Great triple bill of artists pushing at the edges of contemporary song. Richard Dawson has been a much-loved musical spectacle in his native Newcastle for many years now, a skewed troubadour who sings and plays guitar with a rare intensity and a very singular style. Islaja is the recording alias of Merja Kokkonen, a musician and visual artist from Helsinki, whose music is born from experimentation, uniting traditional Finnish forest mystery and a radical song universe. Toronto's Picastro have been writing and performing in varying forms revolving around songwriter Liz Hysen since 1998 and in that time have amassed a richly atmospheric body of work that doesn't shy away from a starkly human touch.

RICHARD DAWSON

Richard Dawson was, until he appeared at TUSK and Supersonic festivals in 2012, the North East of England’s hidden jewel – a skewed troubadour who sings and plays guitar with a rare intensity and singular style. His voice has been compared to everyone from Tim Buckley to Richard Youngs while his guitar playing recalls Sir Richard Bishop and Zoot Horn Rollo and, combined with the inescapable snare of his lyrics, means surrender to his music is inevitable.

2013 saw Dawson go from local legend to touring Europe twice, performing at festivals such as Latitude, Supernormal, Incubate and SOY and being lauded by Late Junction, The Wire, The Quietus and many more. He ended the year with his album The Glass Trunk being named Leftfield Album Of The Year by Stewart Lee in the Sunday Times, being placed at Number 4 in The Wire's albums of 2013 and being hailed as one of Record Collector's albums of the year.



It’s too easy to describe any artist as peerless but this time it really is the case. Following the genius of this year’s The Glass Trunk cd, Richard has a new album (on a new label) out in Summer 2014. He’s genuinely one of the most affecting performers you’ll ever see. Stewart Lee in The Sunday Times described The Glass Trunk as "a mesmerising, pungent collection" that "draws out hidden truths in strong bold strokes". Alex Neilson said in The Wire: “"This remarkable album packs all these emotions and more into its 19 highly idiosyncratic and imaginative pieces…it's mingling of the incidental with the testimonial hopes and anxieties of all-but-forgotten people is profoundly affecting."

“What makes The Magic Bridge such a remarkable album is that every comparison one might make, however illustrious the precursor, feels both entirely justified by Dawson’s music, yet entirely inadequate as an explanation of it. This elusive freshness is why the album demands to be properly heard, compelling the listener to keep coming back to it.” - The Wire

www.richarddawson.net


ISLAJA

Islaja is the recording alias of Merja Kokkonen, a musician and visual artist from Helsinki, currently based in Berlin. Her music is born from experimentation, uniting traditional Finnish forest mystery and a radical song universe. Islaja’s spectral sound suggests pathways to other worlds, with echoes of religious chants underpinned by steady percussion, and fluid vocals melding with drones. A regular contributor to the more psych/folk and improv oriented Kemialliset Ystävät and Avarus, Islaja’s recordings are by contrast almost entirely self-contained, reflecting the more personal nature of her music, and a natural affinity towards an independent/DIY aesthetic. Her fourth album for Fonal (following 2008’s excursion on Ecstatic Peace for the live document Blaze Mountain Recordings), Keraaminen Pää (or Ceramic Head) contains many shades of black. It also bears witness to a shift in perception and execution; yet the thread that weaves its way through all Islaja’s work remains resolute, visible and intact.



If Islaja’s previous albums for Fonal appear to exhibit a more overtly pastoral nature, this in part feels coincidental, or secondary to something much larger and more difficult to define. From the earliest Islaja recordings, Merja has made the simplest of instrumentation work to her own ends, displaying a disquieting combination of innocence and fearlessness, and a seemingly innate ability to transcend the confines of a genre. It is the same singular approach and vision that informs Keraaminen Pää – born largely of whatever instruments were to hand, if the sound has shifted into more electronic terrain, it remains as immersive and subtly evocative as ever.




PICASTRO

Picastro began in Toronto in 1998 with Liz Hysen, Stephanie Vittas and Kurt Newman. Since then, the band has continued in many forms with its current band members consisting of Liz Hysen, Brandon Valdivia and Nick Storring. Picastro has toured extensively over the past 10 years in North America and Europe. Picastro has appeared on BBC radio, VPRO (Dutch national radio) and the venerable WFMU.

"A rich and atmospheric mix of spookiness and disorientation, with gentle sounding cello and guitar defined melodies twisting, deforming and fuzzily distorting as vocals swirl around the sound and fuse into the overall atmosphere created by the music. The natural acoustic sounds are augmented by synthesizer and electric guitar to add a touch of noise to the underlying gothic pastoral of the music. There’s beauty here, but an edginess too." The Line of Best Fit review of new album 'You'

Picastro has also played a number of festivals including SXSW (Austin), CMJ (NYC), Incubate (Netherlands), Rhaaa Lovely (Belgium), Žedno Uho (Croatia), Tanned Tin (Spain), Suoni Per il Popolo (Montreal) and NXNE (Toronto). The band has toured or played shows with Scout Niblett, Nadja, Cerberus Shoal, Xiu Xiu, Devendra Banhart, Marissa Nadler, Dwayne Sodahberk, Broken Social Scene and many other wonderful artists.