Richard Dawson

About

Richard Dawson plays English folk music with the stitching undone. The Newcastle singer songwriter writes long, strange narrative songs with experimental structures, and he has been compared to what Captain Beefheart did to the blues. His storytelling, emotional weight and sense of humour have won him a lot of critical love, and The Quietus named Peasant their album of 2017. That record kicked off a loose trilogy: Peasant looked to the past, 2020 to the present, and The Ruby Cord to the future. In between he made Henki with Finnish band Circle, which The Guardian called a botanical rock classic. Nearly all his songs were written on one battered Baby Taylor guitar that survived being stood on, caved in and snapped. Outside his solo work he plays in the experimental pop band Hen Ogledd, and he once released ten albums of vocal free ambient drone as Eye Balls. His latest album is End of the Middle, which follows several generations of one family.