Welcome to the world of Whiskey Moon Face. It’s a beautiful world of times gone by but with its feet firmly set in the here and now.
Louisa and Ewan lived together with a group of people at The George, a 150-year-old Victorian east London pub that by night opened as a music venue. Ewan started to play with Louisa’s music after hearing it through the bedroom wall. Previous to this Louisa had spent some years traveling. It was on a trip to Ireland, that she met and was influenced by a Celtic melodeon player who she lived with for a while on Sherkin Ireland, off the west coast of Ireland. Later she spent time in Northern India, learning Dhrupad with the Gunducha Brothers, meanwhile, Ewan met Jim Ydstie (Dakota Jim) in London and then later the three of them then began busking and gigging together.
Dakota Jim had spent many years playing in New Orleans and America with Tuba Fats. He arrived in Europe on a tour twenty years ago. Ewan Bleach has also spent time in New Orleans playing with Tuba Skinny. Their time spent playing jazz has been a strong influence on the band. Louisa writes the music and lyrics, and on most of the songs, Jim and Ewan improvise their parts so every time it’s slightly different.
The band all live in London, traveling for gigs around Europe, Russia, and America.
The special guests in the band are all good friends of Jim, Louisa, and Ewan. A lot of them play in Ewan’s band The Cable Street Rag Band. Russian trombonist Anton Wunderlich lives in Berlin.
The album was recorded by Nick Taylor at Porcupine Studios in Mottingham, South East London.
“To describe WHISKEY MOON FACE as an alternative folk group doesn’t even begin to do justice to the breadth of influence, inspiration, and style in their music. Based around double bass, accordion, and clarinet, they’re led by the stunning vocals and hallucinatory lyrics of singer Louisa Jones. Both ear-to-ear grinningly entertaining and profoundly moving… a superbly realized, truly beautiful, and utterly original sound- there is simply no-one in the UK making music like them.”
– New Roots
“The result of a thousand drunken nights, countless dreamy days, and years of musical adventuring, Whiskey Moon Face take you on a voyage into a bohemian underworld which you never knew existed.
Born into a puddle of whiskey beneath a stark winter moon and raised by cold winds, schooled in the warming spirits and hungry for more, Whiskey Moon Face manage a natural, graceful sound built from many ports.
“Always innovating and improvising with stark originality, Louisa Jones’ troupe of underground musicians play with a virtuosity you could never expect. Songs which speak of the unspeakable, with understated humor, captivating storytelling, and a transcendent spirituality.”
– Woodburner
LINKS:
http://www.whiskeymoonface.co.uk
http://www.facebook.com/Whiskey-Moon-face-458967634172653
