News 2016

 

Band feature in Nov / Dec Rock'N'Reel (R2) Magazine

The Kindred Spirit Band currently feature on the "Un Herd" cover mount CD with the Nov / Dec R2 Magazine Issue, with their "Kindred Spirit" track from the "Phoenix Rising" Album.


 

Band featured in October's PROG magazine

 

 


 

 

Following our great reviews in Classic Rock magazine and our feature in their "New Species" magazine, with a track on the magazine's covermount CD, the "Phoenix Rising" CD is now being distributed by prog rock stockists, not only:

in the UK here:-
Caerllysimusic

but also in Germany, where it seems to be particularly popular, here:-
Just For Kicks

and in Japan here:-
Garden Shed

We have also had some requests from other countries recently for signed copy sales from our own shop! It is worth saying that Kindred Spirit fans can buy "Kindred Spirit" T-shirts, hoodies, button badges, bags and mugs, as well as "Phoenix Rising" and our earlier albums from our shop. German fans should get cheaper postage too on the non-album items, as these are manufactured by the German company "Spreadshirt".

Visit the Kindred Spirit Shop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prog Magazine Feature:

We are going to feature in the world's leading prog publication "Prog Magazine" in August / September this year, on their covermount CD. Prog Magazine has a readership of around 20,000 and is distributed globally and on the shelves in WH Smiths!


                            back cover of the Phoenix Rising Album

 


 

Carshalton Environmental Fair - 29th August

We were lucky with the weather again at this festival. The band played on the lovely "Music Cafe" stage, at the Carshalton Environmental Fair. This was a super event with masses of interesting stalls and three stages. The "Music Cafe" was pretty big, enclosing both the stage, a large area for audience (with tables and chairs) and the tables with delicious cakes on and drinks to buy. You can see a picture of the Music Cafe and more photos of the band performing from a gallery of photos on our Kindred Spirit Band Facebook Page. 

 

 


 

Wonderful Wokingham Festival - 27th August

Wokingham Festival had a superb main stage with great sound and plenty of space for Martin and Emily to walk around and duel with each other! It was very professionally run with a good sized crowd in an arena surrounded by food and drink stalls (with a huge range of beer and cider supplied by the Wokingham Lions)! We will have some very good video footage from this festival. There is a gallery of photos from Wokingham Festival on our Kindred Spirit Band Facebook Page and we have just released the first "Wokingham Video" see our Latest Video Release page.

 

 


 

Fun by the river at "On The Edge", Richmond Festival

We had a lovely gig on Richmond Riverside on Sunday 21st August. The weather stayed fine and sunny but was just a little windy, which made it interesting! This gig saw the introduction of Martin Ash's sleek, new, black, electric violin and a Sennheiser E608 instrument mic for the flute, just in time for Stevie Mitchell's first gig with the band!

There is a gallery of photos from "On The Edge" on our Kindred Spirit Band Facebook Page and we have just released a video from this gig.

 

 


 

Fleet Beer Festival Goes Down A Storm!

We really enjoyed playing at Fleet Beer Festival on Saturday August 6th, which was Emily Nash's first gig and Gavin Jones' last gig with the band too! The audience seemed to like us, the stage and sound were superb and the food and drink was great! For some reason most of the band wanted to play bare foot (look at the photos below)! We have been invited back next year too - if we want to play!

 

 

 


 

A Surprise Festival Spot in Monmouthshire!

 

Saturday 2nd July, 1pm

Elaine Samuels Solo

Big Day Out

After a late night following a gig in Marlow with Martin Ash, a 4.30am start, drive to Monmouthshire and a walk around Monmouth, Elaine and Clive arrived at Kate Humble's "Big Day Out" Festival, in Penallt, Monmouthshire, about a mile from their holiday cottage, where they were staying for a week's break. Elaine decided to take her guitar with her in case there might be something musical going on. After being there for about 10 minutes, the Open Mic stage manager spotted her guitar case and said, "Oh my God - a guitar!! - YES!!". After finding out she could play it, he signed her up to perform ASAP! Ha ha!

          

 

 

 


 

A Great Gig In Odiham - June 25th


The Bands and Booze Festival in Odiham was super, with a great sound (again) and a sunny break in the weather for our spot (hurray)! This enabled Clive to get some really good video of our performance, which you can see on our You Tube Channel.

 


 

New  Wind Players & Dep Violin Player

 

We decided to recruit another lady wind player and singer to share Catherine Dimmock's role for when she isn't available, so that we can (with deps for other roles in the band too) do all the band gigs we'd like to.

During this search, we have discovered not one, but three, super lady wind players and singers!

