The mighty Krar Collective serve up a mind-blowing feast of exuberant Ethiopian songs and dance tunes. Led by Temesgen Zeleke, student of jazz legend Mulatu Astatke, the band perform a contemporary take on roots music reflecting the diversity of cultures within Africa’s second most populous country. In the virtuoso hands of Zeleke, the ancient krar lyre becomes a gritty rock guitar, weaving around the stunning vocals of Genet Assefa and the driving rhythms of Amare Mulugeta on traditional kebero drums. The line-up has recently expanded to include virtuoso Baby Masinko on the extraordinary one-stringed Ethiopian masinko fiddle and Dawit Seyoum on bass krar for added funkiness.
"One of the most rousing, reliable new African bands of the year” - The Guardian
"They may use ancient instruments, but there’s nothing arcane about the way that they play them. This is hot ‘n’ hypnotic dance music...KrarCollective rock!” - fRoots Magazine
“Krar Collective played one of the best support slots at the Barbican I can remember seeing with just a funked up harp (krar) an electric drum set and a singer whose vibrato was so extreme as to become ululation. Spine tingling stuff.” - Fly Global Music
“Using effects pedals, Temesgen Zeleke makes the krar sound like a 12-string guitar one minute, and the chunkiest, funkiest electric guitar the next…they completely won over an initially reserved crowd, getting them to dance the night away… they are certainly unique” - The Arts Desk
"One of the most rousing, reliable new African bands of the year” - The Guardian
"They may use ancient instruments, but there’s nothing arcane about the way that they play them. This is hot ‘n’ hypnotic dance music...KrarCollective rock!” - fRoots Magazine
“Krar Collective played one of the best support slots at the Barbican I can remember seeing with just a funked up harp (krar) an electric drum set and a singer whose vibrato was so extreme as to become ululation. Spine tingling stuff.” - Fly Global Music
“Using effects pedals, Temesgen Zeleke makes the krar sound like a 12-string guitar one minute, and the chunkiest, funkiest electric guitar the next…they completely won over an initially reserved crowd, getting them to dance the night away… they are certainly unique” - The Arts Desk
Past Gigs
Dele Sosimi stands out as one of the most active musicians currently on the Afrobeat scene worldwide. Dele‘s career began when he joined Fela Kuti‘s Egypt 80 (1979–1986) and then subsequently Fela‘s son Femi Kuti‘s Positive Force (1986-1994). In both bands he was musical director and keyboard player. Since Fela created Afrobeat, Dele‘s Afrobeat pedigree is therefore impeccable. The music is a blend of complex but highly danceable funk grooves, Nigerian traditional music (including hi-life), African percussion underpinning the jazz horns, and solos from other instruments, as well as rhythmical singing.
Sosimi is abetted by a group of musicians, most of whom have either played with him on previous records or have gigged with him on the live circuit. They all have chops to spare and the communication between them is near telepathic. Afrobeat is lovingly given the virtuoso treatment by a combination of Femi Elias, whose Bass growls, twists, turns, pulsates & grooves, Kunle Olofinjana on drums who meshes perfectly with Elias and like a dream machine the groove never lets up. The gear changes are seamless, no accent or punctuation is missed,
His live shows are ALWAYS electric, and the crowd response is ALWAYS massive!
Sosimi is abetted by a group of musicians, most of whom have either played with him on previous records or have gigged with him on the live circuit. They all have chops to spare and the communication between them is near telepathic. Afrobeat is lovingly given the virtuoso treatment by a combination of Femi Elias, whose Bass growls, twists, turns, pulsates & grooves, Kunle Olofinjana on drums who meshes perfectly with Elias and like a dream machine the groove never lets up. The gear changes are seamless, no accent or punctuation is missed,
His live shows are ALWAYS electric, and the crowd response is ALWAYS massive!
Making a very welcome return to Sheffield on her ‘First Farewell Tour’, the charismatic Peggy Seeger - singer, songwriter, feminist, icon, Ewan MacColl’s partner and muse - is the undisputed queen of folk and political song. Join Peggy and her son Calum MacColl (an exceptional musician in his own right) for a glorious evening of up-close performance. Expect to hear some of Peggy and Ewan MacColl’s most loved songs, readings from Peggy’s award-winning memoir ‘The First Time Ever', plenty of audience participation and lots of relaxed family banter.
