Swedish duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums are set to return to the UK for a few festival performances this summer and later this September for a string of live dates. The pair will appear at the Wireless festival in London on Sunday 6 July on the Bella Union stage, then at the sixth edition of the Green Man Festival on Sunday 17 August.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums will then embark on a series of live dates across the UK and Ireland. Here is the list of confirmed dates:

8/09: Manchester
9/09: Belfast
10/09: Dublin
11/09: Leeds
12/09: Nottingham
13/09: Bristol
14/09: Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset - End of the Road Festival
15/09: London
16/09: Brighton

Wildbirds & Peacedrums | The Leaf Label

ESSIE JAIN
We Made This Ourselves
BAY62CD
The Leaf Label 2008
10 Tracks. 41mins03secs

While Essie Jain was born and raised in London, it is from New York, where she moved in 2001, that she operates. Music has been a part of her life from a very early age, learning classical piano, cello and, later, opera, but rejected it all at the end of her adolescence. It is only some years later, as she was going through a difficult time in her life, that she turned to music once again as a mean to express her emotions. After moving to New York, she spent some time collaborating with various musicians before meeting guitarist Patrick Glynn with whom she began working on her debut album. The result, We Made This Ourselves, was originally released on Brooklyn-based Ba Da Ding over a year ago, and is now given a new lease of life thanks to Leaf, just as her second album is due out in the US.

Although the folk brushes have brought comparisons to anything from Vashti Bunyan to Nick Drake, there is, throughout We Made This Ourselves, a strong reminiscence of This Mortal Coil’s third album, Blood, especially in the way melodies erupt in vocal harmonies. Continue Reading »

The Efterklang caravan stopped in London’s Bush Hall on Friday, as part of their two-week-long tour of the UK. Taking their Parades album, released a couple of months ago, on an extensive international tour, the Danish quintet and their troops couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate venue. Formerly known as the Carlton Dance Hall, Bush Hall, in the heart of West London’s Sheppard’s Bush, was built at the beginning of the twentieth Century by William F. Hurndall, a publisher, as a gift for one of his daughters. It has since been a soup kitchen during the Second World War, and was, in the fifties and sixties, turned into a bingo hall and amusement arcade, before being turned into a concert venue at the turn of the millennium. The highly ornate ceilings and walls have been preserved, and grand chandeliers offer a testament to the place’s former grandeur. Continue Reading »

Following his magnificent set at the Peter Harrison Planetarium in Greenwhich last month, Murcof will be stopping in London once again for another live performance, this time at Corsica Studios, Elephant & Castle, London, on Sunday 2 December, with support from Rothko and VI, plus a DJ set from Highpoint Lowlife’s Thorsten Sideb0ard.

The event will feature special visuals created in collaboration with Italian visual artists xx+xy, and follows the release of Murcof’s stunning third album, Cosmos, on Leaf early this year.

Murcof| The Leaf Label | Corsica Studios

The brainchild of Tim Donovan, who lives in New York, and Seattle-based Joseph Dierker, 310 have been producing beautifully detailed records for ten years, bringing together elements of jazz, hip-hop, folk, pop and ambient to create a truly unique sound. As they are gearing up for the release of their sixth album, Sixes And Sevens, on Conduit Records, we caught up with Tim Donovan to talk about the new record, how they find it increasingly easy to work 3,000 miles apart, and why the new album is primarily being released digitally.

Continue Reading »

EFTERKLANG
Parades
BAY58CD
Rumraket / The Leaf Label 2007
11 Tracks. 48mins59secs

Formed in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of 2000 by Mads Brauer (electronics), Casper Clausen (vocals, various instruments), Thomas Husner (drums, percussions and trumpet), Rune Mølgaard (piano) and Rasmus Stolberg (guitar and various instruments), Efterklang, which translates as reverberation, appeared on the international scene with debut album for Leaf, Tripper, in 2004, although they had previously released an EP the previous year on their own imprint, Rumraket. With Tripper, Efterklang painted intimate soundscapes from clicks, statics and environmental electronics upon which hung orchestral waves and occasional acoustic flourishes, with male and female vocals tightly intertwined with the instrumental parts and a Greenlandish choir adding a further emotional touch to the quintet’s ambitious boreal songs. Followed a digital-only EP, Swarming, in 2005 and a very limited one-sided LP in 2006. Earlier this year, the band returned with Under Giant Trees, a magnificent mini album recorded last year while on tour.

