Con Artist presents:
Laura Cannell [Brawl Records - UK]
+ very special guest Laura Sheeran

Playing fiddle, overbowed fiddle, double recorders, sometimes percussion and other rarefied wind instruments, Laura Cannell is a young woman drawing on ancient transcendental and earthly musics. Her sense of space, dynamics and working with acoustics is super sensitive. Whether solo or otherwise she explores the spaces between ancient, traditional and improvised music, often utilising a fragment from a medieval theme to her own end in a manner that embraces the apparitional, historical or the otherworldly. Her seemingly wild side, in such rarefied circles makes her involved yet emotive music really bristle and connect.

Laura’s style has evolved out of long self-taught sessions alongside dedicated training as well employing her very open approach to join the dots with contemporary music makers. Her time in the highly regarded Horses Brawl duo as well as her Early Music church missions has formed a musical backbone on which she can now move into new pastures. Her current live music show finds her performing improvisations on ‘over-bowed’ fiddle and double-barrelled recorders creating spell-binding new interpretations and breathing new life into lost and forgotten melodies from the 5th – 14th centuries.

Laura’s exquisitely-realised solo album Quick Sparrows Over the Black Earth was released in July 2014. Haunting chords move the heavy air of the church as fiddle drones drift across the flatlands of East Anglia. Recorded in single takes in a small medieval church in rural South Norfolk, UK, the ten tracks feature atmospheric improvisations around tunes played on fiddle with a deconstructed bow (taken apart and wrapped around the violin) and double barrelled recorders (two recorders played at once and based on images in medieval paintings and sculptures).

Open to collaboration and new contexts, Laura also performs in an experimental fiddle duo with André Bosman (aka electronic musician Hoofus) and a new trio Oscilanz with Ralph Cumbers (aka Bass Clef) and renowned drummer Charles Hayward (This Heat, About Group). Laura’s album with harp player Rhodri Davies ‘Feathered Swing of the Raven’ is a wonderful tonal piece. Laura animates double barrelled recorders (the renaissance alto and baroque soprano), while Rhodri draws a double bow across the harp, making it sound like a cello. Together, they fill the sonic field, often coming across like a quartet. Live appearances to date include festivals as diverse as Supernormal, The Aldeburgh Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Brighton Early Music Festival and many others.

Following the release of Quick Sparrows Over the Black Earth, Brawl Records released an exclusive digital only album where musicians took to remixing her tracks. Included are Luke Abbott, Bass Clef, Hoofus, Kemper Norton, Ekoplekz and Hacker Farm.

Joining Laura on the night is Laura Sheeran, a Galway native who has been developing her dark songwriting style from a very young age. Described as ‘an episode of Twin Peaks in female form’, Laura fuses classical influences with electronic production and filters it all through the dark witching gauze she cultivates so well.

A 'creative dynamo', Laura has an extensive back-catalogue of work to date, writing music for film, theater and dance productions as well as a number of solo albums and releases with Alien-Pop band Nanu Nanu, and the ever enigmatic collective Fovea Hex.

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/laurasheeranofficial
Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/user/laurasheeran
Twitter : @laurasheeran
bandcamp : http://laurasheeran.bandcamp.com/