Rachael Dadd

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Hello, Konnichi wa, welcome to my new website!
I have been playing solo under my own name since I was 18, and I am half of The Hand (Wig Smith makes it a whole) and I am half of Whalebone Polly (Kate Stables of This Is The Kit being the other half). I also spend lots of time with my sewing machine and lino cuttings and sell textiles and prints at gigs. Very soon I’ll be up-dating the shop to buy my textiles as well as all my cds.

I spent most of last year touring in Japan and 3 rainy

summer months recording in Bristol. I put a lot of work in, it went through various machines, and over the past few months it has been dropping out as brand new things. I now have my new album After the Ant Fight in one hand, The Hand album Berries from the Rubble in the other, and today I’m learning how to manage this new website to tell you about it all! Next on the list of adventures is a trip to France to tour with This is The Kit. Kate and I also plan to record for a new Whalebone Polly 7”. When I come home to Bristol, Ichi (one-man solo act extraordinaire from Japan) will join me and The Hand for a Uk and European tour.

AFTER THE ANT FIGHT is my new album released on Japan’s Indie label Angel’s Egg. There are 11 new songs plus a traditional song Two Sisters. I spent many intensive days recording and mixing underground at Toy Box Studios in Bristol with Ali Chant (who has worked with John Parish and PJ Harvey). I sing and play piano, banjo, guitar, clarinet and harmonium.  Many of my friends in Bristol added their mark; Ieuan Pearse played drums, Jean Marc de Verteuil played bass, Andi Skellam sang and played banjo, Wig Smith sang and played kora and ukelele, Rozi Plain sang, Francois Marry played trumpet, and Wig’s mum Diana played the bassoon. Together they helped me to develop my music, as well as making it such an enjoyable time.  For the album artwork I spent many hours in a park in Tokyo stitching a scene of fighting ants. Doing the artwork myself is important. It completes my process of making a new album and maintains a certain D.I.Y ethos that has been apparent since my early 4-track recordings complete with hand-drawn covers.

Ant & Bee MP3

“Rachael’s song writing is atypical – the obvious moves are avoided in favor of the element of surprise. ‘Table’ in particular is stunning…a Philip Glass-y piece of minimalism that rises to a peak on the back of a just-so mix of piano, harmonium, clarinet and one-take drums, then falls away again…the kind of freshness that draws you back for another listen, and another.” READ FULL REVIEW BY Jumped Up Pantry Boy

BERRIES FROM THE RUBBLE is The Hand’s new 10 song album (Angel’s Egg). Wig Smith and I spent two weeks during late summer recording it in a front room at the Self-Build Project in Bristol. On it we sing and play kora, banjo, guitar, ukulele, piano, harmonium, clarinet, autoharp and percussion. Wig is the first person I’ve been able to write with, and what we create together feels like it has a life of its own.

My sister Betsy has made an animation to the last track which can be seen on the films page.

And Fold MP3

“On ‘And fold’ and ‘Maroosia’ the chords are courtly and the exchanges stately; the instrumental ‘Hovering wasp’ is pastorally English while the singing on ‘What do you know’ might more typically come midway through a rousing session in Bristol’s Robin Hood pub.  But throughout, the spirit of the kora moves the locus of these recordings towards Africa and the Orient.  ‘On we skip’ is typical of the album - English folk song cross-bred with desert campfire blues to produce something that is at once gentle, dramatic and timeless.  Performance comes before perfection – half way through ‘On we skip’ there’s a sense of a threat to the recording in the form of interrupting feet and voices, but the take with the resulting stifled laugh and shushing left in is chosen because everything else about it is right. At times the mood of the music and the space in it put me in mind of Young Marble Giants; at others, like On ‘The wind blows the same way’, Wig and Rachael duel and coalesce like Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli.….” READ REVIEW BY Jumped Up Pantry Boy

WINTER BOAT FROM SIBERIA TOUR, Japan December 2008
During December I was joined in Japan by Wig Smith and we toured with Naoto Kawate. We played in the cosiest of cafes, galleries and shops. Naoto has really good plans to create a network across Japan of these type of venues that offer so much for musicians like us. There are communities of people ready and willing to pack the venues out and listen all ears burning!

LIVE ALIVE ALIVES TOUR, Japan October 2008
I spent the month of October traversing Japan by train with Kate and Jesse of This is the Kit and Morningstar, and baby mo. Everything exceeded my expectations:  the people, the music, the warm weather, the fun, and the delicious food laid on for us everywhere we went. Me and Kate played new and old songs together as Whalebone Polly and have decided to make a 7inch next year. For my tour blog and all up to date future tour dates please go to www.myspace.com/rachaeldadd

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• LIVE ALIVE ALIVES TOUR, Japan October 2008

  I spent the month of October traversing Japan by train with Kate and Jesse of This is the Kit and Morningstar, and baby mo. Click here to find out more

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