If you love folk music, check out ACE Space A winter reunion of British roots musicians
Ellie Gowers with support Dom Prag at ACE Space on Saturday, November 27
IF you love folk music you really should check what is on at ACE Space. I have been to two exemplary shows there in just eight days.
Tonight Dom Prag opened with a mix of self-penned and traditional tracks all featuring his beautifully sensitive acoustic guitar stylings. Young Man On a Ferry, his own composition, was first up, followed by the traditional Lovely William, which will feature on his album, which is due out on February 25 and has been produced by the brilliant Phil Beer.
Two more covers, Coal Not Dole and No Man’s Land, were included before Come All You Fine Young People, a track Dom wrote pre-Covid, but which evolved a new significance with the pandemic.
He ended his varied and fascinating set with the excellent Richard Thompson song 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.
Ellie Gowers opened with the a capella The Falcon, a track which gave her beautifully ethereal vocals a chance to shine – written by Mimi and Richard Farina, it is loosely based on the traditional The Cuckoo. Ellie’s own songs The Sky is On Fire,
which was inspired by the fire at Notre Dame and the bombings in Sri Lanka, which took place within just one week, and Nest, essentially a song about self-reliance, followed before Ellie’s lovely version of the Anne Briggs classic The Snow It Melts The Soonest.
Her own song Waking Up To Stone laments the destruction of the countryside around her family’s home to build HS2, while ForA While was written in her final year of university around St Valentine’s
Day.
As a keen equestrian, Ellie included the emotive Poor Old Horse before three tracks which comprise her current EP (along with The Sky is on Fire), Eva, Against The Tide and the title track Parting Breath.
Her encore song This Ground brought her enchanting set to a close.
Ellie is possessed of a soulful, evocative modern folk voice and writes some fine tracks.
A young artist well worth watching.
NOW in its seventh year, A Winter Union is a festive folk band like no other, writes Stephen Ottner.
Five leading lights of the British roots scene get together each December and take their seasonal music on tour.
This year the tour includes Newbury at ACE Space.
Expect soaring vocals and exquisite musicianship as the band delight with a repertoire of folk songs from across the yuletide traditions. Glorious wassails, fresh arrangements of traditional carols, both well-loved and little-known, and original songs heralding the joys of the season.
Ellie is possessed of a soulful, evocative modern folk voice and writes some fine tracks.
A young artist well worth watching
These songs are stirred together with such beautiful five-part harmonies, accompanied by dobro, fiddle, mandolin, dulcimer, guitars and a shruti box thrown in for good measure.
The band is somewhat of a folk supergroup, an overlap of Gilmore & Roberts, Hannah Sanders & Ben Savage and The Willows.
The three-times BBC Folk Award nominees Gilmore & Roberts last played ACE Space in 2016 and The Willows in 2017.
A Winter Union will be at ACE Space on Saturday, December 11, at 8pm. Tickets are £15 and available online from www.WeGotTickets.com or direct by emailing events@acespace. org.uk or calling 078911 76940.
ACE Space continues to operate at reduced capacity for events and the new ventilation systems will be operational soon.
Expect soaring vocals and exquisite musicianship as the band delight with a repertoire of folk songs from across the yuletide traditions