Biography
Andrew King and Brown Sierra is the pairing of British folk singer Andrew King and Brown Sierra, an installation and performance group comprising Paddy Collins and Pia Gambardella
Andrew King is a British folk singer, presenting renditions of traditional songs and ballads, both a capella and with minimalistic instrumentation, sometimes with an influence from (post-)industrial music. He might be familiar to Sol Invictus fans for his artistic, literary and musical contributions to Tony Wakeford’s (of Sol Invictus) On magazine. In 1998 he released an album of traditional English folk songs entitled The Bitter Harvest distributed by World Serpent.
Andrew King is an enthusiastic and highly knowledgeable scholar of traditional music, which is reflected in his work. His choice of material includes classics of the folk repertoire such as ‘The House Carpenter’ and ‘Brigg Fair’. His track The Raven Banner even includes samples of Sacred Harp or Shape Note Singing.
Andrew King’s singing is essentially unaccompanied but his vocals which evoke throat-singing and the music of the Watersons are anachronistically combined with backdrops often associated with the dark ambient or neofolk genres. He is resident singer at London's Musical Traditions Club and was employed by the British Library between 2001-2005, for most of that time as an archivist and cataloguer of British traditional culture.
According to his myspace page his influences include such forgotten luminaries as Phil Tanner and Alfred Reed which destroy any conceptions of weird music being anything new.
Arts group Brown Sierra (aka Brownsierra) ( Pia Gambardella & Paddy Collins) is based in London. Editors of Noisegate magazine an independent arts journal covers subjects related to sound. Brownsierra's works have included installation Good Riddance Mot Gallery. Performance Sound Alert, Luigi Russolo life and Work of a Futurist, Estorick Gallery, Sound Mapping Workshops at the Building Exploratory. Callers, Porch gallery. Start Running, E:vent gallery and Telephone gallery.
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