2022 September Festival: Emily Barker with Lukas Drinkwater

Emily Barker is an award-winning singer-songwriter, best known as the writer and performer of the theme to the BBC’s hugely successful crime drama Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh.

She has released music as a solo artist as well as with various bands and collaborations including The Red Clay Halo, Vena Portae, Marry Waterson, Lukas Drinkwater and Applewood Road, with whom she released a remarkable album of original songs recorded live around a single microphone and dubbed “flawless” by The Sunday Times.

She has also written for film, including composing the soundtrack for Jake Gavin’s lauded debut feature Hector starring Peter Mullan and Keith Allen.

Emily Barker’s album A Dark Murmuration of Words, released in September 2020, hit No 1 on the Official Americana Album chart in the UK and has garnered widespread acclaim. It takes Barker’s clear, expressive vocals and warm acoustic aesthetic and subtly shifts her sound in the direction of contemporaries such as Laura Marling and Phoebe Bridgers.

Lyrically probing, by turns both dark and optimistic, Barker searches for meaning through the deafening clamour of fake news and algorithmically filtered conversation, delivering a timely exploration of the grand themes of our age through the lens of what it means to return “home.”

Throughout the ten songs that make up the album, Barker draws connections between the familial, the local, and the global: a mother sings to her unborn child, asking for its forgiveness on ‘Strange Weather’; ‘When Stars Cannot Be Found’ explores the humbleness and comfort of the night sky when far away from home. Other highlights include the nostalgic ‘Return Me’, ‘The Woman Who Planted Trees’, the gloriously defiant ‘Machine’ and the effortless album closer ‘Sonogram’.

Emily Barker will appear at St Ives with Lukas Drinkwater.

Please Note: when booking that this is a seated event.

Please Note: St Ives September Festival has a no refunds policy.

If you require accessible tickets they can be purchased over the phone on  01736798577 or in person at our box office in St Ives Library.

If you are in need of assistance please share as much information as possible about your requirements at the time of booking so we can ensure that your needs are catered for when you arrive at the Guildhall.

TICKETS CAN BE BOOKED HERE