Don Kipper + Rev Simpkins
Don Kipper are a multi award-winning ensemble playing a wide range of traditional musical forms reflecting the cultural diversity of North East London, from Turkish and Greek Folk Musics to Romani music and Klezmer. While they to root themselves deeply in the traditions that surround them, they also bring these musical cultures together in innovative, exciting, and unusual ways that mirror London’s vibrant, cosmopolitan energy. Equally happy taking an intimate audience on a musical journey through Europe as they are taking their audience on a frantic journey around the dancefloor, at home both on large outdoor stages playing to a crowd of ecstatic dancers, and in indoor concert venues to a pin-drop audience.
Within the ensemble Don Kipper have a diversity of musical roots and routes. From childhood obsessions with Klezmer, to song collecting around the Mediterranean, grooving Senegalese Mbalax, the propulsive beat of the Samba bateria, and late night Jazz jam sessions in Dalston, they bring their potted histories and inquisitive minds to the traditional music of Southern and Eastern Europe that they love, study and perform. Some members are conservatoire trained, while others play entirely by ear, or learnt their songs from Greek grandmothers. Regardless, they seek to make imaginative music within these living traditions that reflect the lives and loves of people who have lived in the patch of London they call home for more than a century.
Since 2013, Don Kipper have performed as the BBC Introducing act at WOMAD released their first three albums, been featured on BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service, played European Tours, and won the titles of both the Moshe Beregovski Award for best Klezmer Newcomers and World Music Network’s Battle of the Bands.
"Impressively original" **** The Guardian
“So tight it sounds like one divine entity is playing the band” Max Reinhardt, Late Junction - BBC Radio 3
“Sure to send shivers down your spine” Songlines
“Spectacular” Mary Ann Kennedy, World on 3
“Unbridled musical passion & virtuosic mastery” DJ Ritu, A World in London - Resonance FM
"The true sound of our capital" WOMAD 2017
"Unstoppable" **** The Evening Standard
"The sound of north-east London, indeed." The Financial Times
“Urban grooves… guaranteed to detonate any club dance floor” The Australian
Support...
REV. SIMPKINS
Lo! It came to pass...Behold! Rev Simpkins: notorious songster, freak finger picker and ordained Vicar of Lexden. A man - fuelled by milky tea, scratched records and the King James Bible - whose goal is to drag you into his miraculous musical medecine show. The Reverend's father, grandfather, grandmother and uncle are all preachers and his fiery and eccentric music owes as much to their sermons as it does to his musical heroes John Renbourn, Captain Beefheart, The Fall, The Kinks and Nick Drake.
http://www.revsimpkins.co.uk
Tickets £10 / £8 concessions.
Doors 7.30pm
