Rachel Unthank & The Winterset profile picture

Rachel Unthank & The Winterset

NEW ALBUM - "glorious" Uncut "gorgeous" Guardian

About Me

END OF YEAR HONOURS FOR THE BAIRNSObserver 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.”Daily Telegraph Top Folk Album of the 2007 “It is by turns passionate, defiant and angry, and the strings of the Northern Sinfonia add to the intense beauty”Nominated for Best Album in the forthcoming 2008 BBC Folk Awards HMV Choice Top 30 Albums of the Year (number 18) 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 Robert Wyatt’s Personal Top Ten Albums of 2007 Tracey Thorn’s Personal Top Ten Albums of 2007 Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk – Top Songs of 2007 in The ListDancing down the leftfield and singing in their own lilting Geordie accents, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset are the "inheritors, purveyors and gleeful distorters" (Ian MacMillan) of Tyneside's traditions. Elements of blues, jazz, burlesque cabaret, classical and leftfield contemporary music make their take on folk music peerless, fearless and wholeheartedly brave, winning fans as disparate as Robert Wyatt, Kate Rusby, Joan As Policewoman, Phil Jupitus and Duke Special. Debut album Cruel Sister won Mojo Folk Album of the Year, and new album The Bairns has been described at "utterly gorgeous" by The Guardian and as "a work of towering quality" by The Telegraph. Rachel Unthank & The Winterset are nominated for Best Group, Best Live Act, Best Album and The Horizon Award in the forthcoming 2008 BBC Folk Awards, and The Bairns was number 17 in the Observer Music Magazine’s Top 50 Albums of the 2007 – the only folk album in the 50.Mojo Magazine Folk Album of the Year 2005 for ‘Cruel Sister’; Live Performance of the Year 2006 Cambridge Folk Festival; Artist of the Year 2007 Journal Culture Awards. You should create your own MySpace Layouts like me by using nUCLEArcENTURy .COM's MySpace Profile Editor !

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 3/8/2006
Band Website: rachelunthank.com
Band Members: Rachel Unthank - Voice and Cello Becky Unthank - Voice Stef Conner - Voice and Piano Niopha Keegan- Fiddle and Voice
Influences: Mam and Dad Unthank! The Keelers, The Wilsons, The Waterson/Carthys, June Tabor, Joni Mitchell, Sandra & Nancy Kerr, Voice Squad, CBS, The Elliots of Birtley, all the floor singers and folk we have seen sing in our lives.Then there's the contemporary music that filters our consciousness. We are currently listening to Sufjan Stevens, Lau, Joan As Policewoman, Robert Wyatt, Jon Redfern, Alasdair Roberts, Dresdon Dolls, Regina Spektor, Anthony & The Johnsons, Nick Drake, The Books, Chris Wood, Billy Holliday and Led Zeppelin.As Louis Armstrong said, "all music is folk music, I ain't never heard a horse sing a song"!
Sounds Like: ‘Intimate, epic, overflowing with feeling and musical intelligence’ THE INDEPENDENT “ 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.. joyous, virtuous and luscious un-folk - ancient melodies, graphic atmospheres and everyday concerns radically transformed by bloody-minded and discriminating modern sensibilities” PAUL MORLEY, THE OBSERVER
Record Label: RabbleRouser Music / EMI Records
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Niopha available for fiddle tutoring

Winterset member Niopha Keegan is available for one-to-one touring in the North East of England. With a lifetime of experience in traditional Irish music and a graduate from the Bmus Folk and Traditio...
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:14:00 PST

Rachel & Becky in Rogues Gallery

Remember the album released a few year ago of sea songs produced by Hal Wilner and Johnny Depp that featured the likes of Sting, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright and Martin Carthy? Well, there are 3 Rogues ...
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:36:00 PST

More festival appearances announced

New additions to our summer shows include FMM Sines (Portugal's biggest World Music festival), Seven Songs in Saddleworth, Noordezon Festival in Holland, and as mentioned already, The Electric Picnic....
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:34:00 PST

The Winterset At The Electric Picnic

We are very excited to announce that Rachel Unthank & The Winterset join the bill for Ireland's super-cool boutique festival, The Electric Picnic. Headliners include Sigur Ros, The Sex Pistols, Go...
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:33:00 PST

Today’s Independent

A mention in today's Independent. From a review of the weekend's Wychwood Festival:"The embarrassment of riches on offer at Wychwood became obvious when the time slots of three acts I wanted to catch ...
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:44:00 PST

News

Hi folksWith The Great Escape and Hexham Gathering behind us, and Wychwood, Venn, Beverley and Glastonbury coming up, it's very definitely festival silly-season, but we do have a few sh...
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:19:00 PST

Sheffield cancellation / t shirts / Express feature

Sheffield show cancelled. Tuesday's Boardwalk show is cancelled. Having suffered several problems with the venue, we have made a mutual decision alongside and in support of Mean Fiddler...
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Fri, 09 May 2008 02:19:00 PST

Tipped for Glastonbury / Billy Bragg show / lLive with Clive Anderson

Some links from this week:"By far the most rigorous of Bragg's supports" read the Observer review of our St George's Day show with Billy Bragg at The Barbican.http://music.guardian.co.uk/live/story/0,...
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:13:00 PST

On tour from today! And T-Shirts!

Hi folks Our major UK tour starts... today! Please check below for a date near you. We're coming to London, Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield, Manchester, Salisbury and Ex...
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:54:00 PST

Mainland Europe Shows Announced

European shows announced. Denmark, Germany and Belgium dates announced for June. 09.06 DENMARK Aarhus, Voxhall (45) 8730 9797 http://www.voxhall.dk/11.06.GERMANY Hamburg, Fabrik 17¬ (49).1805-969 0000...
Posted by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset on Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:49:00 PST