[Nov 16, 2014] Laura Cannell [Brawl Records - UK) + Laura Sheeran (Dublin) (1 Viewer)

[Con Artist]

Con Artist presents:
Laura Cannell [Brawl Records - UK]
+ very special guest Laura Sheeran

Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/laura-cannell-laura-sheeran-tickets-13382045057

Playing fiddle, overbowed fiddle, double recorders, sometimes
percussion and other rarefied wind instruments, Laura Cannell is a young woman
drawing on ancient transcendental and earthly musics. Her sense of
space, dynamics and working with acoustics is super sensitive. Whether
solo or otherwise she explores the spaces between ancient, traditional
and improvised music, often utilising a fragment from a medieval theme
to her own end in a manner that embraces the apparitional, historical
or the otherworldly. Her seemingly wild side, in such rarefied circles
makes her involved yet emotive music really bristle and connect.

Laura’s style has evolved out of long self-taught sessions alongside
dedicated training as well employing her very open approach to join
the dots with contemporary music makers. Her time in the highly
regarded Horses Brawl duo as well as her Early Music church missions
has formed a musical backbone on which she can now move into new
pastures. Her current live music show finds her performing
improvisations on ‘over-bowed’ fiddle and double-barrelled recorders
creating spell-binding new interpretations and breathing new life into
lost and forgotten melodies from the 5th – 14th centuries.

Laura’s exquisitely-realised solo album Quick Sparrows Over the Black
Earth was released in July 2014. Haunting chords move the heavy air of
the church as fiddle drones drift across the flatlands of East Anglia.
Recorded in single takes in a small medieval church in rural South
Norfolk, UK, the ten tracks feature atmospheric improvisations around
tunes played on fiddle with a deconstructed bow (taken apart and
wrapped around the violin) and double barrelled recorders (two
recorders played at once and based on images in medieval paintings and
sculptures).

Open to collaboration and new contexts, Laura also performs in an
experimental fiddle duo with André Bosman (aka electronic musician
Hoofus) and a new trio Oscilanz with Ralph Cumbers (aka Bass Clef) and
renowned drummer Charles Hayward (This Heat, About Group). Laura’s
album with harp player Rhodri Davies ‘Feathered Swing of the Raven’ is
a wonderful tonal piece. Laura animates double barrelled recorders
(the renaissance alto and baroque soprano), while Rhodri draws a
double bow across the harp, making it sound like a cello. Together,
they fill the sonic field, often coming across like a quartet. Live
appearances to date include festivals as diverse as Supernormal, The
Aldeburgh Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary
Music Festival, Brighton Early Music Festival and many others.

Following the release of Quick Sparrows Over the Black Earth, Brawl
Records released an exclusive digital only album where musicians took
to remixing her tracks. Included are Luke Abbott, Bass Clef, Hoofus,
Kemper Norton, Ekoplekz and Hacker Farm.

Joining Laura on the night is Laura Sheeran, a Galway native who has been developing her dark songwriting style from a very young age. Described as ‘an episode of Twin Peaks in female form’, Laura fuses classical influences with electronic production and filters it all through the dark witching gauze she cultivates so well.

A 'creative dynamo', Laura has an extensive back-catalogue of work to date, writing music for film, theater and dance productions as well as a number of solo albums and releases with Alien-Pop band Nanu Nanu, and the ever enigmatic collective Fovea Hex.

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/laurasheeranofficial
Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/user/laurasheeran
Twitter : @laurasheeran
bandcamp : http://laurasheeran.bandcamp.com/

 

[Con Artist]

 

[Con Artist]

Laura Cannell review in The Quietus from the recent Tusk festival...

"…an outstanding set of neo-medieval music for fiddle and recorder from Norfolk based Laura Cannell. A collaborator with This Heat drummer Charles Hayward and Ralph ‘Bass Clef’ Cumbers, among others, Cannell is no academic revivalist, finding her individual voice through an open-minded compositional approach and innovative instrumental techniques. She often plays her fiddle with a deconstructed bow, placing the hair over the strings to create a droning chordal accompaniment to her beautiful edge-of-the-world melodies. Recalling the jazz multi-instrumentalist Roland Rahsaan Kirk, whose signature technique was the playing of several horns at once, Cannell reconstructs the music of 12th century mystic Hildegard Von Bingen on double recorders, her left hand weaving an alto counterpoint around the right hand melody. A magical set which deftly captures the ancient-modern spirit of Tusk.”