Recently described as ‘Amazing noir indie-folk’ by Latest7, Brighton’s weekly lifestyle magazine
Bitter Ruin
are an explosive, theatrical acoustic duo with grasping lyrics filthy with energy and anger. Renowned for their intense and dramatic live performances, their audiences are mesmerized by Georgia’s vicious, complex vocals and are left desperate to hear more of Ben’s brutal vocal attack and cutting, jagged acoustic guitar.
A relatively new act on the scene, they have been performing together for only a year and have already released their first EP featuring such inspiring tracks as ‘Trust’ and ‘Chewing Gum’.
Georgia and Ben are from opposite ends of the UK. Their influences are similarly from opposite musical counties. While Ben draws his serene and engrossing tone from Jeff Buckley, Georgia punches quirky outbursts tainted by Regina Spektor and Kate Bush. However the duo has obviously adjusted their ear drums to gorge on each others inspirations and have skillfully combined their crowning credentials to hatch an addictively juiced sound and frenzied drama.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BOOK BITTER RUIN EMAIL:
[email protected]
The Troubador, London: 20th February 2008
"A couple take to the stage in the intimate confines of the Troubador Club dressed for an upmarket 1920s funeral. Ben cradles an acoustic guitar as Georgia stalks briefly around the stage in her stockinged feet. Without preliminary the haunting intro of Chewing Gum begins, a wordless chorus over slowly-picked melody. It breaks suddenly into something murderously intense, by turns bellowing and delicately melodic with dramatic, jarring shifts of tone and rhythm. Bitter Ruin are not like anything you’ve seen before. The aesthetic is folk-gothic, like a less gravelly and plodding Mark Lanegan. The songs are intricately plotted duets, mostly about love gone varying degrees of horribly wrong. Often they build from intricate twinkling to choppy, percussive, stomping choruses or, as in stand-out Trust, blisteringly fast call-and-response. Georgia’s delivery ranges from a witchy cackle to full-throated blues, via what I’m reasonably sure was a therimin impression. Brazen theatrics are the other half of the equation, when she’s not throwing carnival shapes the two are perched about the stage or belting the lines out into each other’s faces with an intensity verging on the frightening. If someone feels like writing the missing scenes, a graveyard knife-fight over an incestuous love affair would be about right, there’s one hell of a musical on show here. The audience are evenly split between rapt and puzzled. Weird, unique, highly recommended."
Daniel Key, Culture Deluxe
