The Unthanks have been described as “a take on tradition that flips so effortlessly between jazz, classical, ambient and post-rock, it makes any attempt to put a label on them a waste of time”.
Using the traditional music of the North East of England as a starting point, the influence of Miles Davis, Sufjan Stevens, Robert Wyatt, King Crimson and Tom Waits makes them a unique band, earning them a Mercury Music Prize nomination and international acclaim along the way.
When December draws near, The Unthanks will release and tour, ‘In Winter’ – a double-album, gatefold, dream-like winter fantasia, embracing both the dark and the light in the most ritualistic of seasons. Moving in and out of focus – like a memory – a bittersweet hymnal to our shared winter experience. Echoes of winter tunes known throughout the western world, mix with the traditional and the newly written, all passed with great care and love through The Unthanks filter.
‘In Winter’, is an abstract new work that captures the warmth and nostalgia of the festive season, the chill and darkness of the winter months, and the reflective ritualisms of the turn of the year; the end and beginning of the circle of life.