Described as “like a young Billie Holiday gate-crashing a Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones recording session”, or “a moody Mary Margaret O’Hara”, blues and roots duo Ma Polaine’s Great Decline continue to build a reputation as an intriguing and hard to pigeon-hole act.
This autumn Ma Polaine’s Great Decline release a new single and accompanying video The Poison Sits. This is a remixed ‘single version’ of the song which features on the band’s latest record “The Outsider”. From the start, Beth Packer and Clinton Hough always sought to keep their song-writing influences open, and have a sound with oddness, sparsity and a subtle quality that is their own, and this song is perhaps the best example of this. The Poison Sits is of love’s ability to engulf, a stark blues first written in early 2011 and has become a signature song for the band.
The album version of The Poison Sits has had wide-spread radio play, including Tom Robinson’s BBC 6 show, Verity Sharp’s Late Junction on BBC Radio 3 and was included in fRoots magazine download, alongside a feature on the band.
The duo have been tightening their unique sound whilst remaining decidedly easy and loose with the range of influences they draw from. Blues, jazz and country feature strongly, but what this duo admire most in others is individuality, artists who have been unafraid to be themselves musically and in attitude. Billie Holiday, Tom Waits, Nina Simone, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Gillian Welch and Nick Cave are just a few examples.
2016’s EP release Small Town Talk gained rave media reviews, building on 2015’s nomination as an emerging artist in the British Blues Awards for the album “Got Me Out Of Hell”, also winning a Reveal Records emerging act competition, and earning an international song-writing semi-final spot for Suffer It Well from 2013 EP of the same name.
Throughout this year Ma Polaine’s Great Decline toured the country, taking in the finest of intimate venues and enjoyed a busy festival season at the likes of Green Man and Purbeck Valley Folk Festival.
Forthcoming live dates
September
23rd BATH: The Bell Inn
27th WHITSTABLE: Duke of Cumberland
28th BRISTOL: Café Kino
29th LUTON: The Bear Club
October
5th WORTHING: Coast Café
25th FOLKESTONE: Lime Bar Café
26th SEVENOAKS: St. Edith Folk
December
6th SHEFFIELD: Café #9
7th NOTTINGHAM: The Running Horse
14th WINCHESTER: The Hyde Tavern
15th LONDON: Green Note
http://www.mapolainesgreatdecline.com/