Last year, Edgelarks (Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin) embarked on their Out of the Ordinary Tour, a very special 10-date tour on which they performed in places which have personal histories woven into their very fabric. The venues were spread over 10 counties and included the last remaining open pan salt works, a steam museum, a heather-thatched oak-beamed cruck barn, within the labyrinth of tunnels in Edge Hill area of Liverpool and more.
Hannah explained: “We have always drawn on many musical styles and regional influences so it seemed apt to seek out some of the more unusual places that have shaped our island’s rich and diverse history.
“Some of the venues are part of our industrial heritage, like the Great Western Railway Steam Museum; then there are mysterious places created for unknown reasons like the Williamson Tunnels – and all human life is in the fabrics of these buildings, from convicts to philanthropists.”
Watch them performing Landlocked at Carnglaze – Man-made caverns formed as part of a slate quarry in the Loveny Valley, near Liskeard. In recent years it has been used as an unusual concert venue for bands including Fairport Convention and British Sea Power. Landlocked is the opening track of their first album under the name Edgelarks from which the album takes its name. In his review of the album, Thomas said of Landlocked:
“The song is a celebration of Nancy Perriam who was one of the few women to see action in the Royal Navy in the last years of the eighteenth century, and who ended her days selling fish on the streets of Exmouth, having seen two husbands killed at sea. Landlocked uses Perriam’s experience to explore the universal human urge to travel, to transcend personal and physical boundaries, and this is where the concept of Edgelarks first begins to emerge. Perriam is a character from the periphery of history. Her very existence – as a woman, as a sailor in a time of war – was liminal, not to mention extremely difficult. ‘To be a woman is to be born swimming with your hands tied’, sings Martin, and it is a neat encapsulation of the struggle for personal freedom that Perriam must have experienced.”
For details of upcoming tour dates visit: http://www.philliphenryandhannahmartin.co.uk/