Hillfolk Noir
Monday 18 June : 8pm
£10.00 : £8.00 concessions : seated
As soon as Hillfolk Noir released their latest album – Radio Hour – (their eighth) in the UK, it received a huge amount of attention, particularly from radio presenters. Bob Harris was the first on the uptake, describing the band as “absolutely fascinating”. This week, he played them again and told listeners to his BBC Radio 2 show they were “Amazing,” adding: “I can’t wait to see them onstage!”
One of the hardest-working bands on the US roots music circuit, Hillfolk Noir from Boise, Idaho, have build themselves a huge Stateside following playing what has been described as music that has been “filtered through a country-tinged, swampy-swingin’, hillbilly-delta-blues-ragtime word machine”.
Inspired by a half-century of folk, country and rock ‘n’ roll, and fed by family history and an affinity for acoustic mountain music, medicine show culture and Depression-era string-band blues, Hillfolk Noir’s last album, Skinny Mammy’s Revenge was no-frills and real, captured ‘live’ around a single mic in a series of on-location field sessions in various log cabins.
In America, it was met with widespread acclaim and the “live” shows won them much praise too, The Seattle Weekly describing them as “one of the most incredible bands”.
On it’s UK release, Skinny Mammy’s Revenge established the band as a force to be reckoned with on this side of the Atlantic too, Americana UK writer Paul Kerr telling readers it was “a delight”.
“Hillfolk Noir manage to capture the essence of American music in spades,” he said.
This will be the band’s much-anticipated first UK tour.
