Photo Credit: Tim Wainwright
**** Chris Letcher Tour Postponed Due to Bicycle Accident ****
Sadly on Wednesday, 15 June, Chris took a tumble from his bicycle on Waterloo bridge and fractured his hip. He is currently in hospital where he is being well looked after, but he will be immobile for six weeks. Unfortunately he has had to postpone all the SA gigs till later in the year.
Letcher and band were also set to perform at the Bassline in Johannesburg (reuniting with old musical comrade Matthew van der Want, with whom the last Van Der Want/Letcher show was back in 2005!), and at Patat in Cape Town.
“Apologies that I have to cancel these shows, but we’ll come back out for a proper tour later in the year”, responds Letcher from his hospital bed, disappointed about having to cancel the tour.
**** Chris Letcher Tour Postponed Due to Bicycle Accident ****
London-based songwriter and film composer, Chris Letcher, returns to South Africa in July this year for performances at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in support of a brand new album. Letcher and band will also perform at the Bassline in Johannesburg (reuniting with old musical comrade Matthew van der Want, with whom the last Van Der Want/Letcher show was back in 2005!), and at Patat in Cape Town.
Recorded and mixed in London by Finn Eiles (My Bloody Valentine, Jack Penate, Razorlight), Letcher’s new album extends its precursor Frieze’s use of lush orchestration; bass clarinets, string and brass sections, mbiras and singing saws enfold drum machines and 1970s synthesizers to buttress an album of literate pop songs.
Performing in Grahamstown with Chris Letcher will be Katherine Mann (Quinta) (who has also recorded and toured with Bat for Lashes, and Radiohead drummer Phil Selway’s band) and Victoria Hume. Both feature prominently on Letcher’s new album which will be released internationally in September with European and US tours in support.
Letcher has recently completed the score for a BBC adaptation of the DH Lawrence novel Women in Love and a six-part serial drama for Sky1.
Letcher’s debut solo album Frieze (2007) received glowing reviews, and Letcher has performed at festivals and venues around the world. He is published internationally by Warner Chappell.
Frieze appeared in both The Sunday Times and the Mail & Guardian’s ‘Albums of the Decade’ lists, and has received extensive radio play, reaching the top 20 in the US on College Radio charts, and also featuring on the influential Morning Becomes Eclectic show on California’s KCRW, Australia’s JJJ, BBC 6 Music, and BBC Radio 3 in the UK.
Frieze was also in the top position on both eMusic’s Commercial Alternative and Progressive Rock charts in the US for ten months, and Chris has performed at Austin’s South by Southwest and Toronto’s North by Northeast. Other recent film music credits include HOUR a film made in collaboration with the photographer, Tim Wainwright, and My Black Little Heart with director, Claire Angelique, and cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire).
Praise for Frieze:
“Keenly intelligent, musically dense, utterly memorable” Billboard
“Chris Letcher crafts songs that sound like dawn: low and creaky, slowly building to a big burst of light.” Rolling Stone
“A sense of luminous menace… further proof of the pleasure-potential of the disquieting and disturbed.” Guardian
“Letcher has created a world that feels somehow more real than the one we’re living in, and when the album is over, our own world doesn’t feel quite the same.” Etan Rosenbloom, Prefix Mag
“A lush orchestrated soundtrack.” Editor’s Picks, Blender, US
“The most sophisticated rock album ever made by a South African Artist.” FHM
“An intricately orchestrated, sincerely sung and often humorous offering… disquieting, electro-flecked, intricately composed revenge ballads.” Critics’ Choice, London Time Out
Deep Frieze – Chris Letcher from Chris Letcher on Vimeo.
Date: 2 July 2011
Venue: Bassline, Johannesburg
Line-Up: Chris Letcher (with a special Van Der Want/Letcher performance)
Time: 8pm
Entrance Fee: R80
Address: 10 Henry Nxumalo Street, Newtown, Johannesburg
Venue Contact Info for Bookings: 011-838 9142/5/6, info@bassline.co.za
Date: 5 July 2011
Venue: Beethoven Room, Grahamstown
Line-Up: Chris Letcher
Time: 15:30
Entrance Fee: R80
Online Bookings: http://www.computicket.com/web/event/chris_letcher/364303154/190430303
Address: Somerset Street, Grahamstown
Date: 6 July 2011
Venue: Beethoven Room, Grahamstown
Line-Up: Chris Letcher
Time: 17:00
Entrance Fee: R80
Online Bookings: http://www.computicket.com/web/event/chris_letcher/364303154/190430302
Address: Somerset Street, Grahamstown
Date: 7 July 2011
Venue: Equilibrium, Grahamstown
Line-Up: Chris Letcher
Time: 12:00
Entrance Fee: R40
Online Bookings: http://www.computicket.com/web/event/acoustic_vibes_at_eq_chris_letcher/364306252/
Address: 63 New Street, Grahamstown
Venue Contact Info: bigalbabie@hotmail.com
Date: 7 July 2011
Venue: Graham Hotel, Grahamstown
Line-Up: Chris Letcher
Time: 14:00
Entrance Fee: R60 (Online booking via www.computicket.com)
Address: 123 High Street, Grahamstown
Venue Contact Info: (046) 622 2324 / grahamhotel@afritemba.com
Date: 8 July 2011
Venue: Beethoven Room, Grahamstown
Line-Up: Chris Letcher
Time: 18:00
Entrance Fee: R80
Online Bookings: http://www.computicket.com/web/event/chris_letcher/364303154/190430302
Address: Somerset Street, Grahamstown
Date: 9 July 2011
Venue: Beethoven Room, Grahamstown
Line-Up: Chris Letcher
Time: 11:00
Entrance Fee: R80
Online Bookings: http://www.computicket.com/web/event/chris_letcher/364303154/190430302
Address: Somerset Street, Grahamstown
Date: 9 July 2011
Venue: Graham Hotel, Grahamstown
Line-Up: Chris Letcher
Time: 18:00
Entrance Fee: R60 (Online booking via www.computicket.com)
Address: 123 High Street, Grahamstown
Venue Contact Info: (046) 622 2324 / grahamhotel@afritemba.com
Date: 10 July 2011
Venue: Gatta Patat Theatre (Cape Diamond Hotel), Cape Town
Line-Up: Chris Letcher + Benguela
Time: 8pm
Entrance Fee: R100
Address: c/o Longmarket Street & Parliament Street, Cape Town
Venue Contact Info for Bookings: 021 461 2519 / patat@capediamondhotel.co.za
For more on Chris Letcher, go to: www.letchermusic.com
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