Woodpecker Wooliams - Gull

WOODPECKER WOOLIAMS
‘GULL’ single & autumn touring
Robot Elephant Records
26th November 2012

“ A stunning find.” The Sunday Times

“Musically and emotionally, it’s belting” BBC Album Review

Taken from Woodpecker Wooliams album ‘The Bird School Of Being Human’, ‘GULL’ is the follow up single to ‘Sparrow’ which proved a massive specialist radio hit throughout August and September this year.

The most Brighton-centric of all TBSOBH’s songs, hence its placement as second on the album, ‘GULL’is a step on from, springboard track, ‘Red Kite’.
Picking up the male aggression thread which leads onto ‘Sparrow’, ‘GULL’ considers the softer side of a tough male character - a perpetrator of domestic violence, returning to his ‘safe place’, a greasy spoon cafe, reflecting on his crime and its liberating effect over breakfast, as he relaxes and confesses all.

The song explores a sympathetic view of a trapped soul commiting violence to try and free himself.

Sonically ‘GULL’ stumbles and reels through distorted gull tape loops. It spits crisp harp chords as the vocals shudder and quake over sub-bass pitch-shifted euphonium and glitchy drums.

“...rattles with repressed energy...the most menacing request for a cup of tea ever committed to tape.” BBC Music on ‘GULL’

Woodpecker Wooliams takes to the road, playing:

October
13 Sat London Union Chapel (Dayight Sessions)no tix, show from noon - http://www.facebook.com/events/453050831393696/

24 Wed Cardiff Ten Feet Tall - 8pm / £4.00 - http://www.10feettallcardiff.com/2010/05/woodpecker-wooliams-wednesday-24th.html

25 Thu Bristol Grain Barge - 7.30 / £5 - http://www.facebook.com/events/187900078011789/ - tix http://thelocal.tv/listings/eventdetails/25-oct-12-woodpecker-wooliams-the-grain-barge/

26 Fri Edinburgh Song by Toad night

28 Sun Eaglescliffe The Waiting Room - £8 /
http://the-waiting-room.co.uk/Cabaret/Events/Melodica-Melody-and-Me

29 Mon Manchester Night n Day Cafe 7.30pm / £6 - http://www.nightnday.org/detail.php?list_id=2833

30 Tue Sowerby Bridge Puzzle Hall
November

14 Wed London Old Queens Head£5 adv / 7.30pm http://www.facebook.com/events/404636486256701/

16 Fri The End Festival
December

01 Sat Glasgow Platforms SHH Festival

“Creepy, but in a good way.” The Guardian, New Band of the Day

BIOG over/

WOODPECKER WOOLIAMS aka singer-songwriter Gemma Williams has an unnerving, sweet tremolo voice. Her songs are unusual, modern + intriguing. Originally comprised of vocals and harp, the odd bell, chime + whistle they have more recently begun to encompass an altogether fuller, electronic, droney sound.
Bold and fearless, live she delivers an alluring, understatedly dramatic set.
On her 20th birthday Gemma was initiated onto a shamanic path and after completing a thorough practitioner's training over several years, including an overnight earth burial she has been practicing for six years or so.
Meanwhile she worked as an auxiliary maternity nurse and went on to train as a midwife in 2007/8, delivering several babies.
Sadly a sudden and severe illness put paid to that and on leaving hospital Gemma upped sticks and sought out the countryside calm of Devon, holing up in a cottage built into the hill under Totnes castle. She waitressed in a teashop and hired a harp.
WOODPECKER WOOLIAMS was born - the more she sang, the more she learned to play, the more well she became.
Gemma grew up in the concrete and shopping malls of Crawley...
Music was pretty much absent at home as her mother suffers from a rare condition meaning she cannot tolerate repetitive or high-pitched sound.
Once on the road of musical composition, Gemma quickly became bored of the saccharine, twee folky sound her music was falling into and in textbook rebellious fashion, found herself moving towards “mental, horrible, distorted noise”, in an almost compulsive effort to bring some balance to her music.
‘The Bird School Of Being Human’ is released September 10th on Robot Elephant Records on, known primarily as an electronic label and so a perfect home for WOODPECKER WOOLIAMS as she spreads her wings into new territories.