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.
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)
The first Willkommen Records event at Coachwerks in Brighton. Located just off Lewes Road, on Hollingdean Terrace, this is a beautifully converted industrial space and now an inspiring and spacious venue (plus they have a very cheap bar!)
Noiserv is the name given for Portugeuse musical mastermind, David Santos. Compared to Juana Molina, David Thomas Broughton and Jose Gonzalez, he creates a hypnotising and emotionally engaging atmosphere, looping the sounds of the room, xylophone, guitar, melodica, harmonica and keyboards.
Woodpecker Wooliams is a charming one woman experimentalist. With an extraordinary bag of tricks, employing vocals, kora, celtic harp, clarinet, harmonium, glockenspiels and whistles, she conjures bewitching freeform lo-fi chants and sings folk songs of mystery and secrecy.
Redwood Red is Cathy Cardin. She is the feminine touch to Willkommen favourites Sons of Noel and Adrian and Laish Quartet. With her grounded and pure vocal delivery, she interweaves a unique fingerpicking guitar style with double bass and flute. This is a rare live outing for Redwood Red and one not to be missed.
Tickets available from Resident (01273 606312) or online here:
We thank you for the add. We’re just a small band, but we’d be delighted if you listened to our Garage Rock songs and you sent us any kind of comment!! If u couldn’t we’ll be happy if you just let this comment be shown, so that ur fans & friends get to know us. ☠
Eat Your Own Ears presents JAMES YORKSTON AND THE BIG EYES FAMILY PLAYERS ALASDAIR ROBERTS MARRY WATERSON & OLIVER KNIGHT MARY HAMPTON DAVID A JAYCOCK Plus guests
Saturday 7 November 2009 THE TABERNACLE POWIS SQUARE, LONDON, W11 2AY
Thank you so much for coming up to Edinburgh. It was good to see and hear you in the flesh, as it were; I thought you were going to be scary but you weren’t! I’ve been a huge fan of My Mother’s Children since hearing a track on Late Junction late last year, and I just picked up Books 1 and 2 at the gig this evening. Best of luck to you for the rest of the tour.
Howard of Belvedere Mountain Express, in Edinburgh
Mary, sorry to hear you've been unwell. T'was good to see you in Kilburn the other night. Plenty of key jangling going down! Best of luck on the forthcoming tour.
JAMES YORKSTON & THE BIG EYES FAMILY PLAYERS with MARY HAMPTON and DAVID A JAYCOCK
JAMES YORKSTON, resident of the East Neuk of Fife and core member of musical family The Fence Collective, for a special night of folk music in the company of The Big Eyes Family Players.
James plays in support of his new album Folk Songs - released on Domino in August, which features traditional songs from the length and breadth of Great Britain & Ireland and one tune from Galicia in Spain. After a decade which has seen folk music morph into nu-folk, mobile phone-ad folk, mortgage-folk, smoothie-folk and so on, Yorkston has reached back into the tradition of song and place and drawn a line in the sand.
TWILIGHT FOLK PRESENTS…. SHARRON KRAUS With support from Peter Delaney and C Joynes Live at Orange Street Music Club, Canterbury Weds October the 21st 8.00pm £5 in advance/£6 on door
“Sharron Kraus is a dark-folk gem. Listening to her high, clear voice cut through melodies woven from acoustic guitar, banjo and hurdy-gurdy, you may struggle to remember which late-'60s traditionalists beat her to the material.Here's one folklore expert whose originals feel both authentic and alive….Exquisite second album by this wonderful singer. She conjures up visions of Karen Dalton, Shirley Collins, Judy Dyble and even early Joni. Live she was fantastic too. ..this moves from traditional folk (in a Shirley Collins, Anne Briggs style) to her own songs and enchants all the way. An immaculate album from a major new singer.”
Peter Delaney lives in Limerick, Ireland. He comes from a folk music background and plays his own unique style, drawing on early Hawaiian folk songs and Alan Lomax field recordings as well as more contemporary musicians such as Joanna Newsom and Josephine Foster. Peter released his debut EP/Mini Album "Duck Egg Blue" in April 2007 to much acclaim.
Peter has played throughout the UK, Ireland and Norway and has shared the bill with A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Alasdair Roberts, Jozef van Wissem, Juana Molina and The Swell Season. www.myspace.com/peterdelaney
"English acoustic guitarist C Joynes uses traditional country-blues and early ragtime t
Mary, My Mother's Children is, for me, one of the finest albums I've ever heard and I don't use such terms lightly, thanks. I can't wait for your next.
SoundCurious #1: listen & look : look & listen A weekend of enthralling activities in sound and moving image: Live scoring and zoetroping, puppets, OHP animation and more and more.
Performances from:
Hamilton Yarns Robert Stillman Bunty Weirding Vessel Collectress Sons of Noel and Adrian Charlie Henry The Grubby Mitts Vitamin B12 Same Actor Bela Emerson Viv
Oct 10th & 11th Workshops 1000 - 1200. Shows 1800 - late. Weekend £14, Day £8 Coachwerks. 19 Hollingdean Terrace, Brighton. More info at www.soundcurious.org.uk
