YORKSHIRE duo Kimber headline the Victoria Vaults on Friday, launching their debut EP Slow Moon, Long Night at the pub in Nunnery Lane, York.
Already featured on Steve Lamacq’s show on BBC 6 Music, the EP is released by York label Safe Suburban Home Records.
Kimber are producers, multi-instrumentalists and long-time friends Mikey Wilson and Josh Heffernan, whose northern, working-class roots and work ethic emerge in their approach to making music: DIY, self-engineered, self-produced and self-mixed, with both members putting money aside each week to slowly build their shared home studio.
Their studio space has become a sanctuary, with their passion for production and gear allowing Kimber to experiment sonically as well as be self-sufficient artists.
The results are heavily textured with hints of Mount Kimbie in the woozy production, Beach House in the melancholic melodies and New Order in the dynamic basslines. Favouring looseness in their sound, they apply a “performed-not-programmed” ethos, drawn from their passion for capturing an authentic human feel.
Kimber’s music is neither austere electronica nor the simple bounce of new wave, sitting somewhere between the cracks instead.
Chris White, owner of Victoria Vaults, says: “It’s great to see local talent from the York area appearing here. We’re looking forward to a great night.”
Joining Kimber on the 8.30pm triple bill will be support acts Kitty VR and Everything After Midnight; doors open at 7.30pm. Box office: wegottickets.com.
The Trials Of Cato’s Tomos Williams and Robin Jones with new addition Polly Bolton
BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winners The Trials Of Cato will headline the third Primrose Wood Acoustics session in Pocklington on August 5.
Organised by Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC), the outdoor concert series will complete its summer hattrick by popular demand after sold-out sylvan shows on July 1 and 8.
Scunthorpe-born virtuoso guitarist, singer and songwriter Martin Simpson and East Yorkshire singer-songwriter Katie Spencer played the first night; Leeds indie-folk/Americana band The Dunwells and York singer-songwriter Rachel Croft, the second.
The third 7pm event will once again “fuse nature’s soundtrack, background birdsong and transcendent live music under a natural canopy of trees to create a truly enchanting open-air experience for audiences”.
PAC director Janet Farmer says: “Primrose Wood Acoustics is a new concept for Pocklington Arts Centre, with this being the first time we have taken live music not only outdoors but also into a woodland setting.
The Dunwells performing at the second Primrose Wood Acoustics in Pocklington on July 8
“Our first two events have proved so popular, selling out on both occasions and attracting such positive, uplifting feedback, that we just had to do another one.
“This time we have The Trials Of Cato headlining, which is a perfect fit for such a charming woodland setting. When nature and live music collide something really wonderful happens and we know this is going to be no exception.”
Hailed by Mark Radcliffe, The Folk Show host on BBC Radio 2, as “one of the real discoveries on the folk circuit in recent times”, The Trials Of Cato won Best Album at the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards for their debut, Hide And Hair.
Formed in Beirut, when Tomos Williams, Will Addison and Robin Jones were working in Lebanon as English teachers, the trio had returned to Britain in 2016, Here, they set about performing tirelessly up and down the country with their stomping tunes and captivating stories that paid homage to the tradition while twisting old bones into something more febrile and modern.
Bolton wanderer: Polly Bolton, solo singer-songwriter, member of The Magpies and now part of the folk trio The Trials Of Cato
Hide And Hair’s release in November 2018 was greeted with airplay on BBC 6 Music and Radio 2 and thumbs-up coverage in national publications, while mastering engineer John Davis, who worked with Jimmy Page on the Led Zeppelin remasters, memorably dubbed them “The Sex Pistols of folk”.
After a year of wall-to-wall touring across the UK, Europe and North America, however, the band’s march was halted by the stultifying silence of the global pandemic, but now they are emerging anew from their transformative chrysalis.
“The Trials continue,” they say, but this time, after Addison’s departure, Williams and Jones are joined by Leamington Spa multi-instrumentalist and singer Polly Bolton, from The Magpies, for their hotly anticipated second album.
Set for release later this year (precise date yet to be confirmed), Gog Magog is named both after the mythical giant of Arthurian legend and the Cambridgeshire hilltop, where the new album was birthed over lockdown.
The support act for August 5 will be announced shortly. Tickets cost £14 on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
