Divers or Loons present:
JULIA VORONTSOVA
JAMES BLACKSHAW,
ROSKAR NASAN
& TOMOMI
Sat 7th Oct at…BG's a small club at the back of the Shacklewell Arms.
71 Shacklewell Lane,
Dalston
4 pounds on the door. Doors open 8pm music from 9pm
JULIA VORONTSOVA:
Born in St Petersburg Julia Vorontsova is currently based in Paris. After months of asking her she has agreed to take the Eurostar to London and play some songs for us.
Julia ; “I was born in St. Petersburg in 1982, and although in western culture people describe my music as folk, in Russia they call it Bard. This is a movement that dates back to the 50s, which defines a genre in which only guitar and voice create the song. The main accent was on the words, so in most cases the poetry was more developed than the music.
People inspire me a lot, although often I feel much more in tune with animals and nature. Growing up in St. Petersburg, the city and its history had an immediate effect on me… there have always been two worlds that existed [in St. Petersburg]. One was the capital of culture where you inhale art with the air you breathe and the other was the city recovering from communism.
I am currently living in Paris , working on new material and starting to collaborate with other musicians.”
“Julia Vorontsova evokes both the gorgeous fading beauty of of her native Russia and the dissolute smoky nightclubs of Edith Piaf. You don't need the translations provided to understand the grandiloquent emotion behind 'Agape' and 'Grandfather': she sounds full of ancient knowledge...”
Everett True PLAN B Magazine, August/September 2005
Listen;
http://www.myspace.com/juliavorontsova
http://www.juliavorontsova.com/
JAMES BLACKSHAW :
Reviews;
“James Blackshaw has burst fully-formed onto the folk underground, his remarkable talents already seeming at peak maturity... Blackshaw has established himself as an instrumentalist of astonishing grace and delicacy, seeming as though he's gobbled and digested whole the primitive folk canons of Takoma and Vanguard. Relying primarily on 12-string guitar, Blackshaw's intricate creations web together Robbie Basho's wayfaring mysticism, Ben Chasny's soft-focused acid tongues, and the rustic fantasias of Sandy Bull.." - Pitchforkmedia.com
"There's an indecent ease to James Blackshaw's guitar playing. His fingerpicking mantras are as melodic as a music box, gliding through dizzying tempos like clockwork. His raga-like instrumentals are not structured as much as woven, teasing out a single melodic strand to explore all it's textural possibilities. Such is the silky control he exerts over his instrument, Blackshaw often sounds more like a court harpist than a backwoods strummer." - Derek Walmsey, TheWire
Having started off running Uncle Sam's Folk we will now be running nights at BG's on the first Saturday of each month. This is a one off mid week event.
Listen;
http://www.myspace.com/jamesblackshaw
http://www.jamesblackshaw.com/
divers or loons