A Happy New Year for 2017 From Topic Records.

Happy New Year Welcome to the first Topic Records Newsletter of 2017. We would like to wish you all a happy and peaceful New Year. Our exhibition at the Barbican Music Library - ‘Topic Records & The Art of Folk Music’ - will continue until February 7th, and is free to visit. During this month we have two very special evening events planned: Monday January 16th  - An Audience with Eliza Carthy Eliza will be in conversation with Colin Irwin (Mojo, fRoots, The Guardian) and David Suff (Topic Records) + a very rare solo acoustic performance. Barbican Music Library, 7pm – 9pm (refreshments available) Monday Jan 30th 2017 - An Audience with Martin Carthy and Martin Simpson The two Martins will be in conversation with Colin Irwin and David Suff, and perform some songs in a  unique unplugged acoustic performance. Barbican Music Library, 7pm – 9pm (refreshments available) The Music Library is situated on the 2nd floor of the Barbican Centre: Barbican Music Library, Barbican Centre, Silk Street,  LONDON EC2Y 8DS Opening hours: Monday 9.30am - 5.30pm Tuesday 9.30am - 7.30pm Wednesday 9.30am - 5.30pm Thursday 9.30am - 7.30pm Friday 9.30am - 2pm Saturday 9.30am - 4pm The library is closed on bank holidays. Some exhibition special offers Our monthly special offers are a great way of filling the gaps in your music collection, or to give as splendid gifts for friends. Throughout January we are continuing our selection of very special offers - ten albums from the expansive Topic catalogue at the very special price of only £6 each:   TSCD 126  LOUIS KILLEN ~ BALLADS & BROADSIDES TSCD 411  NIC JONES ~ PENGUIN EGGS TSCD 427  ALISTAIR ANDERSON ~ STEEL SKIES TSCD 449  JUNE TABOR ~ AQABA TSCD 472  The WATERSONS ~ EARLY DAYS TSCD 512  HARRY COX ~ THE BONNY LABOURING BOY TSCD576D  EWAN MacCOLL ~ BALLADS TSCD 602  VARIOUS ARTISTS ~ IRISH DANCE MUSIC TSCD 607  VARIOUS ARTISTS ~ ENGLISH COUNTRY MUSIC TSCD774D  VARIOUS ARTISTS ~ VOICE + VISION   BUTTON BADGES For the splendid NORMAFEST in Whitby last weekend we produced some beautiful new button badges - one set based upon icon photographs of the classic mid-'60s Watersons and one set using images of Waterson:Carthy from 1994:   Limited quantities are now available for mail order. The WATERSON badge set WATERSON:CARTHY badge set BIG MACHINE Pioneering English traditional folk powerhouse, Eliza Carthy, first assembled the Wayward Band in 2013 in order to explore and celebrate her long and varied career in folk music, ‘the last truly underground music scene’. To do this Eliza put together a team of hugely talented musicians from across the UK and together they hit the road to promote her ‘Best Of’ compilation, Wayward Daughter, which coincided with a biography of the same name. Eliza and the Wayward Band loved playing together so much – as well as becoming a festival favourite – that it seemed natural and inevitable, as well as characteristically ambitious, that this 12-piece would set about recording an album. The result is ‘Big Machine’, recorded at the renowned Real World and Rockfield Studios and produced by the multi-talented Jim Sutherland. The Wayward Band line-up is a veritable dream team of musicians comprising Sam Sweeney (Bellowhead), David Delarre (Mawkin), Barn Stradling (Blowzabella), Saul Rose, Beth Porter, Lucy Farrell (Emily Portman Trio), Will Molleson, Andrew Waite (Tyde), Laurence Hunt, Nick Malcolm and Adrien ‘Yen-Yen’ Toulouse. The material on Big Machine represents a healthy slice of everything good that is happening in traditional music now, across a sparkling spectrum of sound. The album features three contemporary songs; Eliza’s own “You Know Me” about the refugee crisis and notions of hospitality (featuring MC Dizraeli), a powerful cover of Ewan Maccoll’s Radio Ballad “The Fitter’s Song” (at the behest of Peggy Seeger – and the song which inspired the album title) and an affectionate reworking of Rory McLeod's “Hug You Like a Mountain”, re-imagined here as a duet with Teddy Thompson. There are also several examples of the Broadside ballad collections housed in Chetham’s Library in Manchester given a new twist with music by Eliza and the band. This follows a programme Eliza presented for BBC Radio 4 about the Manchester Ballads, covering everything from songs about and caused by domestic abuse (“Devil in the Woman”, the sumptuous and searing “Fade and Fall (Love Not)”, to the seafaring life in “The Sea”. Added to that a couple of brilliantly constructed instrumentals, a song about dying from custard poisoning and a heartbreaking traditional ballad “I Wish that the Wars were all Over” (performed live with the band onstage in Real World Studios’ Studio One and featuring Irish superstar Damien Dempsey), and you begin to get the picture. A very big picture, a Big Machine firing on all cylinders. Big Machine is certainly one of Eliza Carthy’s most adventurous and accomplished works to date – and given that Eliza is the most passionate and groundbreaking English traditional singer of her generation, ‘Big Machine’ is an album you really won’t want to miss. BIG MACHINE is released on the 3rd February 2017 and available to pre-order now from: PLEDGE, PROPERMUSIC.COM, AMAZON and ITUNES

Opening the Topic Records Treasure Chest & Special Offers Too.

