London’s Union Chapel hosting free music

April 7, 2009 by Alan Pedder in Blog

Daylight Music Festival runs until July 25th

Former Wears The Trousers interviewees Madam, Kelli Ali and Nancy Wallace are all among the line-up for this year’s Daylight Music Festival, returning to the Union Chapel in Islington for its second year. All the shows run from midday to 2pm on Saturdays between now and July. The first show was actually this past weekend and featured the likes of The Lais Quartet and Fireworks Night. The next show, on April 18th, teams Madam with Icelandic quartet Blindfold. Kelli Ali closes out the merry month of May on the 30th with a performance alongside filmic Brighton band Autumn Chorus. She’ll no doubt have copies of her new album Butterfly [review] with her.

Nancy Wallace gets the last word on July 25th, the final show of this season. Stephen Cracknell supports. One of Nancy’s other bands, The Owl Service, headline the show on May 16th, which also features talented Nottingham-born, Manchester-based singer-songwriter Sally Murray, who recently released her debut EP Battle Ground on Timbreland Recordings. For more information on these free gigs, including the full line-up, visit the Daylight Music Myspace.

In other Madam news, Sukie was recently commissioned by high-end hi-fi equipment manufacturers Bowers & Wilkins, via curator Peter Gabriel (yes, that one!), to record an album that will be available exclusively through their online Music Club from April 24th. The nine tracks on Gone Before Morning include two covers – ‘The Snake’ by ’60s artist Oscar Brown Jr, and ‘If You’re Looking For A Way Out’ by Tindersticks – and seven new songs, all laid down within a week at Peter Gabriel’s famous Real World Studios.

“It was an extraordinary experience,” Sukie told us in an email. “Working in this outrageously beautiful studio, being taken care of like rock royalty, recording and mixing an album in the brain-fryingly tight time of a week, produced by me with military-style discipline to get it done. We were living in Coleridge’s mill house!”

Gone Before Morning
01 Someone In Love
02 You Lead I Follow
03 The Snake
04 The Ground Will Claim You
05 Marine Boy
06 Ride The Waves
07 Weekend Love
08 If You’re Looking For A Way Out
09 Tar & Serpents

To download a copy in lossless digital audio, you need to sign up for either a 6- or 12-month membership to the B&W Music Club ($40 and $60, respectively). If that’s too steep, you can get a four-track selection from the album by registering for a free trial from April 24th onwards.

Alan Pedder

Madam, ‘Calling For Love’