| Lisa Knapp |
Till April Is Dead A Garland Of May |
Lisa Knapp — Till April Is Dead A Garland Of May (May 5, 2017) 
•• Indeed, Knapp’s vocal isn’t too dissimilar to Björk‘s at times, especially when reaching the higher notes. Come to think of it, Shipping Song wouldn’t sound out of place as a Björk track, thanks to its esoteric nature.
♠♠ Lisa Knapp was hailed as one of Brit folk’s brightest new young stars when she appeared as if from nowhere with her stirring, passionate debut album, Wild and Undaunted, in 2007. Yet by then Knapp was already over 30 and married with a small daughter, having discovered folk music relatively late after spending her teenage years going to raves and dancing to hip~hop records.
Born: ca. 1974 in London, England
Location: London, England, United Kingdom
Album release: May 5, 2017
Record Label: Ear to the Ground
Duration: 45:16
Tracks:
01 The Night Before May Day 4:05
02 Till April Is Dead 3:39
03 Searching For Lambs 4:41
04 Staines Morris 4:12
05 May Garland 3:12
06 Lily White Hand 6:23
07 Lark In The Morning 4:49
08 Bedfordshire May Day Carol 3:05
09 Wheres Troy? 0:39
10 Dont You Go A Rushing 4:14
11 Pleasant Month Of May 4:49
12 Padstow May Song 4:28
Notes:
••• Lisa Knapp was hailed as one of Brit folk’s brightest new young stars when she appeared as if from nowhere with her stirring, passionate debut album, Wild and Undaunted, in 2007.
••• Brand new album of folk songs of ritual & love in the month of May from BBC Folk Award winner Lisa Knapp.
••• If T.S. Eliot was right and April is the cruellest month, then you might say that May is the kindest. May delivers on all the promises that April made and shirked. The sun comes out properly, the swifts arrive. Hedgerows throng with life, and so do pub gardens. It is May that the year finally turns its back on winter and all the hardship that the cold weather has brought. May, perhaps more than any other month, is celebrated in the traditional music of the British Isles, in songs that often have their roots in the pre~Christian rites that took place in the meadows, village greens and town squares across the country.
••• Lisa Knapp has collected some of these songs to create Till April Is Dead: A Garland Of May, essentially a concept album about the merry month. Knapp seems to have a fascination with May: in 2012 she released Hunt The Hare: A Branch Of May, a tantalising five~track ‘May celebration’ with a guest slot from Alasdair Roberts. On the liner notes to that release she noted that these songs and the rituals that inspired them are both celebratory and sombre, heralding ‘a relief that winter is subdued’ and ‘reminding us that time is of the essence’.
Review
Written by Thomas Blake, 1 May, 2017
√ http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2017/05/lisa-knapp-till-april-is-dead-2/
© Nicolas Granger~Taylor (b.1963), Portrait of Lisa Knapp, 2011, oil on paper, 5 ¾ x 4 ¾
Review
Neil Spencer, Sunday 30 April 2017 08.00 BST / Score: ****
Lisa Knapp: Till April is Dead — A Garland of May review — fearless folklore
••• Lisa Knapp completes a trio of extraordinary albums with a celebration of May Day, its songs, dances, fertility rites and wyrdlore. The songs are traditional, but dressed in the artful arrangements of Knapp and partner/producer Gerry Diver. √ Acoustica, electronica, birdsong and speech interweave among whirring clocks and chimes, dropping us through time. Staines Morris comes from 17th~century theatre, Bedfordshire Carol, a duet with Mary Hampton, is Sunday school Edwardiana. Knapp’s fearless vocals — think south London Björk — concern flowers, lambs, hot young love and sad, false romance. The closing Padstow May Song, with its “Unite and unite” refrain, moves from playful cut~up to thunderous anthem. All hail the May Queen.
