Showing posts with label Milly Hirst. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milly Hirst. Show all posts

Monday, 18 July 2016

Rozi Plain / Milly Hirst - Live at the Norfolk Wildlife Trust Visitor Centre, Cley Marshes

Rachel Horwood and Rozi Plain at Cley

Before we went inside, Mrs S & I watched skylarks performing vertical pirouettes in the far distance, spoonbills and little egrets poking around in the shallows, oyster-catchers piping frantically overhead and terns plummeting from the skies into the deeper waters beyond. A little later, as Milly Hirst began her set, a heron flew low from left to right across the sight-line directly behind the performance area. A majestic marsh harrier passed by in the opposite direction soon after. It was a busy evening on Cley Marshes.

In these idyllic surroundings, Milly impressed the hell out of me once again (I wrote about her previously here), playing a couple of songs with which I wasn't familiar and teasing us with a progress report on how the recording of her debut LP is coming along. Then it was time for Rozi Plain, who played a wonderful stripped down set with only Rachel Horwood for company. By now I'm sure that everyone is aware of just how highly I rate Rozi's music (look here if you need reminding) and to see her play in such an intimate setting (the audience numbered a mere 50) was truly a privilege.

At the conclusion of Rozi's set, we wandered back outside to watch the last rays of the sun disappear from the huge North Norfolk sky. The silhouette of a barn owl fluttered silently above the marsh. What a glorious evening.


Wednesday, 18 May 2016

Milly Hirst


A couple of minutes into 'I Still', the first song of Milly Hirst's brief set on Saturday evening, I found myself unconsciously reaching out to the back of the chair in front of me for support, such was the emotional force buried within the beauty of the song and its performance. From the allegorical 'Gentle Sailor' to 'Mary', based on an unspoken episode from her own family's history, Milly's set bulged with utterly captivating songs, performed with a particularly intense restraint. Word has it that there is an LP in the pipeline and Milly's music will most certainly feature on these pages again when it appears, if not before. Meanwhile, check out her exquisite self-titled EP, released in 2012 (here).



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