A native of Cheltenham, England, I sing mostly dark and soulful songs, and play various instruments including 12-string guitar, celtic harp, piano, bass and penny whistle. My collaborator Daniel Staniforth plays cello, classical and electric guitars and a host of other things. Our music is diverse, but essentially it's a darkly evocative cornfield-edge psych-folk, inspired by the land and its lingering spirits.
I have my roots in English and Scottish traditional music even if I am somewhat irreverent in my deviation from tradition, but the rock music I grew up with (Kate Bush, David Bowie, All About Eve) is also very evident on my albums. I've dipped heavily into the well of ancestral and faery inspiration in my re-imagining of British traditional songs, and the songs I write myself or with Daniel are often rooted in something ancient but branch out into something quite other - and no two ever sound the same.
My partnership with Daniel, who is a writer, poet, singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist and releases alt rock albums under the name of Luna Trick, is taking ever more interesting and alchymical directions. We're busy working on a spin-off project, tentatively called Alchymical Muse, which combines both our voices in a kind of Dead Can Dancey mystical frisson. More details about that soon!
My debut album "Mind The Gap" is available now, and my second album "Seven Star Green" is due out in August 2009.
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