
· Union Chapel · London
In their typical magpie style, The Unthanks collect and reimagine, at once unique and familiar, inventive but natural and effortless. Hear a Tyneside band playing a German Christmas song in the style of The Beach Boys; a Spanish carol performed by English folkies through the filter of Tom Waits; a French carol given desert-blues menace, a newly written tribute to the NHS to the tune of O Holy Night; a wintry opening piece inspired by A Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten; traditional wassails and old stories coloured with folk noir and traces of Vincent Guaraldi’s Merry Christmas Charlie Brown. In Winter is a world in itself, capturing the warmth and nostalgia of the festive season, the chill and darkness of the winter months, and the reflective ritualisms of the turn of the year; the end and beginning of the circle of life.