Hello! We are two musicians from Bristol who play collectively as The Hand, and separately as Rachael Dadd and Wig Smith. We have recently returned from Japan where we were touring to promote our new albums released on Angel’s Egg. In the spring we’ll be joined by Japanese solo artist Ichi, and together we’re looking for live dates across the UK (Mid April – Mid May) and Europe (Mid May – Mid June). We're happy to play in shops, cafes, galleries, and all sorts of music venues. If you are interested in booking us or know somebody that would be, and would like more information and cds please email: rachaeldadd@googlemail.com or message me here at myspace, or call Wig on 07977 441848 Thank you!
THE HAND
I met Wig a few years ago working onBristol ferry boats. We shared a love of all sorts, Robert Wyatt, Joni Mitchell,Jolie Holland. Wig made me the best compilation cds, introducing me to wonderfully obscure and enchanting music. On quiet winter shifts I would bring my banjo to work and sit on the engine cover as Wig drove, and we’d sing Leonard Cohen & Sybille Baier songs to lone commuters. Wig had been in love with world music for a long time and so bought a kora and taught himself to play. Wanting to explore our shared love of music we started to write together. Using kora, banjo, guitar, ukulele, piano, harmonium, clarinet, autoharp and percussion, we began making music that was primarily instrumental. When we’d sing it was usually together and usually in harmony. We’d start with an idea and the idea seemed to take itself off on an adventure, and then we’d have a song that neither of us owned and it felt liberating. We named ourselves after one of Bristol’s ferry stops where stands a huge bronze cast of a hand, recorded a demo, played a live session and had track of the week on Brighton’s radio reverb, and went on a UK tour in autumn 2007.
Since this time we have played extensive gigs and UK festivals including Camp Bestival and Truck Festival, made a self-recorded album titled Berries From the Rubble which has been released on Japanese label Angel’s Egg (along with all our solo albums), and have just returned from a 3 week Japan tour. While in Japan we recorded as guest musicians for the forthcoming World Standard album. With new inspiration from our recent travels under our belt we want to continue playing to new audiences at home and overseas. We recently discovered that the banjo is a descendant of the kora. Our music is full of surprises, even for us!
“On we skip’ is typical of the album - English folk song cross-bred with desert campfire
blues to produce something that is at once gentle, dramatic and timeless….Against
the kora’s distinctive ring the duo harmonise, producing a sound that has the same
skein of beauty as Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares…It’s immediately beguiling, but
it also grows more impressive with each listen” Jumped Up Pantry Boy http://pantry.wordpress.com/....
“The hand do some indescribable things with their fingers: her banjo and his guitar nimbly
spin yarns, conversing about closing gaps in the music staff, and how romantic
everything seems up close, by the light of the candle” Venue magazine
ICHI
Ichi, from Nagoya in Japan, takes the notion of a one-man band to new limits - combining steel-drum with ping-pong balls, tape-loops with double bass and trumpet with xylophone, all in the space of one short set.Somehow there's an ancient, ritualistic feel to his performances. He's like the misplaced leader of a tribe and perhaps he will be - it's this kind of excellence and innovation which inspires a cult following. At the same time, his music is so playful and unusual - it gives you the feeling that you're witnessing something entirely
new. It's fun, it's danceable, it's exciting.
His album, Mono is released on the Japanese label Coup, and if you heard the CD before
you see him play, you'd never believe he reproduces it live, but he does (minus the mewing from his two cats, some atmospheric sound recordings and a few contributions
from some other friends).
Ichi is also a 20-year long member of the Nagoya New Wave band Nohshinto, and has toured extensively as a solo artist in Japan, and has played with Shugo Tokumaru and Asa-Chang & Junray.
RACHAEL DADD
Whether it be by handing out cake or percussive pots of rice to shake, Rachael puts her audience at ease - she's had plenty of practice, having toured England and Japan numerous times, and played festival slots since 2001 including an appearance on Glastonbury’s Acoustic Stage with one of her collaborative projects, Whalebone Polly (with Kate Stables of This is the Kit). She enjoys performing in intimate settings the most, but can adapt well, having proved this when she performed a series of shows in Japan, each to an audience of 3000.
