Mary Hampton (voice, guitars, piano),
Jo Burke (fiddle, voice),
Alistair Strachan (horns, percussion),
Seth Bennett (double bass),
Alice Eldridge (cello, bass, electronics)
Influences
My peculiar kin, the postal service, the parks of London, weather, Anne Briggs, The Song of Solomon, Bob Dylan, Norwegian Hardinger fiddle music, Bach, birdsong, Gagaku, The Muppet Show, Fred Astaire, Blind Mamie Forehand, David Attenborough, pretty much anything published by Dover, William James, Erasmus Darwin, Kabuki, hormones, superstitions/ghost stories/jokes, Harpers journal of civilization, clockwork/bridges/fireworks, watching an Englishman dance, Homer, Rumi, Rabelais, Woolf, Beckett, Baudelaire, Thoreau, tobacco/tea/sugar, the well-made thing and its maker, the wind coming through my ill-fitting window, lists.
The following salad (of Greek origin ), as made by Alice Eldridge. It is possible that the preparation and eating of this salad will bring about many good things in the world...
Rough-diced watermelon
Rough-diced feta cheese
Fresh mint leaves
Finely shredded red onion
Splash of balsamic vinegar
Hello there. I am Mary Hampton and I live in Brighton in a room overlooking the sea. I find old songs and keep them in coloured vials in my fridge. Sometimes I make up new songs. And sometimes I do neither one thing nor the other.
If you would like to book me for a show, please contact me directly through this page.
The new album 'My Mother's Children' contains a lot of the new songs. It is out on 4th August 2008.
"terrifying and gorgeous....unusual and strong.....epic and tiny...
'My Mother's Children' is an album I know I am going to love for life." (Eliza Carthy, fRoots April 08)
"songs, which recline with shimmering sensuality in various shady cloaks of weirdness...fragility, desolation and humour...scurrying around Dartmoor under cover of darkness." (Colin Irwin, Telegraph, 26/04/08)
"her bizarre flights of fancy are the dreams of children, far more unsettling for an adult.....evoking Eliot’s Wasteland in it’s beautiful bleakness". (Wyl Menmuir, Fly, June 08)
"coffee-table-shattering purity...these are songs of unnerving delicacy, elemental and acoustic simplicity...potent and enchanting" **** (David Stubbs, Uncut, August 08)
"brilliant..peculiar...how great the unexpected on this album makes me feel" (Kate Lewis, Acoustic Magazine, August 08)
"...a true original.....Hampton's vocal lines are not so much melodies as weather systems" ***** (Clare O'Brien, Subba-Culture, May 08)
Songlines **** (June 08)
Mojo, Folk album of the month **** (August 08)
The first two EPs contain more old songs and are available to buy below...
"At a time when it sometimes seems that one cannot move for new folk, free folk, freak folk, weird folk, outsider folk and goodness knows what else, it's an unqualified joy to discover a collection of songs that sit proudly and uncomplicatedly within the folk tradition. And yet, while Mary Hampton's debut CD ... certainly derives much of its appeal from its appropriation of centuries-old folk idioms, it is certainly no museum piece. Its unearthly radiance and undercurrents of desolate modernity transform it into a vital and contemporary living document_" (Sound Projector, issue 15, 2007)
Again, thank you so so much for a wonderful evening last friday in Madrid, it was breathtaking, & I thought that maybe you're still around this next Thursday... Hoping to come across again, Love
Hi Mary Hampton, I Draw Slow are playing The Cobblestone, Smithfield in Dublin on Wednesday 24th June, supported by the amazing Thomas Kitt. Doors are at 8.30 and admission is €10, a small price to pay to see the citys two premier acoustic acts don't you agree? On the off chance you disagree, come down on wednesday next to the Cobblestone, Smithfield Dublin and we'd be happy to discuss it.
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