“Peggy may be folk royalty, but there’s nothing either reverent or nostalgic about this joyous and intimate performance” - The Guardian
“Glorious - Peggy is a commanding presence” - The Times
“An effortlessly intimate affair” - The Scotsman
“A memorable warm and charming evening of great music, family humour and grace.” Irish World
“Peggy may be folk royalty, but there’s nothing either reverent or nostalgic about this joyous and intimate performance” - The Guardian
“Glorious - Peggy is a commanding presence” - The Times
“An effortlessly intimate affair” - The Scotsman
“A memorable warm and charming evening of great music, family humour and grace.” Irish World
Saturday 16th Oct 2021
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Dawson is a singular voice, part savant-genius, part court jester; a songwriter whose subjects and characters are often drawn from the local, the historical and the colloquial, yet have a timelessness to them, his music echoing with voices past, present and future.
Richard Dawson, the black-humoured bard of Newcastle, returns to release his sixth solo album 2020. Where its critically-acclaimed predecessor Peasant (2017) gave a voice to the citizens of the ancient early medieval northern kingdom of Bryneich via a set of narratives as bawdy as Chaucer and as epic and bloody as Beowulf, 2020 is an utterly contemporary state-of-the-nation study, that uncovers an equally tumultuous and even bleaker time. Here is an island country in a state of flux; a society on the edge of mental meltdown. This is England today.
Nuanced and challenging, the ten songs also conversely feature Dawson’s most melodic moments yet. Many of his musical trademarks – unexpected time signatures, strange flourishes and welcome digressions, sounds simultaneously harsh and honeyed, sensitive and abrasive – are in place, but more than ever such disparate components are corralled to create a highly focused collection that offers a thoroughly dire diagnosis of the UK, yet is shot through with flecks of hope.
Dawson’s lyrics find magic and meaning in the minutiae of simple everyday life, each lyrical signifier adding to a unique perception that is one short step removed from reality – perhaps as a tactic to process and survive it - and as such he should be recognised as a visionary. If nothing else, 2020 confirms him as one of the most astute and original lyricists in music today.
“This is absolutely brilliant on many, many levels, and further underlines why Richard Dawson is a true hero of British music: humane, hilarious and reaching for melodies no-one else does.” – Ben B-T, The Guardian
Uncut - 9/10
“2020 is, without a doubt, Dawson’s most direct album to date. Entirely self-played but ambitious in its palette and bold in its arrangements, it finds him adding new lucidity and sense of melody to his knotty and raucous take on folk music. It’s hard not to conclude that 2020 is the record we need right now: a state-f-a-nation address for a nation in a bit of a state.”
"At times deeply, painfully intimate, but also witty, bawdy, surreal, disquieting, nostalgic, brash and fearlessly individual" - The Quietus
Richard Dawson, the black-humoured bard of Newcastle, returns to release his sixth solo album 2020. Where its critically-acclaimed predecessor Peasant (2017) gave a voice to the citizens of the ancient early medieval northern kingdom of Bryneich via a set of narratives as bawdy as Chaucer and as epic and bloody as Beowulf, 2020 is an utterly contemporary state-of-the-nation study, that uncovers an equally tumultuous and even bleaker time. Here is an island country in a state of flux; a society on the edge of mental meltdown. This is England today.
Nuanced and challenging, the ten songs also conversely feature Dawson’s most melodic moments yet. Many of his musical trademarks – unexpected time signatures, strange flourishes and welcome digressions, sounds simultaneously harsh and honeyed, sensitive and abrasive – are in place, but more than ever such disparate components are corralled to create a highly focused collection that offers a thoroughly dire diagnosis of the UK, yet is shot through with flecks of hope.
Dawson’s lyrics find magic and meaning in the minutiae of simple everyday life, each lyrical signifier adding to a unique perception that is one short step removed from reality – perhaps as a tactic to process and survive it - and as such he should be recognised as a visionary. If nothing else, 2020 confirms him as one of the most astute and original lyricists in music today.
“This is absolutely brilliant on many, many levels, and further underlines why Richard Dawson is a true hero of British music: humane, hilarious and reaching for melodies no-one else does.” – Ben B-T, The Guardian
Uncut - 9/10
“2020 is, without a doubt, Dawson’s most direct album to date. Entirely self-played but ambitious in its palette and bold in its arrangements, it finds him adding new lucidity and sense of melody to his knotty and raucous take on folk music. It’s hard not to conclude that 2020 is the record we need right now: a state-f-a-nation address for a nation in a bit of a state.”
"At times deeply, painfully intimate, but also witty, bawdy, surreal, disquieting, nostalgic, brash and fearlessly individual" - The Quietus
Thursday 16th Sept 2021
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11th March 2020
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Friday 3rd April 2020
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29th October 2020
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7th February 2020
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21st November 2019
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26th September 2019
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18th July 2019
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16th May 2019
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16th March 2019
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29TH NOVEMBER 2018
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10TH OCTOBER 2018
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