Opening the Topic treasure chest Speaking about folk music at the 2003 BBC Radio2 Folk Awards, Kazuo Ishiguro said - “ The way I see it is like this… There is this kind of treasure chest you have sitting in front of you… I would urge you to open that thing up and delve inside it…” Topic Records is now opening its own treasure chest.  A wonderful selection of archive artefacts from the past 77 years of folk music history is going on display in an exhibition at the Barbican Music Library in London from today - Wednesday 9th November. The exhibition, entitled ‘Topic Records & The Art of Folk Music’, will run until the end of January 2017, and is free to visit. The Music Library is situated on the 2nd floor of the Barbican Centre: Barbican Music Library, Barbican Centre, Silk Street,  LONDON EC2Y 8DS Opening hours: Monday 9.30am - 5.30pm Tuesday 9.30am - 7.30pm Wednesday 9.30am - 5.30pm Thursday 9.30am - 7.30pm Friday 9.30am - 2pm Saturday 9.30am - 4pm The library is closed on bank holidays. Some exhibition special offers Our monthly special offers are a great way of filling the gaps in your music collection, or to give as splendid gifts for friends.   For November, to celebrate the opening of the exhibition mentioned above, Topic’s special offers are ten albums from the expansive Topic catalogue at the very special price of only £6 each:   TSCD 126  LOUIS KILLEN ~ BALLADS & BROADSIDES TSCD 411  NIC JONES ~ PENGUIN EGGS TSCD 427  ALISTAIR ANDERSON ~ STEEL SKIES TSCD 449  JUNE TABOR ~ AQABA TSCD 472  The WATERSONS ~ EARLY DAYS TSCD 512  HARRY COX ~ THE BONNY LABOURING BOY TSCD576D  EWAN MacCOLL ~ BALLADS TSCD 602  VARIOUS ARTISTS ~ IRISH DANCE MUSIC TSCD 607  VARIOUS ARTISTS ~ ENGLISH COUNTRY MUSIC TSCD774D  VARIOUS ARTISTS ~ VOICE + VISION     BIG MACHINE   Exciting times for Eliza Carthy & The Wayward Band, with their new album Big Machine readied for release on Topic Records in February 2017, and the following dates left on a much-anticipated tour:   Friday 11th November – SALISBURY – City Hall Saturday 12th November – MANCHESTER – Royal Northern College of Music Sunday 13th November – SCUNTHORPE – Baths Hall Thursday 17th November – MARGATE – Theatre Royal Friday 18th November – LIVERPOOL – Philharmonic Music Room Sunday 20th November – WHITBY - Pavilion Friday 25th November – BRISTOL – Colston Hall Lantern Saturday 26th November – BASINGSTOKE – Anvil Arts Sunday 27th November – NOTTINGHAM – Glee Club “Eliza Carthy reaches dizzying new heights.  Long regarded as having been in the vanguard of those responsible for the recent folk revival, with the Wayward Band – replete with their rattling rhythms, soaring brass and sweeping strings – she is elevated to an even higher, far more versatile musical plane…”   Simon Godley, live review of Leeds show 2nd July 2016   Topic’s latest release, Finale, the wonderful 2CD set of Pentangle’s last live recordings from 2008, has been attracting some stellar reviews. Here are a few of the accolades:   Shindig! Magazine - 5 stars. ‘utterly sublime'.     Jazzwise – 4 stars. ’Swoon’. ‘Pentangle will always occupy a uniquely-theirs place in post-war British music making' Uncut Magazine – 8/10. ‘Flawless’. ‘Startlingly fresh’. FolkRadioUK - 'One of the indisputable facts of musical history with which absolutely nobody could ever disagree, is that the group Pentangle was one of the most exciting and innovative combos in the folk world …’ 'Finale is a magnificent record in all respects. Treasure this set, for we’ll not see the like of Pentangle again.' The Green Man Review - ‘…this stunning live album … from the wonderfully autumnal, inimitable Pentangle.’ MOJO - ‘…beautifully recorded’. ‘…a series of scintillating performances’.   Finale is available to buy at all good record shops and by clicking this link.