Australian folk duo Charm of Finches announce first UK tour to include Leicester

By Courtney Stevens

On tour: Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes (Pic credit: Laura May Grogan)

Australian sister folk duo, Charm of Finches, have announced their first ever UK tour for Spring 2022.

The tour is to promote their third album Wonderful Oblivion which is available in the UK from May 6 via Anti- Fragile Music.

The tour kicks off in Oxford on Saturday, April 23, stops at The Musician in Leicester on Tuesday, May 3, and travels around the UK before finishing in Whitstable on Sunday, May 8.

Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes, grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and started busking and singing at festivals from a young age.

They made their first EP in 2014 at ages 11 and 14, later releasing their debut album, Staring at the starry ceiling in 2016.

They have described their music as being about ‘love, grief and whispering trees, with tight sister harmonies, and many stringed instruments.’

Mabel and Ivy said: “This album covers a lot of different themes and is about looking into the future.

“Our last album was about grief and processing the death of one of our close friends, whereas this album is about coming out of that and is more hopeful.

“This album explores the innocence of childhood, dreams and new beginnings.”

The duo are already well known in their home country, having won the 2021 Music Victoria’s Best Folk Act and Youth Artist of the Year 2021 at the Australian Folk Music Awards.

They were also nominated for the 2021 Australian Music Prize.

The pair are looking forward to their first UK tour and to performing to live audiences again after the coronavirus lockdowns.

They said: “We’ve never been to the UK before, so it will be a wild adventure, we don’t know what to expect.

“We’re very excited.

“We wrote and recorded these songs within the space of six months during lockdown, so it’s great to be able to finally play these songs to an audience.”

The sisters knew from a young age that they wanted to do music and work together and have spoken about the inspiration behind their sound.

They said: “Music has always been a part of our lives and we have been singing folk songs together from about age six.

“We both picked up string instruments at age nine and started writing our own songs, and it kind of all snowballed from there.

“One of our early inspirations was First Aid Kit, they started out young and we thought well if they could do it, so can we.

“We also love Sufjan Stevens – who is probably our biggest musical hero.”

You can listen to their music here: Charm of Finches – YouTube

Tickets are available now from:  https://charmoffinchesband.com/shows

Dates of Charm of Finches UK tour

Children enjoy half-term arts activities at Highcross in Leicester

By Azim Saiyed

Children across Leicestershire got involved in half-term activities after the Leicester City Council organised a pop-up museum at the Highcross shopping centre.

During the half-term holidays, there was a wide range of activities from stencil writing to virtual reality sessions for young children to enjoy.

Half-term fun: Children get involved in stencil writing session

The events were organised by Metro Boulot Dodo, Graffwerk and Arts Council England so the children could enjoy and express themselves through creative arts.

The workshops were held daily from Tuesday (15Feb) to Sunday (20Feb).

Other half-term events held at Leicester museums included a Railway Day at Abbey Pumping Station and a Frosty Fun Day at Guildhall.

For more information about events held at Leicester’s museums, visit: www.leicestermuseums.org.

Book Review: Even Dogs in the Wild – Ian Rankin

By Sam Chambers

You say you can’t keep a good man down, and that sentence has never been truer than of Ian Rankin’s curmudgeonly detective, John Rebus, who makes a triumphant return in Even Dogs in the Wild, the Scottish crime-writer’s 20th novel to feature the former detective inspector.

In and out of retirement for his last few outings, Rebus is – thankfully to us – akin to a police boomerang. Even Dogs begins with him back in retirement – through Police Scotland requirement, not personal choice – and struggling to adjust to life as a civilian, kicking his heels and contemplating what lies ahead for him on the Thin Blue Scrapheap.

However, when someone takes a pot-shot at Rebus’s old adversary and sometime-associate Big Ger Cafferty, the retired policeman’s former apprentice DI Siobhan Clarke and foe-cum-friend DI Malcolm Fox turn to the only man they can think of to get the stubborn gangers to cooperate with their enquiries.

Rebus.

Meanwhile, across town, a senior lawyer’s body has been found along with a threatening note – one, it transpires, Cafferty was also sent, so it’s up to Rebus, now working in a consultative capacity, and Clarke, to get to the bottom of it.

These incidents coincide with a volatile Glasgow crime outfit making its presence felt in Edinburgh, meaning Fox is seconded to a cover team intent on bringing them down. With Cafferty and his rivals on edge, Scotland’s capital city is on the brink of all-out war. The detectives must figure out if the crimes are linked to the outsiders, or whether it is simply an unhappy coincidence.

Rebus, of course, revels in the excitement and the intrigue, though what follows makes for an uncomfortable investigation even by his standards, as the team delves deep into the past. They are taken into some very murky waters, full of cover-ups, lies and violence, expertly contrived by Rankin.

Nevertheless, he takes great delight in proving a point to the top brass at Police Scotland, as his old-school methods turn up some unexpected leads, showing up his younger brethren in the process. Fox, on the other hand, with his father on his deathbed, is at a crossroads in his life. Questioning his own abilities as a detective, he jettisons his conservative approach to policing to take a leaf out of Rebus’s book.

The way these two characters interact, with Rebus flitting between empathetic, fatherly mentor and gloating former rival, makes for great entertainment, and the humour sprinkled in their conversations makes for light relief from the darkly twisted yet compelling narrative.

What is particularly interesting is how they help each other come to accept where they are in their respective lives. Even Dogs in the Wild sees an almost antithetical transformation of its two male protagonists. Rebus growing softer in old age – he even adopts a stray dog – and Fox becoming steelier and more aware of the ruthless, bloody-minded qualities that a ‘proper’ detective needs to succeed.

On this kind of form, it is no surprise that Rankin’s work accounts for 10 per cent of all British crime-fiction sales. His meticulous plotting, sharp dialogue, flawed but likeable characters, and subtle clue-laying, exemplifies the ability of a man who has all but perfected his craft. Only Mark Billingham comes close to matching Rankin’s talents as a writer of this genre – as does his creation Tom Thorne in equaling Rebus as Britain’s most headstrong fictional detective.

Like a fine wine, Rankin gets better with age, and it seems he – and Rebus – still has plenty more left in the tank, so don’t expect to be saying goodbye to the cantankerous old sleuth just yet.

Rating: 4/5