On Parades, Efterklang dress their ephemeral pop songs in much more precious and grand attires. Continue Reading »

A little over three years ago, a formation answering to the mysterious name of Efterklang and hailing from Denmark appeared with their debut album, Tripper, and rapidly gathered critical acclaim and respect. The re-release of the band’s debut EP, Springer, originally released in 2003, a year before the album, and a limited edition one-sided LP, confirmed the band as one of the most interesting acts to have come out of Denmark. Following the release of the superb Under Giant Trees EP earlier this year, Efterklang return with their second album, Parades, on which they have developed an entirely new approach, more focused on acoustic instrumentation. In this interview, Casper Clausen and Rasmus Stolberg talk about what influences them, how their new album came to life, running their own record label and playing live is like playing football.

Continue Reading »

Following the overwhelming success of their UK Spring tour with the Hungarian virtuoso group, The Hun Hangár Ensemble, A Hawk And A Hacksaw return to the UK for a two night residency at The Luminaire in Kilburn, north London.

These very special shows will take place on Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5 September 2007. AHAAH’s Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost will be joined by the undoubted star of the tour, Cimbalom maestro Unger Balázs, for two nights of celebration of the music of Eastern Europe, both original and traditional songs. Men Djamler and Directing Hand will open the evening on the Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, with Benjamin Wetherill playing both nights to complete the line up.

In addition to this, AHAAH have been invited to play All Tomorrow’s Parties’ Nightmare Before Christmas event, curated by Portishead, which runs from 7-9 December this year.

The Leaf Label will also be releasing a digital-only EP version of God Bless The Ottoman Empire, taken from AHAAH’s third album, The Way The Wind Blows, on 24 September. The main track will be backed with a bonus tracks,  Vereb/The Sparrow, which is a Hungarian traditional track combined with a Barnes original and was recorded live at the Glatt und Verkehrt Festival in Krems, Austria in July this year. The group will also be recording sessions for Rob Da Bank’s BBC Radio 1 show and Stuart Maconie’s FreakZone on BBC 6 Music.

A Hawk And A Hacksaw | The Leaf Label

Three Murcof UK dates have been announced, including a very special performance at the newly opened Peter Harrison Planetarium at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London.

The dates will follow the release of Murcof’s splendid third album, Cosmos, on Leaf on 17 September. Murcof will be playing the following venues:

3/10: Colchester Art Center
4/10: Peter Harrison Planetarium, Greenwich, London
7/10: The Arches, Glasgow

More dates are due to be announced soon.

Murcof | The Leaf Label

Efterklang have announced details of part of the European leg of their imminent world tour in support of their second album, Parades, due out on 15 October.

Confirmed dates so far:

16/10: Paris, France
17/10: Le Havre, France
18/10: Rennes, France
21/10: Madrid (Festival De Otono), Spain
30/10: Malmø, Sweden
31/10: Oslo, Norway

1/11: Stockholm, Sweden
3/11: Gothenburg, Sweden
8/11: Albertslund, Denmark
9/11: Vejle, Denmark
10/11: Århus, Denmark
15/11: Copenhagen, Denmark
16/11: Odense, Denmark
17/11: Aalborg, Denmark
21/11: Bristol, England
22/11: Birmingham, England
23/11: London, England
24/11: Leeds, England
25/11: Nottingham, England
27/11: Glasgow, Scotland
28/11: Dublin, Ireland
29/11: Belfast, North Ireland
30/11: Manchester, England

1/12: Brighton, England
2/12: Bruxelles, Belgium
3/12: Amsterdam, Holland

Efterklang | The Leaf Label | Rumraket