MUMBAI: 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 time travelling. 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 Island, off the west coast of Ireland. Later she spent time in Northern India learning the Dhrupad with the Gunducha brothers, meanwhile Ewan met Jim Ydstie (Dakota Jim) in London and then later the three of them began busking and gigging together.
Dakota Jim had spent many years in New Orleans and America playing 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 the lyrics, and most of the songs, Jim and Ewan improvise their parts, so it’s slightly different every time.
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The band all live in London, travelling for gigs around Europe, Russia and America.
The special guests in the band are all good friends of Louisa, Ewan and Jim. A lot of them play in Ewan’s band The Cable Street Rag Band. Russian trombonist Anton Wunderlich lives in Berlin.
The band are looking at an exciting year ahead with plans to sail to a gig in the Netherlands on Louisa’s wooden sail boat called ‘Thankful’ in the coming spring and they are currently organising a tour to New Orleans and Colarado for later next year.
Panspermia was recorded by Nick Taylor at Porcupine Studios in Mottingham, South East London.
Lead tracks for radio – Creep Up Your Stairs, When These Bones, Panspermia.
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, acordion 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
“Always innovating and improvising with stark originality, Louisa Jone’s troupe of underground musicians play with a virtuosity you could never expect. Songs which speak of the unspeakable with understated humour, captivating storytelling and transcendent spirituality“. Woodburner
The result of a thousand drunken nights and countless dreamy days, Whiskey Moon Face take you on a voyage into a bohemian underworld which you never knew existed.
Upcoming Tour Dates:
21st August – Woodburner, Dalston Curve Garden, London
31st August – Ernest Bar, Ouseburn, Newcastle Upon Tyne
1st September – Lindesfarne Festival, Lindesfarne, Northumberland
15th September – Paines Plough Auditorium, Grasmere, The Lake District
17th September – Riga, Lativa (more details to follow)
19th – 24th September – Saint Petersburg, Russia (more details to follow)
25th September – Petrazavodsk, Keralina, Russia
27th September – Massolit, Moscow, Russia
