Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to your very first viewing of ‘Watt’s Reel’, a live performance video from the ever-so-swish Granny’s Attic, featuring George Sansome, Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, and Lewis Wood.
Now, this one’s a reel foot-stomper, if you’ll pardon the low-rent pun. Or perhaps it’s a head-banger; watching it through a couple of times, you do have to wonder whether Sansome, the guitarist, has any neck muscles left after that performance.
The trio has put together this beautifully-lit, wonderfully-shot live performance vid (the first of two – tune in for the second early next month) to give you a taste of what you might expect on their forthcoming tour, the dates for which you’ll find below. The tune was composed by Lewis Wood, and eager readers can find it on their most recent album, The Brickfields, about which we said in our review, “It’s rare to find an album of traditional and original tunes that stitch so seamlessly together. On Granny’s Attic’s latest, they’ve sewn something quite special indeed.”
Of ‘Watt’s Reel’, Wood explains, “I wrote it to see how many parts I could fit in one tune without it losing its coherence. The inspiration for this came from the longer 3/2 Hornpipes found in John Offord’s tunebook John Of The Green, The Cheshire Way, some of which reach as many as 12 parts. However, the sound of the tune itself owes more to the crooked reels found in Quebec. The ‘Watt’ in the title is Doug Watt, a friend of the band, who wrote a tune for us several years ago which he rather amusingly called ‘Grampy’s Basement’. I thought I’d return the favour with this tune.”
Explaining the recording of the new video, the band says, “As we live quite far apart (Southampton, Leeds, and Flintshire) and mostly get together for gigs, we don’t often end up with any free time when we’re in the same place. At the start of May we had a weekend together (with two lovely gigs at Bristol Folk Festival and Todmorden Folk Festival) so, on the Monday, we thought we’d make the most of it and get into a studio to record a live session of a couple of tunes from our new album.
“We were keen to capture the energy of this tune and how it feels in the room, so we filmed and recorded live with the brilliant Will Killen at Evoke Studios in Leeds, who was behind both the camera and the mixing desk. He was great to work with and managed to really get the sense of excitement that is present when we play this tune.
“We’re really looking forward to getting back out on the road again for our Brickfields Spring Tour and can’t wait to share some lovely evenings of music with everyone. As well as this tune and others from our new instrumental album, we’ll be playing lots of songs from our previous releases and we might even sneak a new song or two in there as well. It’s our longest tour to date (special thanks to our amazing agent Lucy) so we’re really excited to be playing at lots of new venues as well as returning to some of our favourites.”
Granny’s Attic – Brickfields Spring/Summer Tour
You’ll find the Attic out on tour over the coming months in the following places…
- 14/05 – Wolverton Folk and Blues Fair, Isle Of Wight
- 19/05 – Calstock Arts, Cornwall
- 20/05 – Forest Arts Centre, Hampshire
- 21/05 – Ashcroft Arts Centre, Hampshire
- 23/05 – Colchester Arts Centre, Essex
- 25/05 – Little Gaddesden Folk Club, Hertfordshire
- 26/05 – The Stables, Milton Keynes
- 27/05 – Chester Folk Festival
- 01/06 – Kitchen Garden Cafe, Birmingham
- 03/06 – Minchinhampton Market House, Gloucestershire
- 05/06 – St John-in-Bedwardine Parish Church, Worcester
- 11/06 – Gower Folk Festival
- 12/06 – St Neots Folk Festival
- 14/06 – The cornerHOUSE, Surbiton
- 15/06 – Philleigh Folk, Cornwall
- 16/06 – Stratford Play House, Warwickshire
- 17/06 – Folk At The Barlow, Lancashire
- 18/06 – Nettleham Village Hall, Lincolnshire
- 19/06 – East Riding Theatre, Beverley
- 01/07 – Pound Arts, Wiltshire
- 02/07 – Kimpton Folk Festival
- 06/07 – University Of Leeds
- 09/07 – Ely Folk Festival
- 15/07 – Stainsby Festival
- 16/07 – Sesiwn Fawr, Dolgellau
- 21-24/07 – Warwick Folk Festival
- 29-30/07 – Sidmouth Folk Festival
- 12/08 – Saltburn Folk Festival
- 19/08 – Moira Furnace Folk Festival
- 20/08 – Just So Festival
- 29/08 – Cornwall Folk Festival
For more on Granny’s Attic, head to grannysattic.org.uk.
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