••• https://www.theguardian.com/
Website: http://www.lisaknapp.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisaknappmusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shesingsongs/
Artist Biography by Colin Irwin
••• Lisa Knapp was hailed as one of Brit folk’s brightest new young stars when she appeared as if from nowhere with her stirring, passionate debut album, Wild and Undaunted, in 2007. Yet by then Knapp was already over 30 and married with a small daughter, having discovered folk music relatively late after spending her teenage years going to raves and dancing to hip~hop records. A distant relative of Boris Karloff, she was raised in South London by a single mother, took violin lessons as a child, and played in the school orchestra. She discovered folk music in her early 20s after discovering Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Shirley Collins and the Waterboys through a friend’s parents’ record collection, and started attending the Court Sessions folk club in Balham, South London. She also started trawling second~hand record shops for old folk records, dug out her old violin from the loft, had lessons from Peter Cooper and joined the folk club’s local house band. She became immersed in the London~Irish session scene and, inspired by hearing Irish “sean nos” singers, started singing floor spots in folk clubs. Successful spots at Redditch Folk Festival encouraged her to take her music more seriously. She was contemplating a professional career when diagnosed with a non~functioning pituitary adenoma. After various scans, specialists decided only to operate if the tumor grew. Around the same time, Knapp met Gerry Diver, a versatile Irish musician who’d previously played with the band Sin E. Knapp sang two songs, “The Blacksmith” and “Bonnie at Morn” on Diver’s solo album, Diversions, in 2002. They married and in 2003 their daughter Bonnie was born. The combination of motherhood and health worries put her music career on hold again until producer Youth heard her version of “The Blacksmith” and asked if he could remix it to include a compilation album he was working on called What the Folk. On the back of it Youth asked her to record an album of contemporary songs, but Knapp had been totally immersed in English traditional music since attending a residential course in Gloucestershire run by Chris Wood and had her own ideas: she wanted to make an album of traditional songs. With Gerry Diver as co~producer, engineer, arranger, and multi~instrumentalist, the end result was the Wild and Undaunted album. Predominantly comprising traditional English material, with a couple of original songs of her own, the album had an immediate impact and a series of enthusiastic reviews. Knapp’s unusually charged singing was redolent of old singers like Shirley Collins and Anne Briggs, yet the modern arrangements and subtle use of technology also hit a chord with young audiences. Equally impassioned live performances fronting a trio and switching from fiddle to banjo and autoharp enhanced her reputation further. ••• https://www.allmusic.com/
Discography:
√ 2007 Wild and Undaunted (Ear to the Ground Music, Inc.)
√ 2013 Hidden Seam (Navigator)
√ 2017 Till April Is Dead: A Garland of May (Ear to the Ground Music, Inc.)
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
| Lisa Knapp |
Till April Is Dead A Garland Of May |
♠♠ Lisa Knapp was hailed as one of Brit folk’s brightest new young stars when she appeared as if from nowhere with her stirring, passionate debut album, Wild and Undaunted, in 2007. Yet by then Knapp was already over 30 and married with a small daughter, having discovered folk music relatively late after spending her teenage years going to raves and dancing to hip~hop records.
Location: London, England, United Kingdom
Album release: May 5, 2017
Record Label: Ear to the Ground
Duration: 45:16
Tracks:
01 The Night Before May Day 4:05
02 Till April Is Dead 3:39
03 Searching For Lambs 4:41
04 Staines Morris 4:12
05 May Garland 3:12
06 Lily White Hand 6:23
07 Lark In The Morning 4:49
08 Bedfordshire May Day Carol 3:05
09 Wheres Troy? 0:39
10 Dont You Go A Rushing 4:14
11 Pleasant Month Of May 4:49
12 Padstow May Song 4:28
••• Lisa Knapp was hailed as one of Brit folk’s brightest new young stars when she appeared as if from nowhere with her stirring, passionate debut album, Wild and Undaunted, in 2007.
••• Brand new album of folk songs of ritual & love in the month of May from BBC Folk Award winner Lisa Knapp.
••• If T.S. Eliot was right and April is the cruellest month, then you might say that May is the kindest. May delivers on all the promises that April made and shirked. The sun comes out properly, the swifts arrive. Hedgerows throng with life, and so do pub gardens. It is May that the year finally turns its back on winter and all the hardship that the cold weather has brought. May, perhaps more than any other month, is celebrated in the traditional music of the British Isles, in songs that often have their roots in the pre~Christian rites that took place in the meadows, village greens and town squares across the country.
