The Unthanks play their winter album 'In Winter', a collection of Christmas tunes from many cultures, with a string quartet, brass, percussion and bass.
The Unthanks bring In Winter to the Cambridge Corn Exchange on Friday 11 December, a winter album they're taking live. It's a collection of Christmas tunes from several different cultures, and the show works as a dream-like winter fantasia that pulls from those traditions alongside traditional folk and newly written pieces, all filtered through the band's own style.
At the centre are Tyneside sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank, whose folk-club singing is set against musical pictures arranged by a band drawing on influences from Steve Reich to Portishead. The set reimagines the familiar: a German Christmas song played in the style of The Beach Boys, a Spanish carol filtered through Tom Waits, a French carol given desert-blues menace, and a newly written tribute to the NHS set to the tune of O Holy Night. The whole thing opens with a wintry piece inspired by Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols.
On stage, the sisters are joined by Niopha Keegan on violin and Adrian McNally on piano, with a string quartet, brass, percussion and bass filling out the sound. The album itself has been described as 'the gold standard' of winter records, placed alongside The Watersons' 1965 classic Frost and Fire, and critics have called it 'an artful triumph', 'the definitive folk album for winter' and 'the essence of winter in all its emotional complexity'.
Every week we pick 🏆 the 5 best 🏆 things to do in Cambridge and send them to your inbox. Just one weekly email, no spam.
By submitting your email, you accept our Privacy Policy
Tickets are £38.50, which includes the booking fee. Doors open at 6:30pm, the show starts at 7:00pm and finishes around 11:00pm, so it's a full evening's worth of music.
