Album: Bottle

Label: Navigator Records

Release date: 18 May 2015

+ UK Tour

Bottle is the first album by the dream duo – Eliza Carthy and Tim Eriksen. These highly regarded artists from either side of the Atlantic have come together and mixed hardcore ‘Americana’ with hardcore ‘Anglicana’ and the results are inventive and thrilling. Made up of traditional material from both sides of the pond – and influences altogether other – Bottle, features fiddle, electric guitar, banjo and bass drum and is brimming with passion and energy. The 13 tracks include Buffalo, Logan’s Lament and Castle By the Sea from America, alongside the Copper Family’s Cats and Dogs, May Song and Whitby Lad from our own shores. The two artists met in the 1990s when they were teenagers but it was the offer of a duo appearance by a Czech festival (Folkové Prázdniny) and UK tours in 2013 and 2014 that finally provided the opportunity for them to record together. Bottle is the stunning result.

Tim Eriksen is acclaimed for transforming American traditional music with his startling interpretations of old ballads, love songs, shape-note gospel and dance tunes from New England and Southern Appalachia. Tim combines hair-raising vocals with inventive accompaniment on banjo, fiddle, guitar and bajo sexto – a twelve string Mexican acoustic bass – creating a distinctive hardcore Americana sound that ranges across seven solo albums of northern roots American music and he’s appeared on more than 20 others in a breathtaking range of genres – (hardcore punk, symphonic, Oromo gospel, Czech folk rock, shape note, Afro Cuban jazz, Bosnian pop and bluegrass at last count). Eriksen’s compositions have also been featured in films including Billy Bob Thornton’s Chrystal and the documentary Behold the Earth. Eriksen’s other notable work includes contributions to Anthony Minghella’s 2004 Oscar-winning film Cold Mountain and the 2010 Grammy-nominated album Across the Divide with Afro-Cuban world-jazz pianist Omar Sosa.

Eliza Carthy is undoubtedly one of the most impressive and engaging performers of her generation. Twice nominated for the Mercury Prize and winner of innumerable other accolades, over a twenty-six year career, Eliza has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists including, Paul Weller, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Patrick Wolf and Joan Baez. In 2014, Eliza recorded an acclaimed duo album with her father, the legendary guitarist, Martin Carthy – and at the 2015 BBC 6Music Festival, she performed live with rap/poet Kate Tempest. Eliza was recently awarded an MBE, is an Artistic Associate of The Sage in Gateshead and vice president of the English Folk Dance & Song Society.

ELIZA CARTHY & TIM ERIKSEN ‘BOTTLE’ TOUR 2015

21 May    Edinburgh House Concert, EDINBURGH

22 May    ARC, Stockton Arts Centre STOCKTON ON TEES

23 May    Hexham Gathering, Queen’s Hall, BARDON MILL

24 May    Waterdale, DONCASTER

25 May    Fruit, HULL

26 May    Guildhall Arts Centre GRANTHAM

27 May     The Live Room, Caroline Street Social Club, SALTAIRE

28 May    The Met, BURY

29 May     St Pancras Old Church, LONDON

30 May     Chipping Norton Theatre, CHIPPING NORTON

31 May      National Centre for Early Music, YORK