s melancholic bite lies between the pages of gothic literature and historical texts. 

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DBH

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dbh is Daniel Bridgwood-Hill, a composer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist based in Manchester, England. For a long time, he has had a hand in an inordinate amount of the great music emerging from Manchester’s music scene, his guitar playing driving the exhilarating racket of NASDAQ and the FTSE 100, and his contributions on all manner of instruments illuminating the music of Charles Hayward (This Heat), Kiran Leonard and Irma Vep, to name but a few.

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As dbh, he plays solo instrumentals, conveying his passion for both folk and popular music with a languid guitar style and playful experimentation. He has released two albums to date – 'Mood' on Thread Recordings (2015) and 'Time Flies' on Crowfoot Records (2013) – and was also featured on the most recent volume of Tompkins Square's guitar compilation series, 'Imaginational Anthem Vol. 7'.

dbh has toured throughout the UK and Europe, sharing bills with artists including Daniel Bachman, Isasa, Simon Joyner and William Tyler.