••• Lisa Knapp has collected some of these songs to create Till April Is Dead: A Garland Of May, essentially a concept album about the merry month. Knapp seems to have a fascination with May: in 2012 she released Hunt The Hare: A Branch Of May, a tantalising five~track ‘May celebration’ with a guest slot from Alasdair Roberts. On the liner notes to that release she noted that these songs and the rituals that inspired them are both celebratory and sombre, heralding ‘a relief that winter is subdued’ and ‘reminding us that time is of the essence’.
Review
Written by Thomas Blake, 1 May, 2017
√ http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2017/05/lisa-knapp-till-april-is-dead-2/
Review
Neil Spencer, Sunday 30 April 2017 08.00 BST / Score: ****
Lisa Knapp: Till April is Dead — A Garland of May review — fearless folklore
••• Lisa Knapp completes a trio of extraordinary albums with a celebration of May Day, its songs, dances, fertility rites and wyrdlore. The songs are traditional, but dressed in the artful arrangements of Knapp and partner/producer Gerry Diver. √ Acoustica, electronica, birdsong and speech interweave among whirring clocks and chimes, dropping us through time. Staines Morris comes from 17th~century theatre, Bedfordshire Carol, a duet with Mary Hampton, is Sunday school Edwardiana. Knapp’s fearless vocals — think south London Björk — concern flowers, lambs, hot young love and sad, false romance. The closing Padstow May Song, with its “Unite and unite” refrain, moves from playful cut~up to thunderous anthem. All hail the May Queen.
••• https://www.theguardian.com/
Website: http://www.lisaknapp.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisaknappmusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shesingsongs/
Artist Biography by Colin Irwin
••• Lisa Knapp was hailed as one of Brit folk’s brightest new young stars when she appeared as if from nowhere with her stirring, passionate debut album, Wild and Undaunted, in 2007. Yet by then Knapp was already over 30 and married with a small daughter, having discovered folk music relatively late after spending her teenage years going to raves and dancing to hip~hop records. A distant relative of Boris Karloff, she was raised in South London by a single mother, took violin lessons as a child, and played in the school orchestra. She discovered folk music in her early 20s after discovering Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Shirley Collins and the Waterboys through a friend’s parents’ record collection, and started attending the Court Sessions folk club in Balham, South London. She also started trawling second~hand record shops for old folk records, dug out her old violin from the loft, had lessons from Peter Cooper and joined the folk club’s local house band. She became immersed in the London~Irish session scene and, inspired by hearing Irish “sean nos” singers, started singing floor spots in folk clubs. Successful spots at Redditch Folk Festival encouraged her to take her music more seriously. She was contemplating a professional career when diagnosed with a non~functioning pituitary adenoma. After various scans, specialists decided only to operate if the tumor grew. Around the same time, Knapp met Gerry Diver, a versatile Irish musician who’d previously played with the band Sin E. Knapp sang two songs, “The Blacksmith” and “Bonnie at Morn” on Diver’s solo album, Diversions, in 2002. They married and in 2003 their daughter Bonnie was born. The combination of motherhood and health worries put her music career on hold again until producer Youth heard her version of “The Blacksmith” and asked if he could remix it to include a compilation album he was working on called What the Folk. On the back of it Youth asked her to record an album of contemporary songs, but Knapp had been totally immersed in English traditional music since attending a residential course in Gloucestershire run by Chris Wood and had her own ideas: she wanted to make an album of traditional songs. With Gerry Diver as co~producer, engineer, arranger, and multi~instrumentalist, the end result was the Wild and Undaunted album. Predominantly comprising traditional English material, with a couple of original songs of her own, the album had an immediate impact and a series of enthusiastic reviews. Knapp’s unusually charged singing was redolent of old singers like Shirley Collins and Anne Briggs, yet the modern arrangements and subtle use of technology also hit a chord with young audiences. Equally impassioned live performances fronting a trio and switching from fiddle to banjo and autoharp enhanced her reputation further. ••• https://www.allmusic.com/
Discography:
√ 2007 Wild and Undaunted (Ear to the Ground Music, Inc.)
√ 2013 Hidden Seam (Navigator)
√ 2017 Till April Is Dead: A Garland of May (Ear to the Ground Music, Inc.)
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••