Rachel Unthank and the Winterset The Cedar is thrilled to be one of only six centers within the USA to be presenting the stunningly enchanting new act from the northern reaches of England, Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, on their debut US tour in the wake of a breakout 2007 that saw them make numerous Best of lists well beyond the trad folk arena. Sub Pop recording artist Daniel Martin Moore will open.
"If Fairport Convention's recent revival of their classic Liege and Lief album was a reminder of how English traditional music was radically transformed in the 1960s, then Rachel Unthank shows how the process is still continuing. She's a singer from the north-east, with a pronounced Geordie accent. And she reworks folk songs and new songs with a style that switches between bleak, charming, and unexpectedly intense and theatrical. She gets lead billing, but her all-female band play an equally important role, matching her compelling vocals with sparse piano and fiddle, harmony work or passages that veer towards free jazz. They bring an angry, dramatic setting to a well-known piece such as I Wish, move between chilling a cappella work and instrumental experimentation on My Donald, and add sturdy new settings to Robert Wyatt's Sea Song or the chorus from Bonnie "Prince" Billy's A Minor Place. One of the folk records of the year." (review of The Bairns , The Guardian 8/24/07)
Empathically striking and wholeheartedly brave, The Bairns , the acclaimed second recording by Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, brims with the creative force of four young musicians at their peak. Pushing themselves and the listener, the band reach profound levels of emotional and musical complexity, chaos and clarity. Transcendent and grounded music folded around unsentimental old, new and imaginatively borrowed stories of booze, brawls, abuse, loss, fear, infantile death, depravity and sorrow. "If the effect is austere, it is never bleak. Rather the starkness is graceful, gripping and utterly thrilling" said Nigel Williamson in HMV Magazine, making it number one recommended album of the month.
"They are like the morning dew that hasn't steamed off yet, they are fresh and new and I really don't think they know how good they are" Robert Wyatt
"the only new folk combo with a traditions-favouring spirit who would sound equally at home performing with Waterson:Carthy as they would Joanna Newsom" Time Out, London
"Music as tough as it is gentle, as ancient as it is modern, and as coldly desolate as it is achingly intimate. They might not end up being the best-selling British all-girl group of all time, but they're well on their way to being the most charismatic and imaginative" Paul Morley, Observer Music Magazine Top 50 Albums of the Year (number 17)
"Every now and again, and I mean, every now and again, once in a blue moon type of every now and again, you hear music that is so complete, so wonderful, unique and yet familiar that it stops you in your tracks. They have that blue moon magic about them, and they have it in spades." BBC Website Live Review
"The Bairns comes with the anger of the bent but not bowed who have always watched the barons and the bishops live regally. It flowers occasionally with the unadorned but quietly poetic love of ordinary men and women. It revels in the certainty of death and the sharpness of living in that knowledge. And it never feels anything but captivating." Sydney Morning Herald
"Intimate, epic, overflowing with feeling and musical intelligence" The Independent
Winners of the BBC Horizon Award, and nominated for Best Group, Best Live Act and Best Album at the BBC Folk Awards 2008.
Observer Music Magazine Top 50 Albums of 2007 (number 17) " The Bairns is a bewitching, dream-like, down-to-earth masterpiece."
Channel 4 Music Top Ten Albums of 2007 "Not just a great record but an important one; a classic in its own lifetime."
fRoots Top Ten Albums of the 2007
Financial Times Top Ten World/Folk Albums of 2007
Mojo Magazine Top 10 Folk Albums of 2007
Allaboutjazz.com Best of 2007
Tickets ON SALE NOW from Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb
$15 advance / $18 day of show