RICHARD WALTERS & ADAM BARNES Tickets and Dates

"Richard Walters sings in such a beautifully gentle falsetto, without theatrics or histrionics, like a choirboy, when he really hits the high notes, that the subjects of his songs might come as a surprise. This is someone who sings about "losing the plot" or having a seizure, about the anxiety you feel at the start of a new affair, or about domestic abuse from the point of view of the abuser.

Richard Walters, at 29 years old, has been performing for over a decade, and has been a voice-for-hire for many prominent musical projects. He has released two full length albums - 'The Animal' in 2009 and 'Pacing' in 2011 - and his music has featured on the soundtracks of world eating US TV shows 'Grey's Anatomy', 'CSI: Miami' and 'So You think You Can Dance...America'.

His voice, reminiscent of early-period Judee Sill and late-period Billy Mackenzie, in the way that it transmutes feelings of dread into a sort of ecclesiastical awe, could so easily have lost control but it hasn't: it intimates, teases and hints as often as it swoops and soars. Richard Walters writes songs which manage to sound moreish and accessible while having an indefinable experimental, even avant-garde quality, with the odd texture and stray curlicue of synth noise upsetting the order of the melody, and adding to the sense of these songs as (ok) computer reveries. It's as though Radiohead had suddenly decided to cover the aching, easy-listening melodies of '70s soft-rock superstars Bread.

You're moved, but quietly disturbed, by the music of Richard Walters, his gently powerful, powerfully gentle songs."

-Paul Lester-

'Something extravagantly special' - Mojo 

'Hushed and haunting' - The Guardian

'Exquisite agony' - Uncut 

'A spectral talent, pure iceberg beauty' - The Fly

Adam Barnes

Adam Barnes is an Oxford born songwriter and performer, currently residing in the countryside that surrounds the city. He is a folk artist; a haunting songwriter and an honest performer waiting for some more people to take a step back and listen in.

The 20-year-old singer took his first steps into the lonely world of singer-song writing in 2010, with support slots for both William Fitzsimmons and Slow Club, along with the experience from years of previous musical projects. That, plus time out take a break from the musical hustle and bustle of Oxford, Adam Barnes spent a summer recording a debut E.P entitled 'Blisters'. The 8 track E.P was released and sold UK based, selling up to a thousand copies within the year.

What was to follow would project him to the heights of mountainous ranges in the Americas, the depths of lakes in the Alps and obscurities of Supermarkets in Wycombe. With an increasing reputation of allowing any space to become a feasible area for a performance, Adam Barnes endeavours to instil his charmingly presented folk songs to as many people as possible.. before being asked to leave.

With the natural ability to capture the emotional sentiment within a song, to twist and perceive lyrics to compliment his melodies, and give you the opportunity to fall in love with well written music, at such a young age still you wouldn't be blamed for thinking this man is telling you stories beyond his years. 

''The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirits are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted.''

Bells in the Birches are the lovely melodies of Helen 'Bells' Temperley of Blind Atlas fame.

http://soundcloud.com/bells-in-the-birches