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London Folk Magazine and News

Kate Rusby fruk Artist of the Month

Kate Rusby fruk Artist of the Month

Folk Radio UK (fruk) have nominated Kate Rusby as their artist of the month for December 2017

Kate Rusby has recently released the seasonal album "Angels & Men" and is currently on tour. In the following interview she talks to Neil McFadyen from fruk about her love for this time of year and her 4-year tradition of Yuletide albums and tours.

 

Kate was able to spare us some time to reflect on what’s behind these special celebrations, the family and friends who take part, and her approach to the music itself. It’s probably best to start with the inspiration behind the whole glittering, fun-filled project…

“After touring round the country for years, it dawned on me that most people had no idea about the South Yorkshire Carols that we sing in pubs. They are fabulous songs and most of them were once known up and down the country, but the Victorians threw them out of the churches for being too happy! The people who loved singing them are also the beer drinkers so they took them to the pubs, where they could combine beer, songs and the company of friends. There they have remained 200 years on, passed on through the generations. It’s not a religious thing or even a folkie thing, it’s people from all walks of life who gather to sing every year. I was taken to these sings, along with my siblings, from being quite young, we would be sat with the other kids colouring and drinking pop, but all the while the songs were seeping in. Then like I said, it dawned on me the rest of the country had no idea, so I decided to get a tour together and take the songs out to share them and show them off”. This year the Christmas tour consisted of 14 performances throughout December, evidence of just how incredibly popular these shows are. “Yes, here we are 10 years on! We had no idea it would be so popular, we adore the Christmas tour, it’s always such great fun!”

Many people associate Christmas with last minute rushing about – bustling preparations for a big event. There’s nothing last minute about those Christmas releases though; each one as carefully crafted as you’d expect a Kate Rusby album to be. On Angels & Men, for instance, the combination of Josh Clark‘s programming and Duncan Lyall‘s Moog produced some very atmospheric sequences, especially in the sombre Paradise. Does a song like Paradise immediately lend itself to a heavily textured arrangement? “I suppose it does in a way, I love the textures you can achieve on such dark and moody songs. The moog is an incredibly diverse instrument, I love that it adds such depth of field to the songs”.

Read the full fruk interview here

Angels and Men is out now on Pure Records (Yorkshire) Ltd - read the fruk review of Angels & Men here

 

 

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