"Haunting, original and magnificent" - The Guardian
'Intimate, epic, overflowing with feeling and musical intelligence’ The Independent
"once in a blue moon type of every now and again, you hear music that is so complete, so wonderful, unique and yet familiar that it stops you in your tracks. They have that blue moon magic about them, and they have it in spades" BBC Music
The Mercury Music Prize nominated Tyneside sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank have become most legendary for their live performances and Riverbank Arts Centre is delighted to be able to bring you a night of music with this superb act.
Empathetic stories of love, loss, birth, death, brawls and booze make for a rollercoaster ride through the human condition, as Rachel and Becky’s folk-club unaccompanied singing upbringing is set against otherworldly musical pictures, arranged by a band with influences from Steve Reich to Miles Davies, Martin Hayes to Robert Wyatt, Portishead to Sufjan Stevens.
It’s hard to conceive how music could sound so traditional and adventurous at once. It is a spell that has earned them fans as disperate as members of Radiohead and Portishead, Nick Hornby, Elvis Costello, Robert Wyatt, Ewan McGregor, Ryan Adams, Paul Morley, Ben Folds, Rosanne Cash and Dawn French!
Described by Britain’s leading music journalist Paul Morley as both “supernaturally ancient and defiantly modern, as coldly desolate as achingly intimate”, The Unthanks occupy unique ground.
The Unthanks are back with a new album, the follow-up to Here’s The Tender Coming, which featured in The Guardian and Uncut’s Best Albums of the Year and was awarded Mojo Magazine Folk Album of the Year.
At their Riverbank gig, The Unthanks will play music from their new album, as well as from their previous records, including The Bairns, which featured in both The Guardian and Uncut’s Best Albums of the Decade, all genres, worldwide - the only British folk album to do so.
"They are like the morning dew that hasn't steamed off yet, they are fresh and new and I really don't think they know how good they are" Robert Wyatt
