JOSHUA Burnell & Band will play a home-city gig at The Crescent, York, on October 16 on his nine-date autumn tour.
Tickets for this 8pm gig cost £12 in advance from joshuaburnell.co.uk/tour or ticketweb.co.uk. Doors will open at 7.30pm for this “folk-fused baroque’n’roll” UK tour date.
Burnell will perform further Yorkshire gigs at The Greystones, Sheffield, on October 14 and Otley Courthouse on October 22, complemented by shows in Manchester, Glasgow, London (Cecil Sharp House), Brighton, Milton Keynes and Bristol .
Burnell has made his mark on the folk scene by winning the Rising Star Awards in the Folking Awards, playing Cambridge, Manchester and Sidmouth folk festivals and receiving multiple plays on Mark Radcliffe’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Show. His psych-trad single The Snow It Melts The Soonest was deemed “outstanding” by Folk Radio UK.
Although Joshua’s roots are grounded in folk, this multi-instrumentalist singer, songwriter and storyteller is not afraid to push back boundaries to create a sound somehow both retro and artfully contemporary. “Think The War On Drugs meets Seth Lakeman on Ziggy Stardust’s spaceship,” he suggests.
Or, as the Guardian put it: “Burnell adds lashings of Peter Gabriel stylings to the world of trad arrangements”.
Joining Joshua on stage will be globe-trotting violinist Frances Archer; guitarist Nathan Greaves; multi-instrumentalist Oliver Whitehouse; drummer Ed Simpson and vocalist Frances Sladen.
“Frances flits from fiddle tune to one-woman string section with apparent ease,” says Joshua’s publicity machine. “Nathan plays a mysterious instrument of his own invention, known only as PIIönk; Oliver is quietly excellent; drummer Ed brings the thunder like something out of the Seattle Grunge era, and breathtakingly evocative singer Frances surely deserves to be a recognised name in her own right.”
Noted for his arrangements, piano riffs and melodies, Burnell’s songs veer from stomping, acoustic singalongs and Bowie-style music hall epics to alt-pop singles that conjure up imagery akin to the cover of a retro sci-fi pulp-fiction novel.
Tickets for all Joshua’s tour dates are on sale at joshuaburnell.co.uk/tour.