News

Nov/Dec 2009

HANDMADE LIFE

Last summer Chris was invited by the Arts Council to put together a band for an album and a 2009 tour.

The album is called Handmade Life - the band are…

• Andy Gangadeen - drums
• Barney Morse Brown - cello
• Robert Jarvis - trombone

The band met while playing alongside Billy Bragg in The Imagined Village last year, Simon Emerson describing Chris’s work as “Bardcore!”

If Wood is viewed by some as uncompromising then the songs on Handmade Life confirm this position. However, alongside the signature edgy and political material there are an equal number of personal stories, songs which are delicate and subtle and expertly realized by this unique line up. The UK tour will give audiences the first opportunity to get a copy of Handmade Life ahead of its official, domestic retail release on R.U.F Records early in 2010.

This new material, both lyrically and sonically consolidate Chris Wood’s growing reputation as a writer and composer of stature. Though now a long way from his “folk” beginnings he nevertheless continues to celebrate the “ordinary” with a rare gift for articulating the wonder in the commonplace. Handmade Life is a refreshingly celebrity free zone.

>See Handmade Life tour dates

July 2009

His career retrospective (“Albion” – An Anthology”) was released by Navigator Records, again to widespread acclaim.

Feb 2009

BBC Radio 2 – Album of the Year – Singer of the year.