From vastly different musical backgrounds, blind io’s music ties together classical, rock, folk and blues sounds, with influences including Phil Glass, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Together for 3 years with their previous vocalist, their recordings and live sets involve reputable musicians on violin (Graham Clark – Gong, Georgina Leach – Bonebox, Liam Frost), saxophone (Matt Nickson – Matt&Phreds Jazz Club, Gaucho), piano (Sam Ely – Zed Bias band) and double bass (Jon Thorne – Lamb, Lou Rhodes)
Early live performances saw blind io take tour dates with Mohair and headline the Academy 3 (Manchester) filling the venue to capacity twice. Making their recording debut in July 2006 with a self-funded, recorded and released 6 track E.P named “blind io…†distributed nationwide via Absolute/Universal, with over 200 pre-orders to HMV alone, the band have gigged throughout the North of England working regularly with SA Promotions, Beat Promotions and Glasswerk. Last summer they performed 6 gigs in 5 days for the E.P launch, including to a capacity crowd at Night & Day Café and their own open air event on Cathedral Gardens (Manchester) to over 500 fans, as well as at In The City for the second year and at the popular SWAP Festival.
More recently sessions and interviews on local television (Channel M) and radio (GMR, All fm) and features in local press (High Voltage, Manchester Evening News, Bolton Evening News) have helped raise their ever increasing profile.
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MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
...it's this sense of old values exalted with modern attitude which makes blind io such an enticing - and strangely everyman - rock proposition...
...While it's easy to dismiss blind io as retro long-hairs who need to get over a decade they were too young to actually even remember, it's much better to venerate them for their out-of-placeness...
...In a musical climate defined by starter-kit indie, New Rave and over-hyped nonsense like The Horrors, maybe a bunch of hairy, prog-rock monsters who write overwrought, indulgent concept albums is just what we need right now...
HIGH VOLTAGE SINGLE REVIEW 30/04/07 www.highvoltage.org.uk...Clearly, Blind Io are locals, in their hearts and in their souls. And we can be rightly proud of their heartfelt contribution to the illustrious musical heritage of the town we call home...
...With admirable bravery, Blind Io are creating music which is expressive of their passions, with little or no regard for fashion.4/5
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