House of Trees with Ryan O’ Reilly
Saturday 25th January 2014, 7m, music from 9pm
Tickets £10/£25 with pre-event dinner
Sladers Yard will be hosting Swedish/British band ‘House of Trees” (featuring Bridport’s own James Carnell) for the third time. House of Trees have seen growing success over the last two years. Their heady blend of crooked jazz melodies against a backdrop of twisted folky fairy tale stories have captivated audiences all over Europe, including tours in Germany, United Kingdom, Scandinavia, the Baltics, Portugal, Spain and The Mediterranean.
Following the release of their third album ‘Painted Gold’ last Spring, House Of Trees have been seen playing sold out shows at some of the top UK jazz and folk clubs, including London’s Ronnie Scotts. House of Trees have also received great reviews in LIRA (last edition), P2 Klingan and a number of UK publications and blogs such as Songlink and The Back Room Blog. They were also tipped as one of Sweden’s top underground bands to book of 2013 by MCV.
If Billie Holiday was singing Kurt Weill songs in a Tim Burton movie we might be getting somewhere close to describing the original songs of ‘House of Trees’. The group is a Swedish/English mix that blend jazz, folk and a pinch of classical to deliver a musical and lyrical journey from melancholic fairytales through dark blues to earthy jazz tunes.
Led by British singer/songwriter Rob Coe, House of Trees explore the myriad moods of life – thoughts, dreams, places and people – in their often mythical fairytale songs. Djamila Skoglund Voss’s earthy yet ethereal voice combines with Bridport-born James Carnell on percussion and Helena Sköld on violin.
The band are based deep in the Swedish forest, hidden in a magical and spellbinding landscape from which the influence of the climate and wondrous woodland can be heard seeping through their music. There is also the feeling of something slightly dark at play in the stories of the songs, giant sea creatures, a town that repels tourism and a village held together with pins, that find their origins somewhere in those woodlands.
The darkness of the songs however is always counterbalanced with a sense of irony, a scary story dramatically portrayed but always with a wink and a smile. Their performances are full of this feeling, as if we have been allowed to glimpse through a keyhole, a momentary glance at something both familiar and bizarre, the unraveling of something that is all together terrible and beautiful, melancholic and amusing.
To book your tickets at £10 or £25 with supper for Saturday 25th January please phone 01308 459511 or email gallery@sladersyard.co.uk
Sladers Yard, West Bay, Bridport, Dorset DT6 4EL T: 01308 459511
Open 10 – 5pm Monday to Saturday, 12 – 5pm Sundays
