JOSEPHINE FOSTER

OTO favourite Josephine Foster is back for two nights with a full band on the back of her new album 'Blood Rushing' (Fire Records). Another welcome opportunity to experience Foster's magnificent voice, swooping and swaying through the melodic arrangements (Morriconeon in their power and imagination) of her band. Some songs are singalongs, some are deep atmospheric tales that leave the listener yearning to know more. American gothic, breathless folk and mountain music are all drawn upon by the band but boy 'o' boy, do they swing and swing, with Spanish guitar maestro Victor Herrero channelling all kinds of colour and texture into proceedings. At the heart of the fulsome live sound which also features Trembling Bells' Alex Neilson on drums and Paz Lenchantin from the Entrance Band on bass/violin will be Foster’s voice, evoking the nostalgic warmth and beauty of a phonograph.

'Blood Rushing' is an album that breathes new life into this old world: a celebration of myth making, with ancient images and themes of love, deserts and fire coursing through it like a river. A story within a story, the album is a glimpse into the world of Blushing, a heteronym of the artist Josephine Foster. A rock-ballet chante, the music is set to the meta-pulsing Pan-- American heartbeat of the Pueblo drum. Recorded in Colorado by Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes) with the collaboration of her partner Victor Herrero, musical guests include Paz Lenchantin (The Entrance Band), Heather Trost (A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and Ben Trimble (Fly Golden Eagle).



Josephine Foster is not only a captivating songwriter and performer (a former opera singer), but also is daring, versatile and irreverent in her approach to subject and form. She has covered Emily Dickerson (Graphic As A Star) and sung German art songs (A Wolf In Sheeps Clothing), and recently adapted Lorca and Spanish folk/poems (in her recent albums with Victor Herrero, where she has sung in Spainish) as well as releasing an album with The Cherry Blossoms among myriad other projects.

“Her gainly vibrato and fireside intimacy place her in the company of illustrious dames of Americana such as Buffy Sainte-Marie and composer Ruth Crawford Seeger. 'She Sweeps With Many Coloured Brooms' is pure Another Side Of Bob Dylan, harmonica interludes and all” - Rob Young/Uncut on Graphic As A Star

DAN HAYWOOD'S NEW HAWKS

A new and literate voice in British music arrives. Dan Haywood’s New Hawks are a collection of songs, and also a band, whose epic scope marries transatlantic cosmic roots music with a poetic and soulful British folk. A rambling, rolling band whose crazed stage presence, with various players swapping instruments and psychic powers amongst themselves, has already assured them cult status. This rare and special occasion sees the full 9-piece New Hawks big band gathered onstage for their first headline London date.

Haywood himself is a compelling frontal figure, orating his adventures with a certain awkward relish and a weird glint in his eye, both the court jester and king. The band is a collective of kindred spirits from across Northern England carefully assembled by Haywood to perform the 32 tracks that form their monumental debut album, and they bring flesh to the smart and ever-shifting arrangements with guitars, fiddles, cello, drums, hand percussion and more.

The album was conceived in painstaking fashion over five years as a way of documenting Haywood’s bird-and-people-watching travels around Highland Scotland. A vast modern-day Joycean folk-rock cartography with Dan Haywood as your charismatic navigator poet, and as many ruggedly beautiful crannies to explore as the Scottish wilderness it is inspired by.

Five Red Castrils- Dan Haywoods New Hawks from Reverbfilms on Vimeo.

VICTOR HERRERO

Introduced to music in his childhood while living in the famous monastery Franco erected in a mountain valley west of Madrid (El Valle de los Caídos), Victor Herrero learned to sing Gregorian and Mozarabic chant under the guidance of Benedictine monks. Joining the abbey’s well-respected boys’ choir he performed in around Europe and was featured in the soundtrack and as an extra in the Belgian cult film ‘Farinelli’ (Gérard Corbiau, 1994) Around this time he began studying the classical guitar. As a teenager back in his hometown Toledo he formed a psych-rock outfit called ‘Cicely’, which grew into a popular Madrid-based band. The group lasted 8 years. Following this break-up Victor recorded and released an album of his solo piano compositions (“Connotaciones para Piano”) under his old stage name ‘Victor Cicely’, which was put out by the Spanish label SGAE in 2006. Since that time he has performed regularly with Josephine Foster and also released a solo collection of his instrumental songs written for and interpreted upon the Spanish guitar, the music embodies different styles which have all formed a part of his experience—classical, folkloric and contemporary threads— all united under the strong influence of traditional musica Andaluz.



PAZ LENCHANTIN

Moving from her native Argentina to LA at the age of five was just the first big move for musician Paz Lenchantin. The daughter of two concert pianists took to music early in life and knew pretty quickly that she'd found her calling. She's skilled at piano, bass, violin and guitar, not to mention composing, arranging and performing. Citing such musical influences as John Paul Jones and Rick Danko, Paz has made a name for herself as a mover in the music world and is one of the most sought-after bass players in rock.

Paz was an original member of the group A Perfect Circle with Maynard James Keenan and the super group Zwan with Billy Corgan. In addition, she's played with Queens of the Stone Age, and with performers David Pajo and Papa M, among others. When she gets a moment to breathe she writes and performs solo.



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