so friend and neighbour Diamond Dave dropped by to say, if I liked Emily Barker had I heard this local lass?! . . . . . . coincidence is a strange bedfellow in my experience and I would call it . . . . Jungian synchronicity but check out the person on audio recording!!! Yup it’s ‘our’ Lukas Drinkwater (Emily’s husband!)
Bedlam Boysis the brand new track from my upcoming debut album. It's a contemporary rendition of a trad Folk song which can be traced back to a poem written in the 18th century about Bethlehem Hospital, London which was used to house patients suffering from mental health conditions. It is believed to be a satirical love song between 'Tom O Bedlam' and his lady 'Mad Maudlin'.
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'Bedlam Boys' arranged by Katie Grace Harris
Audio Recorded by Lukas Drinkwater at Polyphonic Recording
Audio Mastered by Ian Stephenson at Simpson Street Studios
Filming: Matt Fleming at Minus Tone: https://www.minustone.co.uk
Location: Manor Farm, Ardley
"'Ghosts of Lulworth' is a single from my debut album 'The Toledo Sessions'. It is a song about Lulworth Cove which is a place I was once lucky enough to call home. Local stories tell of the ghosts of dancing girls who can sometimes be seen on the beach at dusk. WW2 soldiers guarding the beach were the most recent to report sightings. Standing there saying my goodbyes to the beach before heading abroad for work, I had the sense that many, many others had said their goodbyes on that very beach over the centuries and that I was standing shoulder to shoulder with the 'ghosts of times gone by’." Katie Grace Harris
If you haven’t registered that Emily has a new Album coming, it is due this May! So worth an extra plug as today features Bandcamp Friday!
Yay, a delight and actually force of nature her work is varied and always reflectively soulful and deep. I expect this will be no less as she brings us her thoughts on grief and loss, loneliness versus solitude. I number a few of her previous albums as favourites of her work and still favour 'Dear River' and the work she and her husband , the wonderful bass player and fellow musician, Lukas Drinkwater, did awaiting Covid quarantine to clear two weeks in a hotel where they worked together on an album they called Room 822 the more recent reflections upon the ‘Mumurations’ (A Dark Murmuration of Words) of poetry and song is still on the decks pretty much once a week at least but I think I have pretty much everything since first hearing her ethereal voice haunting me in the Theme to detective TV show Wallander all this those years again now. I can always find something to fascinate and echo my moods in her complete works. I am also excited to report she is coming to a local Record Store and will let you now in the late Spring how that turns out. Can’t wait!
EMILY SAYS:
Hello
How are you?
Just a quick note from me ahead of the weekend - it would be amiss if I went without mentioning Bandcamp Friday this month, which falls today! With my new album Fragile as Humans coming this May, today is one of just a couple prior to that where you can pre-order your copy via Bandcamp and the platform waives their charges.
As an independent artist, every order you make on days like these makes a difference. So if you haven't taken the plunge yet, I'm grateful to you for reading and considering doing so!
I'm excited for you to hear this record that I've been nursing since 2022, before I moved back to Australia. There's lots more to say about it, but we can get into that in the coming weeks.
For now, thank you for supporting me and for listening.
Best wishes, Emily
As the notes on Bandcamp say
On her new album, Fragile as Humans—written and recorded as her time living in the UK was coming to a close—Emily Barker turns her lyrical gaze inwards. The expansive themes of her previous album A Dark Murmuration of Words are replaced by an empathetic concern for matters more personal, familial, closer to home. The ten songs take us on a deep dive into the human condition, an unflinching self-examination of grief, pain, loneliness and loss, at the same time sparkling with hope and optimism.
Luke Potashnick's intricate production puts Emily's expressive voice at the very forefront, exposing its full emotional range—vulnerable, yet assured—backed by a cinematic sonic palette provided by Richard Causon on keys, Tim Harries on bass and Tom Visser on drums, with Luke himself contributing additional guitars, effects and studio wizardry.
As Emily writes in the album's pivotal title track, we live lives of complexity, grappling with loneliness and disconnection, searching for compassion, connection and community – we are all “fragile as humans and made of who we love”.
Dear River [8th July, 2013]
Emily Barker & Lukas Drinkwater - Push the Sky Away (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds cover) Official video from Room 822 [- how is this quality recording in a hotel room even possible - Lukas is a magician! As it is he who engineered it!]
From following a brass band down Bourbon Street, New Orleans with a margarita slushie in my hand, to performing in gorgeous ornate theatres opening shows for my beautiful friend, Mary Chapin Carpenter all through the southern states of America, from a festival in Telluride, Colorado looking out at the snow-capped mountains, to a festival in Bexhill-on-Sea with Weyes Blood (we're in the UK now) looking out at the English Channel, followed by a stint at a recording studio in Frome, Somerset (more on that later), to facilitating care-experienced young adults at a writing centre in the Highlands of Scotland just outside of Inverness, and in my last week in the UK, performing at London's Southbank Centre at the Out-Spoken Poetry & Music night, it's fair to say it's been a whirlwind of a trip, a full and wonderful one, and that I'm now really looking forward to coming home to Western Australia to see family, the Indian ocean and find out if that rumour about frost in Perth is actually true.
