Folkhouse music this weekend

Nina Nastasia

Friday, 28 May 2010
http://www.myspace.com/ninanastasia
Doors:8pm

The Independent
Over four albums, she's pared down her song-poem style to a point where skeletal
surfaces only need to hint at her characters' back-stories for impact. She
doesn't overburden their tales with analysis or self-pity: instead, she
anatomises the emotions at stake with needlepoint precision.
Mojo
These intimate hushes and lilts would be remarkable even as instrumentals....
Yet it's Nastasia's voice--and the words that it sings--that really sucks the
air out of the room.
Uncut
Spare, beautiful, outstanding.
Q Magazine
Curiously compelling for something so minimal, it's like nothing else around.
The Guardian
Delicate songs with unexpected, unnerving strength.

Nina Nastasia's rare gift of a voice is an intimate, winged presence that is
able to either freeze or melt your heart; that can powerfully soar and twist, or
brush ultra-gently against you, suddenly summoning goose bumps. Mojo commented
on its ability to "suck the air out of the room". Picking over themes of love,
longing and loss, childhood, dreams and human dramas, her beautifully concise,
hook-laden songwriting and the spare arrangements of her band have a certain
gritty, rustic charm and intensity. Simultaneously tough and fragile, her songs
crackle and smolder with an intimate emotional honesty and a dark undertow.

MIXOLYDIUM acoustic extravagance

Saturday, 29 May 2010
Ticket price:£5
Doors:8pm

A night of acoustic extravagance brought to you by a dazzling blend of local
songwriters and composers.  Find yourself enchanted by tales of quirky
characters conjured up from sub- and superhuman spheres.  Experience the sound
of remembering one's birth.  Witness butterflies conducting ghostly
orchestras.  Immerse yourself in soundscapes stunningly vast and microcosmic
considering the sparse instrumentation these artists draw on.

Joe Blench (vocals/piano); Jacques, A Robin(vocals/guitar/violin/percussion)
www.myspace.com/jacquesarobin;

Colin Smith (piano)

Vanessa (vocals/guitar) www.myspace.com/evertonuk;

Carolin Seitz (vocals/piano/percussion) www.myspace.com/zweiseitz