When: 7.30pm on Wednesday 13 October 2021
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re excited to be working with Chloe Foy once again – with guest Hannah Ashcroft!

Chloe Foy has shared the title-track from her forthcoming debut album, Where Shall We Begin. Arriving on 11 June, the album closes the chapter on a formative period for the Gloucestershire-via-Manchester songwriter. After losing her father to depression, Foy embarked on a ten-year-period where she followed her career path tirelessly whilst also dealing with the internal and external fallout from losing an influential figure so young.

The title-track is a microcosm of what makes Foy so special. It begins pensively with Foy’s poetry-like lyricism taking centre stage, before swelling into a hair-raising, choral harmony that gleams blindingly and brilliantly bright. Speaking of the track, Foy said: ‘This song is about the moment that the complexity of life dawns on you. When you lose people you love, you realise life isn’t what you hoped or expected it to be and feel quite betrayed by that. However, it’s also a nod to those who are around to comfort us and who bring us round to the idea that maybe it’ll be ok.’

Foy first started to attract attention as far back as 2013 when her debut single, In The Middle of the Night, was picked up by BBC 6 Music and Radio 2. Follow-up singles, Flaws and Asylum, brought huge streaming success – the latter is approaching 8.5 million Spotify plays – and festival appearances followed soon after – SXSW in 2018, Green Man and Cambridge Folk Festival in 2019.

Where Shall We Begin is the sound of someone who has spent years working away, content to only unleash their first full body of work when they, as an artist, were at their most complete. ‘For me, this album has come out of a decade of hard graft, trying to balance my craft with making a living, whilst taking my time to get it right. All whilst dealing with the fallout of a huge bereavement in my most formative years. I was finding it hard to work out who I was within this new, alien context of losing a parent,’ explains Foy.

Inspired by songwriters like Gillian Welch, Edith Piaf and Tyler Ramsay, and producers like Blake Mills and John Congleton, the resulting album revolves around Foy’s spine-tingling, pure vocals and her near perfect songwriting. Expect the melodies to lodge in your head for days.

Recorded at Pinhole Studios in Manchester, an army of musical collaborators dropped by to lend their embellishments to Foy’s patchwork; viola and harp contributions taking the work to a whole new level. Foy co-produced the record alongside musical collaborator Harry Fausing Smith, who is also responsible for the string arrangements.

The songs themselves are both incredibly empathetic and self-compassionate. And It Goes is about how her mother’s love remained unfaltering even as she came to terms with the loss of her soulmate, while stand-out Work of Art is about the warmth created for both songwriter and audience when a community of music lovers come together to spend their evening lost in song.

It all adds to make up for a soothing and incredibly vulnerable listen. An album that could both rock a baby to sleep, and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, inspire deep self-excavation and existential analysis. The kind of album that doesn’t come around very often. ‘These songs are my most inner and deepest secrets. The kind of things I only express to those closest to me, but for some reason in song, I can be open with the world.’

Special guest is Run Remedy – a New Jersey multi-instrumentalist living in Manchester, making heartfelt indie folk with an experimental art-pop edge.

Buy tickets now. Tickets are available from Dice.fm, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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