The daughter of a coal miner, Heather Leigh was born in West Virginia and raised in Texas and has been recording and releasing music since the 1990s. These days she’s firmly rooted in Glasgow, Scotland, where she’s co-run Volcanic Tongue Record Shop & Mailorder since 2004. Her music has been described as “high metal masses for amplified strings and vocals that blow all notions of form and fidelity to pieces.” She’s released numerous recordings on labels such as Not Not Fun, Family Vineyard, Fag Tapes, Ultra Eczema, Chocolate Monk, Kendra Steiner Editions, Ikuisuus, Eclipse Records, Fonal and her own imprints, Wish Image and Volcanic Tongue. Her main instruments are pedal steel guitar and voice, as well as electric guitar, keyboards, bells, cuatro, psaltery, drums, bass and harmonica.
She’s toured extensively as a solo artist throughout the US, Europe and New Zealand and has also played/performed/released music with Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast, Charalambides, Scorces (a duo with Christina Carter), the Dream/Aktion Unit (a group with Thurston Moore, Paul Flaherty, Chris Corsano and Matt Heyner), Taurpis Tula, Jailbreak (a duo with Chris Corsano) and Jandek who she’s played live and recorded with in the States and the UK as well as played bass with on the only tours he’s ever done in Northern Ireland and Australia. She’s also collaborated with Richard Youngs, Blood Stereo, MV & EE, Marcia Bassett, Robbie Yeats of The Dead C, John Olson of Wolf Eyes, Smegma, Jutta Koether, Kommissar Hjuler & Mama Baer and many others. Heather Leigh is also a visual artist. For many years she was the graphic designer for Pauline Oliveros Foundation Houston and her visual art has been included in many UK & US exhibitions and used on many record covers.
“At her most gleefully feral, BRIDGET HAYDEN strips away everything conventionally “musical” to leave just grimy, obsessively repeating moans and howls. The other curious aspect of Hayden’s current aesthetic is that she describes it as “fucked-up blues,” which is exactly what it is, though that probably won’t be immediately apparent to a lot of folks. Very, very few people can take on the blues in 2011 without being spectacularly lame, boring, disingenuous, or all three. Bridget, however, has hacked away all of the meaningless tropes to get at the gut-level essence of the form. Her gnarled squalls convey raw, naked emotion in a way that words couldn’t. Hayden balances her bad-intentioned Dead C/early Sonic Youth moments with quieter, more desolate works, substituting queasy dissonance, pronounced tape hiss, and creaking strings for raw power.” – Foxy Digitalis
“Spiders on vaseline rock and roll free formlessness” – Julian Cope
“Unholy and intoxicating” – The Wire
A musician from Stoke on Trent who now lives in West Yorkshire.
Sophie has been a member of, The Stoke on Trent Wind Orchestra, Cooper Jones, Leopard Leg, Tom Cool, Wing Horses, Remedial Queen of England, The A Band as well as recorded duos with Ben Nash, Billy AB and a collaborative live project called Gals with Guitars. Sophie is currently working on solo compositions.
Releases on Exotic Pylon, Tor Press, Blackest Rainbow, Night People, Bum Tapes.
Doors at a 7.30pm and we’ll be finishing it time for the last trains to Leeds or Manchester. Inkfolk is in the basement of the Machpelah Works mill right by Hebden Bridge train station, entrance on Burnley Road. Tickets £5 on the door or just £4 from here and if you buy an advance ticket then there’ll be a free mix CD waiting for you on the door
