The Magnetic North

In January 2011, Orkney islands-based singer-songwriter Erland Cooper grouped together his Erland & The Carnival band mate Simon Tong and singer/orchestral arranger Hannah Peel (of last year's solo 'The Broken Wave' album) to form a new group, The Magnetic North.

This show supports the release of their new album 'Orkney - Symphony Of The Magnetic North'.

Immersing themselves in Orcadian folklore, poetry and geography, the trio were guided by a 1930s book titled 'Orkney - The Magnetic North', which seemed to lend itself perfectly to the album's title.

When someone comes to you in a dream and tells you to make an album about your homeland the Orkney islands- would you disregard it? Especially when that someone is Betty Corrigall, the Orcadian girl who in the 1770's killed herself having been cast out by her village after becoming pregnant by a visiting sailor?

'Elegiac melodies that drift like the winds buffeting the islands' - Mojo - * 4 STARS

'remarkable...songs as gloriously haunted as the land that spawned them' - Q - * 4 STARS

'Unobtrusively lovely melodies' - The Times - *4 STARS

'something incredibly precious' - Clash 8/10

'Like a folk score to a forgotten Hitchcock film...quite brilliant' - Loud and Quiet 8/10

'..the magic and mysteries of one of Britain's northernmost points' - Drowned In Sound 8/10

'These are timeless songs... a treasure map to the Orkney Islands' - The Quietus