I've got some things on home turf I'm quite looking forward to as well...
First up is a show presented by 'Always Good Nights' in Bunbury at The Rowing Club on Saturday 29th July with accompaniment from Lukas Drinkwater and support from Brayden Sibbald. Tickets are running low soget in quick!
And speaking of songwriting courses, I'm then conducting a 5-week one at Fremantle Arts Centre for five weeks starting August 8th every Tuesday night from 6 - 9pm.
Then on Friday 18th August, I'll be opening the show for legendary, Ian Moss, at the Regal Theatre. I grew up singing so many of his songs so this will be a real treat.
Best wishes,
Emily x
and the very best wishes to you too Emily (and Lukas!) can’t wait to hear more about the recording sessions . . . . hmmm, most intriguing!
Gosh she (they!) have been busy hurtling around the planet and I miss hearing them . . . . would love to have caught Emily on her mini-tour jaunts around the UK but wish them both the best as they re-group back ‘home’ now in Oz!
a dank and rainy gloomy day here only pierced by this haunting rendition of a great song from the wonderment that is Emily Barker - check out that VOICE!
Female-led Murder Ballads are actually something of a rarity. Emily and I talked about re-interpreting a male one - apparently there's a female led version of Big Iron she figured out - but we landed on this one. "The Box It Came In". Originally recorded by Wanda Jackson in 1965, her producer Ken Alpin at the time was worried the message might be wrong for her audience. Wanda told him to she'd always loved feisty songs, and it was a hit, staying in the billboard charts for three months.
Emily's slowed it down, and Emily Barkered it. It's why I asked her - she's one of the few people alive who's done justice to a Tom Waits cover, and she's a fearless musician in her own right, constantly pushing her own path. I guess she's feisty in her own way. She's taken this track and done something fresh with it, that's very much her vibe. The wonderful Lukas Drinkwater mixed and mastered the audio for us at Polyphonic recording.
Emily's music can be found somewhat predictably at https://www.emilybarker.com/.
If you're unfamiliar with her work, you can listen to a "best of" here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vx...
And Lukas can be found here: https://www.LukasDrinkwater.com
Splitting her time between the UK and Australia, she'll be in your town soon. Just don't look her in the eye.
Skeleton Key Songs are traditional "Murder Ballads" that have been re-interpreted, re-performed and re-contextualised over time. It's an open invitational to artists to pick one they're fond of, one they've written or one they want to put their own spin on - an ongoing, intermittent folk archive project.
And if you like this sort of thing, you can do all the YouTube cliches, which help more people see cool stuff. I'd sure appreciate it.
Shot on @Canon Europe cameras and some weird anamorphic lenses, on location in Stroud, UK.
Emily says:
A few months back, my friend, the talented photographer and filmmaker, Ben Morse, asked me if I'd contribute a cover of a murder ballad for his new project 'Skeleton Key Songs'. It was a treat to learn this beauty by Wanda Jackson...
My clothes are all ragged, my Goodwill coat's not the best
And I'm walking on cardboard in my last dollar dress
I looked in the closet for my wedding gown
But the box that it came in was all that I found
He took everything with him that wasn't nailed down
Bet he's got a new sweetheart to fill my wedding gown
But somewhere I'll find him, then I'll have peace of mind
And the box he comes home in will be all satin-lined
He took everything with him that wasn't nailed down
Bet he's got a new sweetheart to fill my wedding gown
But somewhere I'll find him, then I'll have peace of mind
And the box he comes home in will be all satin-lined
Now here's one you're gonna want to buy ( I promise!). The lovely Emily Barker enlightened us via her Facebook page to this rare treat and beauty of an album with funds going to the redoubtable RSPB and specifically to aid the threatened Curlew ( a childhood favourite bird)
Simmerdim: Curlew Sounds’ is an album project for curlews, created by Merlyn Driver in partnership with the RSPB. Proceeds directly support the RSPB’s Curlew Recovery Programme
Emily says on her page:
Dear all,
I'm really happy to share the song I wrote for the album 'Simmerdim' - a collection of songs in celebration, and to raise awareness of, the precious and endangered Eurasian curlew.
This is 'Beuno's Blessing' recorded by Lukas Drinkwater (who also played double bass and electric guitar), with drums and synths by Rob Pemberton. I'm on piano and vocals.
It was a joy to write in honour of this beautiful bird and to learn about its significance in culture over generations.
Listen online or order a physical copy. All money goes to RSPB Love Nature.