Rachael makes most of her music by telling everyone that she's going to bed, and then sneaking off to her trusty 8-track and plugging herself in. Her songs sparkle with a wide-eyed wonder and exhibit a fascination for the everyday magic of life. Soon after stepping foot in Bristol in 2003, Rachael gained the reputation by Venue Magazine as, “the author of a deft, charismatic brand of folk music". Since then she has turned the heads of Rob Da Bank, Bob Harris and Huw Stevens, as well as those in other fields such as artist Yoshitomo Nara. Her last album The World Outside is in a Cupboard was described as “absolutely staggering” by Julian Peck of Sunday Best Recordings. She has been adopted as part of the Fence Collective’s extended family, and has been invited to be part of several compilation releases, the most recent being Little Things on Indy label Flau, from which The Wire Magazine picked out her contribution as one that “appeals most of all”
Her latest album After the Ant Fight, recorded with Ali Chant (who has worked with John Parish, Howe Gelb and PJ Harvey), is her third album to be released on Japanese label Angel’s Egg and is her most varied and exciting work to date. On it she invites her Bristol friends to play, leading her impromptu penguin café orchestra down a lyrical and melodic path. On the album, not only does Rachael turn her own hands to piano, banjo, guitar, clarinet and harmonium, but too turns them to the album’s sleeve, appropriately dressing it in exquisite ant-depicting needlework. In this way she maintains a certain D.I.Y ethos that has been apparent since her very first 4-track recordings complete with hand-drawn covers
“Rachael’s song writing is atypical – the obvious moves
are avoided in favor of the element of surprise. ‘Table’ in particular is
stunning…a Philip Glass-y piece of minimalism that rises to a peak on the back
of a just-so mix of piano, harmonium, clarinet and one-take drums, then falls
away again…the kind of freshness that draws you back for another listen, and
another.” Jumped Up Pantry Boy, http://pantry.wordpress.com/
"The true star of a stage positively brimming with quality.
Authentic, unpretentious and lightened by Ms Dadd's loveable persona, the bands
ethereal folk seduced an audience already spoilt with highlights. Sumptuous
harmonies, pastoral melodies and banana grins abound." Venue Magazine
"This LP will be filled with the same kind of magical, bewitching
tunes as Føroyar, with vocal hooks that send thrilling shivers sprinting across
your nerve endings and sink you into those hot joyful flushes that only come
with the experience of something quite unique." Stool Pigeon
WIG SMITH
Wig Smith, an extremely gifted solo musician, has achieved a great amount in the last 3 years. Having only played his first live gig three Augusts ago (supporting the darkly enchanting Diane Cluck), he has since clocked up an impressive list of achievements. In 2007 he played a 13 date UK tour, and in autumn 2008 he recorded a solo album which has since been released on Japanese label Angel's Egg. One of his greatest achievements in 2008 was to travel by train and boat across land and sea, kora and ukulele in tow, to arrive on Japanese shores where he teamed up with Rachael Dadd to play a 12 date tour of the country to eagerly awaiting ears.
Music has always been a huge part of his life, of his every day existence. This mould was set from the age of 10 when he began attending rigorous rehearsals and
performing with the Bristol Cathedral choir (though nowadays he is firmly agnostic). His interests in music were by no means channeled for him - as if piano, ukulele and guitar were not enough, he bought a kora from e-bay and set about teaching himself how to play it. Then, taking influences from many different genres, particularly his great loves: world music, new folk music, poetry and folk tales, he has been quietly and modestly forging his very own language (Wig also helps organise a monthly story-telling and music night in Bristol called Folk Tales).
His music comes from an inner strength and self assuredness, and possesses an outer beauty and fragility. Maybe it is something that lies in the intricacies - the relationship between vocal melody and the kora's phrasing, or maybe it's the sentiment of such lyrics: "The lines have appeared to itch since I learnt their language", and "Our hearts are folded - it takes two to make a full frame", (both of which reflect his other life as a harbor man, along with one of his side projects 'a boat a boat' which is music made from recorded boat sounds and blowing over the necks of beer bottles); It's hard to put a finger on what it is exactly, but there is certainly something about Wig Smith's mysterious music, that for those who give it their time, will magically get under the skin.
“Wig’s as skilful a picker as a Spanish flamenco master, generating and altering the rhythm of his songs in a way which makes it appealingly difficult to predict where they will go next.” Jumped Up Pantry Boy.
“Wig Smith plays a fiendishly complex 21-stringed kora like a dulcimer mutedin velvet with fragile and charming songs about snow and toes.” Venue Magazine