Description
Me and My Friends play soulful, poignant music with a beat, a unique blend of Afrobeat grooves, folk infused harmonies, reggae rhythms and jazz improvisation where rich harmonies, graceful cello and funky clarinet are all tied together by the hauntingly elegant voice of singer and guitarist Nick Rasle.
Over the past decade Me and My Friends have toured across Europe, gaining support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Cerys Matthews, FiP, Soundway Records and Quantic. Their whirlwind live shows are dedicated to creating the warmth and connection that all humans crave, with a penchant for tearing up their own tracks with explosive dynamism and spontaneity.
New album Before I Saw The Sea represents an audacious development in the band’s signature sound. Intimate and reflective, it is an immersive set of nighttime meditations conceived during lockdown, its laidback grooves combining bittersweet nostalgia with hypnotic rhythmic interplay. This is a record made to accompany journeys when none could be made, as we awaited the parting of the stormy clouds.
“An amazing live show!” - Will Holland (Quantic)
“A life-affirming sound” - Loose Ends, BBC Radio 4
“I’m loving this!” - Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music
“They’ve got joy written through them, like a stick of Blackpool rock!” - Alex Lester, BBC Radio 2
“A sublime fusion that combines pastoral dreaminess with the heat of highlife and Afrobeat sounds” - Songlines Magazine
“Such interesting influences… beautiful” - Cerys Matthews, BBC 6 Music
"Before I Saw The Sea" is their first album since 2018 and this will be the first show in Leeds since that year too. If you like roots music from across the world, from English folk to West African highlife, then you will love this band.
Support comes from Kontiki, the Bradford/Leeds based afro-fusion crew who love the guitar infused dance music of Central and West Africa - soukous, rhumba, highlife - as well as psychedelia and jazz improvisation. No nonsense hypnotic dance grooves with horn and guitar solos guaranteed to rock any dancefloor. Add in some Fela inspired Nigerian afrobeat, a dose of Manu Dibango soul makossa/afro jazz, some psychedelic sounds and you have a perfect blend of dancefloor magic. With a strong local following built up over a string of live shows the last few years, their debut EP "Zucchini Weather" released in 2019, sold out. They have played all over Leeds in the past few years with some memorable gigs at Brudenell, including their debut headline show at the venue back in summer 2021. Come and check their infectiously melodic and rhythmic Yorkshire psyche x Afrosounds vibes
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