Simmerdim: Curlew Sounds’ is a unique double album, multi-artist project of newly-commissioned works and soundscapes, inspired by one of the UK’s most iconic and endangered birds, the Eurasian curlew.
The project is the brainchild of the Orkney-born musician Merlyn Driver, who, with the support of the RSPB, has made this extraordinary project possible.
100% of net profits from each purchase of this Album will be donated to RSPB, a registered charity in England and Wales, number 207076, and in Scotland, number SC037654
credits
released May 13, 2022
Produced by Merlyn Driver, in partnership with the RSPB
during quarantine lockdown in a hotel they decided to make an album of covers of Australian songs and yes, like me you probably won't have heard of many of these and this is why Emily and her partner Lukas have done it . . . if the first two singles off the album are anything to go by you're in for a real treat Sleep Australia Sleep is a towering piece and only let down as a song by its parochial nature and it is a global issue but I am nitpicking . . .though this may go some way to explain why the rest of the world hasn't heard this . . . . . . yet. Boys Will Be Boys is also one of the most affecting songs I have ever heard and it is not an easy listen for any unreconstituted males (sic!)out there would that the rest is of such a standard . . . . . I will let you know!
GO BUY IT NOW!
I KNOW I WILL!!*
Emily says:
Good morning from South Freo,
It's release day for 'Room 822' - the album Lukas Drinkwater and I recorded during our two weeks quarantine at The Westin Perth.
We managed ten in total and they span over the past four decades from 'Under the Milky Way' by The Church (1988) to 'Boys Will Be Boys' by Stella Donnelly(2019).
We were limited with instrumentation - from the UK we brought with us an acoustic guitar and a double bass, but we had some friends deliver a Telecaster electric guitar and a keyboard to add to the mix. We also had our mates Fanny Lumsden and Jack Carty lay down some gorgeous harmonies on a couple of tracks.
I hope this album perhaps introduces you to some Aussie songwriters you may not have come across, as well as shining new light on songs you might be familiar with.
You can download the album via Bandcamp or stream it on all the usual platforms.
Emily has news and she shared on her email group new touring information . . . . . . Emily says . . .
Hello
I hope you're keeping well.
As you may know, the UK Government has delayed the lifting of Covid restrictions, and one of the consequences of that decision is that many live music events will no longer be going ahead this year. My heart goes out to Black Deer Festival in particular and all the people there who worked so hard in the hope that it might happen.
Thankfully, some shows are still able to go ahead under the social distancing guidelines.
A couple of weeks ago, Lukas and I packed our van and headed from Stroud up to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to perform at Gosforth Civic Theatre to play our first indoor show together for more than a year. It was, of course, socially-distanced but that did not diminish the joy I felt at being able to share my songs with people in the same physical space. As we begin to emerge from this past year we've had, we'll all have different stories to tell, and different feelings towards stepping back into public events such as gigs. I was instantly put at ease by the professionalism of the Gosforth Civic Theatre crew - their first gig back too - and how safe they made us, and everyone who attended, feel. The same applied to our show the following night at Henshaws Arts and Crafts Centre in Knaresborough.
I knew that I had missed doing gigs, but when I got on stage it struck me just how much so. My whole adult life has centred around writing and performing music; it is my passion and I'm privileged to be able to say that it's my job. So to step under lights and up to a mic, with my husband on double bass by my side, made me feel whole again. To hear applause, to hear a few gentle heckles, to speak to people at the merch desk after the show, was like medicine for me and I'm pleased to say that I think the feeling was mutual. Thank you so much to all those who came out to see us.
Jun 19 - WESTON SUPER MARE, Sea Folk Festival (solo) * Jun 21 - BIRMINGHAM, Kitchen Garden Cafe (duo) * Jun 24 - BRIGHTON, Komedia (duo) * Jul 9 - NEWBURY ACE, Space (duo) * Jul 10 - CORSHAM, Pound Arts (duo) *
Aug 13 - Cropredy Festival (full band) Aug 28 - COTTINGHAM, St Mary's Church (duo) Aug 29 - Red Rooster Festival (full band)
Sep 4 - Moseley Folk Festival (duo) Sep 16 - LONDON, Roundhouse - Frank Turner's Lost Evenings IV (solo)
Oct 1 - LONDON, Cadogan Hall - Under the Apple Tree presents 'Song after song' (solo) Oct 2 - SALCOMBE, Live Festival (solo)
* socially distanced shows
You can find ticket links for all shows on my website.
/ kgraceharris I:
/ katiegraceharris T:
/ katiegraceharri 'Bedlam Boys' arranged by Katie Grace Harris Audio Recorded by Lukas Drinkwater at Polyphonic Recording Audio Mastered by Ian Stephenson at Simpson Street Studios Filming: Matt Fleming at Minus Tone: https://www.minustone.co.uk Location: Manor Farm, Ardley
