As part of 20th year celebrations, The Unthanks scale back for some intimate shows, supporting today’s best small venues and including memorable ones from their early days. The shows will draw from all parts of their repertoire. How many artists have covered as much musical ground and journeyed so far as The Unthanks have over the past two decades?
BBC 6 Music regulars, but equally to be found on Radios 2, 3 and 4, the Tyneside band are like magpies, picking up undiscovered jewels, reframing history and drawing on the worlds of folk, jazz, orchestral, electronica and art-rock to create their own unique truth and beauty. They have won Mojo Magazine Folk Album of the Year twice, they were the only British folk representation in The Guardian’s and Uncut’s Best Albums of the Decade (worldwide, all genres), and count amongst their admirers, fellow storytellers including Elvis Costello, Maxine Peake, Michael Sheen, Rosanne Cash, Martin Freeman, Robert Wyatt, Martin Hayes, Nick Hornby, Ben Myers and Dawn French.
Using the traditional music of the North East of England as a starting point, the influence of Miles Davis, Steve Reich, Sufjan Stevens, Robert Wyatt, Antony & The Johnsons, King Crimson and Tom Waits can be heard in the band’s 16 records to date, earning them a Mercury Music Prize nomination and international acclaim along the way. The Unthanks are constantly evolving. They have scaled up for orchestral and brass band shows, drawing on the arranging and composing skills of self-taught band leader Adrian McNally, and paired right back for the unaccompanied live record, Diversions Vol 5, drawing on the traditional singing backgrounds of Rachel and Becky Unthank and Niopha Keegan. They’ve created song cycles from Emily Bronte’s poetry, site specific theatre with Maxine Peake, soundtracks for Mackenzie Crook’s Worzel Gummidge, had music used on HBO’s True Detective, Peaky Blinders, Vera, and The Dectectorists, and a string of ‘Diversions’ interpreting the work of Molly Drake, Anohni and Robert Wyatt. Their 15th record, Sorrows Away, was described as “a masterpiece of nuanced drama” (Uncut Albums of the Year), "a landmark album by an extraordinary band that will resonate for generations to come." (Record Collector).
“Few of their contemporaries, within both folk music and the wider artistic spectrum, have such a keenly-honed ability to locate in a song the emotional essence that can, in just a single phrase or vocal elision, cut one to the quick.” The Independent
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