Description
Label Review.
2019 debut album. Folk.
Our Overview.
Mishra are a global folk outfit gathering momentum on the UK scene. With strong roots in U.K folk, the collective add influences from Indian classical, Americana, and jazz to their repertoire, quite simply original music that defies definition and which is already bringing them deserved awards recognition from just under two years of performing.
Formed in 2017 of the creative partnership led by Kate Griffin’s voice and inimitable clawhammer banjo and driven by Ford Collier’s continent-hopping instrumental skills (Indian tabla, African calabash, Irish whistle and guitar), they won Cambridge Folk Festival’s first ever Christian Raphael prize and in separate projects were both shortlisted for the 2018 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards.
Both already accomplished folk musicians (The Drystones and The Unsung Roots) 2018 saw them play Sidmouth Folk Week, Cambridge Folk Festival, Priddy Folk Festival and many more. Until 2019, Mishra performed as a duo under the name Kate Griffin and Ford Collier; their sound has now been further underpinned by the addition of versatile jazz-folk double-bassist and bouzouki player Joss Mann-Hazell. Mishra’s debut album also features accomplished tabla player John Ball, whose contribution allows a full band sound on live-inthe- room analogue recordings of their uniquely accessible Indo-folk.
For ‘The Loft Tapes’, Joss Mann-Hazell and John Ball join Kate and Ford for seven quartet tracks and four trio tracks, all of which are recorded live-in-the-room, in the loft of a farmhouse in Gloucestershire, to analogue tape. The process of capturing whole performances of the band playing together, and the warmth and incredibly realistic sound of tape compared to digital recording make each track a snapshot of a particular time and place; a musical moment suspended in time.
Track Listing: Intro / Road Dust And Honey / Chase The Sparrowhawk / Deep Seas / Beautifully Blind / Angeline The Baker / Jog For Joy / Taru Taru / Keep Your Kindness / Scarlet Town / Ring In The Changes / Morphology