The Unthanks and Charles Hazelwood

[pie_and_a_pint]

Email from the Unthanks mailing list today.

New Single and Glastonbury Main Stage Announced!

Following three months of animated album and live reviews, The Unthanks kick off their summer with a new single and perhaps a once in a lifetime performance at Glastonbury.

Announced today, The Unthanks will take to the Pyramid Stage with an extended ‘orchestra’, conducted by Charles Hazlewood. Fronted by Rachel and Becky Unthank, the 26 piece ensemble, performing the arrangements of Unthanks pianist and musical director Adrian McNally and lead by BBC presenter and music establishment agitator Hazlewood, will hope for a glorious summer’s day as they open the main stage on Saturday.

Amongst the set will be Died For Love, the shimmering third single taken from the new album Mount the Air, described by Robert Wyatt as “really everything you could ever want from music” and by The Independent as “utterly beguiling”. Based on a traditional song and arranged by McNally, Becky Unthank tells the most heartbreaking of stories. Died for Love is released on June 8th, two weeks before their Glastonbury performance.

The Unthanks then go on to headline six festivals this summer plus top spots at many others, finishing off at End of the Road, where The Unthanks are highly excited to play the same night and same stage as Sufjan Stevens, making his UK festival debut. Also just announced like Glastonbury, are performances at Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall, Earagail Arts Festival in Ireland and Home Gathering in Newcastle, adding to a summer that already includes Deer Shed, Greenbelt, Solfest, Moseley Folk Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, Stockholm Culture Festival, Hay Festival and Killarney FolkFest. A full list is below.

The festival dates follow a largely sold out month-long tour including dates at London’s Roundhouse, Newcastle City and the National Concert Hall in Dublin.

The Quietus reviewed the Brighton Dome date, describing it as “One of the most discreetly radical things you may currently hear upon a stage. It creeps up on you on stockinged feet, one of those rare shows that somehow contrives to be both tasteful and daring. It swims in stillness. It's not so much haunting as haunted. The sorrows and frailties of centuries inhabit it. Like all the best sad music, it isn't remotely depressing. It simply takes you apart, softly, with immaculate, melancholy tenderness.” Read the full, beautifully written review here.

[pie_and_a_pint]

Sorry, duplicate thread - can you delete please, Neil?