Next month marks ten years since the release of Lipreading the Poet, the debut album by Peter Knight’s Gigspanner. They will be celebrating with an anniversary tour which kicks off on April 12th, running through to May 12th.
In his review of The Wife of Urban Law, released in 2017 when Peter knight turned seventy and was showing no signs of slowing up, Thomas Blake touched on how calling Gigspanner a traditional band was some way short of the mark:
“There is an apparent ease with which the trio (Peter, Roger Flack and Sacha Trochet) play off one another (which, in reality, is probably anything but easy to achieve) that immediately lends a sense of joy to the sound. It feels improvisational as if a modern jazz band had decided to look to the vernacular music of the past for inspiration, and this approach yields results that are paradoxically both familiar and exploratory.”
He adds: “The manner in which the band play fast and loose with the idea of traditional song structures is a major part of their appeal. It is genuinely exciting to hear a band expanding the possibilities of folk music in so many different directions.”
Despite his long association with Steeleye Span, it is in Peter’s more recent work that his skills have been given the greatest exposure and shone the brightest, both with Gigspanner and more recently with John Spiers – another great album we reviewed here – “…his willingness to venture into new musical territory is undiminished, and his appeal reaches far beyond folk into the realms of contemporary experimental music.”
That innovational and exploratory spirit has also led to Gigspanner collaborations along the way. In an interview at Cropredy in 2017 with Folk Radio’s Johnny Whalley, Peter mentioned how he’d heard that Hannah Martin of Edgelarks was influenced by his playing. Hannah went on to attend one of his classes on improvisation, a fortuitous meeting which blossomed into the Gigspanner Big Band in which the trio was joined by Hannah Martin and Phillip Henry, resulting in a brilliant live album that Thomas reviewed here.
Now is your chance to catch Gigspanner live as they celebrate their ten years with this anniversary tour. John Spiers also joins them for their ‘home’ gig at The Izzard Theatre, Bexhill-on Sea, on the 11th of May. See full dates below.
Gigspanner 10th Anniversary Tour
April
12 Leicester Guildhall
13 Town Hall Bakewell
16 The Witham Barnard Castle
17 Centre for Early Music, York
18 Cast Theatre, Doncaster
19 Village Hall, Allstonefield
20 The Guildhall, Lichfield
24 Hanger Farm Arts Centre, Totton
25 G Live, Guildford
26 Royston Folk Club
27 Wingfield Barns, Wingfield, Suffolk.
29 Colchester Arts Centre
30 Dartford Folk Club
May
2 Cotleigh Brewery, Wiveliscombe
3 David Hall, South Petherton
4 Dorchester Arts Centre
5 Kingsand Cornwall, Community Hall
7 Acorn Arts Centre Penzance
9 Cecil Sharp House
10 St Edith Folk, Kemsing, Sevenoaks
11 Izzard Theatre, Bexhill-on-Sea, with special guest John Spiers
12 The Old Chapel, Alfriston
Links and Information at http://www.gigspanner.com/live.html