A Hawk And A Hacksaw finally make their debut headline Dublin show after a series of support shows to Portishead this spring. Joining them are latest Leaf label signing Wildbirds and Peacedrums who release their debut 'Heartcore' at the end of April and Lazybird artist Chequerboard who has received widespread acclaim for his latest album 'Penny Black'

POD Concerts and Lazybird presents

A HAWK AND A HACKSAW

Support: Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Chequerboard

Sunday May 11th

CrawDaddy – Harcourt St.

Doors – 8pm

Tickets €15 (inc. booking fee)  available from Ticketmaster, Road Records, City Discs, Sound Cellar and usual outlets.

www.ahawkandahacksaw.co.uk
www.myspace.com/ahawkandahacksaw
www.wildbirdsandpeacedrums.com
www.myspace.com/wildbirdsandpeacedrums
www.chequerboard.net
www.myspace.com/chequerboard

A HAWK AND A HACKSAW BIOGRAPHY 

It has been a whirlwind year for A Hawk And A Hacksaw. 2006 saw the recording of The Way The Wind Blows (with contributions from Romanian gypsy group Fanfare Ciocarlia and members of Beirut), which saw the band finally getting the respect they deserve, gaining many new friends to boot. Tours with the likes of Calexico and Beirut saw the band reaching bigger and new audiences. The likes of as Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, The Cinematic Orchestra and Portishead, amongst others, have popped out of the woodwork as fans.
 
AHAAH began life as the solo project of Jeremy Barnes of Albuquerque, New Mexico. With a hopeful spirit of adventure, in hot pursuit of music, Barnes began travelling in France, living in New York and Chicago (where he played drums for the cult group Neutral Milk Hotel), and finally settled in Leicester, England at the turn of the millennium. There he became a postman. This unlikely turn of events ("It was horrible, but I'm still proud to have the Royal Mail uniform") resulted in Jeremy briefly drumming for Broadcast during their HaHa Sound period, while secretly tinkering away on what would blossom into AHAAH.
 
Arriving in 2002 with a self-titled debut recorded in France, accordion, piano and bursts of drunken chorus recalled Kurt Weill orchestrations and the whimsical side of Tom Waits, with a flourish of PT Barnum deceits and backwoods carnivals, top hats and curly moustaches. Essentially a one-man band, Barnes was toe-dipping in waters that would soon run much deeper.
 
While delivering the mail in Leicester, every Sunday Barnes would volunteer at the local refugee centre. "In a run down cafeteria there were people from China, Iraq, Iran, Roma from Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria. There were Africans, Pole and Kurds. I mostly played with Iraqis and Kurds; the Roma kept to themselves. I thought there was some sort of unapproachable barrier between me and these people whom I so admired. But there wasn't."
 
The experience was a revelation. Throwing in his postman's hat, Jeremy set off on a journey that would lead him all the way home to Albuquerque.
 
After a stint in Prague, where the celebrated follow-up Darkness at Noon (released in 2005) was composed in its entirety, Jeremy moved back to his hometown, after some 10 years absence. Almost immediately, he met his paramour, the violinist Heather Trost, whose immeasurable influence on AHAAH can be seen in the intense stage rapport the duo have live, and a visceral sense of joy that rarely leaves an audience unaffected.

The duo relocated from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Budapest, Hungary, in early 2007, where an EP was recorded with The Hun Hangár Ensemble, a group of four virtuoso Hungarian musicians who all had connections to the musical epicentre of Hungary, Fonó. The limited edition EP was released as a platform for the set of musicians to explore and develop on their tours, which took them across Europe. The UK tour was hugely successful with the six musicians whipping the audiences into paroxysms of delight.

WILDBIRDS AND PEACEDRUMS BIOGRAPHY

Wildbirds & Peacedrums are charismatic singer Mariam Wallentin and drummer Andreas Werliin. Together the Swedish duo have forged an extraordinary hybrid of spiritual pop, primal blues and ecstatic soul music. Seesawing between pagan rhythms and sparse, bewitching ballads, their self-produced debut is a declaration of intent: immediate, exhilarating, and just plain new.

"I really felt that there was more to come out of the drum set, other sounds and feelings," says Andreas, explaining the depth of emotion and dynamic rhythmic palette that colours the duo's expressive music. Having met at the Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg in 2004, where Mariam enrolled in vocal improv and Andreas in percussion, both were frustrated by the institution's rigid format. "I was so fed up at the way music was played at the University - music judged only upon level and virtuosity," says Andreas. "It just felt wrong."

Wildbirds & Peacedrums was born of a desire to break free and return to music that captures pure feeling. "We had no musical ideals to trust or lean on, so we had just to really believe in ourselves and each other, and it was much easier actually. To get that heavy blanket of history and knowledge off your shoulders was the best musical experience of our lives."

It comes as no surprise, given their obvious musical chemistry, that the duo were married soon after they began performing in the summer of 2005, during a holiday spell in Berlin.

"We always start with the lyrics that Mariam writes, then try to find one or two elements to fit around them - it can be a rhythm or a sound and then we go from there. For me it is such a release to write music this way - with Mariam's voice, I don't need to cover it up with a lot of other stuff - I can just play a simple rhythm and rely on the space/silence. We keep a lot of space in the recordings and somehow it seems that people fill in the rest themselves – an old jazz listener hears horns and basslines and a punk hears smashed guitars!"

After hand-sewing fabric covers for two limited edition CDRs, the duo recorded their debut album Heartcore in Gothenberg in the summer of 2006. They used a mobile studio, allowing for a variety of intimate spaces with different acoustical elements. Having never used any of the equipment before, Mariam and Andreas were forced to keep the recording as spare and live as possible, using just vocals and drums, with a handful of additional instruments like glockenspiel and zither.

"We tried to rely on the energy we create on stage. It was so hard to know what the result was going to be like because we had no references or ideal - we just tried to record as we played the music live at that time. We had just the feeling and goal of trying to capture some honest and intense musical state of mind."

Mariam's uninhibited, skin-prickling vocal expressions invoke vintage blues performers like Bessie Smith through to the spookily evocative folk singing of Mary Margaret O'Hara. With a fiery passion all her own that encompasses moods from the heavy spiritual lament of 'I Can't Tell in his Eyes' to the raw gospel exclamation of 'Bird' with just pulsing bass drums accompanying Mariam's ululations, to the rock & roll handclaps, crash, bang and wallop crescendo of 'Doubt/Hope', she is a mercurial talent with a breathtaking emotional depth.

Indeed, Heartcore could not be a more apt album title. Largely stripped bare with only the most potent, select sounds remaining behind Mariam's transporting voice, the effect is luscious, enveloping and mesmerising.

Heartcore was originally released in Sweden in 2007 on Found You Recordings, now licensed for worldwide release by The Leaf Label. After a year of shows in Scandinavia, Wildbirds & Peacedrums will bring their powerful live show to the rest of Europe this spring, and to North America and Asia later in 2008. With a brand new album of songs already waiting in the wings, this very special duo has even more spectacular musical revelations to come.