Have a look and read about our new wind players here.


 


                 Chris Spiers

    
                              Emily Nash

 

When we were looking for a new violin player to take over from Gavin, and discovered Martin Ash, we also came in contact with Chris Spiers, who is an excellent violinist, also working on his electric guitar playing. Chris is not only highly trained classically and gifted at improvising but also very keen to play with Kindred Spirit and be our new, main dep player. He is working on learning all the material at the moment!

 

 


 

 

 


New Prog Rock Album Reviews & Interviews

Our latest album, "Phoenix Rising" has been sent by our new prog rock promotions agency, "Nineteen 73 Artist Promotions",  to plenty of prog rock publication editors.


Only recently, I was interviewed by Swedish editor, Urban "Wally" Wallstrom, for a Swedish Prog Rock site called "Rock United". Here is the published interview.

We have now received several album reviews back from prog rock reviewers and they are interesting and promising and have already increased our global album sales, even reaching Japan! Have a read yourself:-

Read the "Prog Radar review.

Read the Swedish "Rock United" review

Read the original German "Babyblaue Seiten" review and here is the translation of the German one (ha ha!):-

The singer, playwright and guitarist Elaine Samuels is active as a musician since 1993rd Their interest is the folky music, also often known, at least on the present album by Elaine Samuels and Kindred Spirit by. Progressive Folk flirtet.Diese assignment is not necessarily the fact that Elaine Samuels and Kindred Spirit throughout complex-filigree of in style Jethro Tull would play music on albums "songs from the Wood" and "Heavy Horses". Rather a come in the range of songs terms as earthy folk rock, artpop, mainstream rock, art rock or atmospheric to mind. This diversity has already led to comparisons with Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, Renaissance, Curved Air, Mostly Autumn, Moody Blues, Fleetwood Mac and Solstice. If you had to compare already "Phoenix Rising" with Jethro Tull, then use the more direct albums the late 80s / early 90s Jahre.Sehr interesting and by the reputation of the song, of course, strikingly, is the jazzy, folky version of "Horse with no Name "(originally performed by America). The compact-direct "Drunken Landlady" is the rock facet of the band. Songs like "Let the Music set you free" connect folky fragility with rock accents, the violin and flute solos complement the sound admirably. In the ballad-epic "Children of the Stars" exchanges the flutist from their instrument against a saxophone. In "Phoenix" can be very good track how the musician / Indoor Folk can merge with progressive elements and thus comparisons ie without many frills auskommende kind of progressive folk like to understand about with Curved Air machen.Wer who should "Phoenix Rising" times to know.



 

It was a Cracking Richmond May Fair Saturday, 14th  May

 

It was a lovely sunny day and the crowds were out in force! We all met Les' Swedish fan, who was thrilled to meet Les and was impressed enough with the Kindred Spirit Band to buy a Phoenix Rising album. The band played a cracking set with the incredible playing of drumming legend, Les Binks and our lively, new violin maestro, Martin Ash along with main band team Catherine Dimmock (flute), Mike Hislop (bass) and Elaine Samuels (guitar and vocals). Here are some photos and a video!

       

  

 


 

Nineteen 73 Artist Promotions
Add Kindred Spirit to Roster

 

Having seen the Kindred Spirit Band play at the Four Play Festival, Nineteen 73 Artist Promotions have just added us to their roster of prog rock bands for worldwide promotion and say this about us:-

"We are very proud to add British progressive folk-rock band Kindred Spirit to our roster of artists. The band re-released their magnificent album Phoenix Rising on May 3rd. The album features the powerful, varied and perceptive song-writing and lead vocals of Elaine Samuels, plus expansive arrangements, featuring lead instrumentalists Gavin Jones (violin, recently replaced by the brilliant Martin Ash) and Catherine Dimmock (flute). Other features of the band include the solid rhythm section of Mike Hislop (bass) and the legendary Les Binks (ex Judas Priest, drums). Elaine Samuels is a singer / songwriter who has been performing professionally since 1993. The band were formed in the late 90s and give Elaine's songs the big, progressive arrangements they deserve. That said, the album still offers plenty of variation from the glorious, Renaissance-style "The Phoenix" to the heavy rock of "Feed the Fire", "Let the Music Set You Free" which recalls early Solstice and the near pop of "Life is a Circus". This is as good a progressive folk album as you will hear.

The band headlined the first "Four Play Prog Festival" in April 2016

To hear clips and buy both albums go to www.kindredspiritband.co.uk

Also available - Metamorphosis (2009)

Reviewers and radio stations - please contact Stephen Lambe at Nineteen-73 Artist Promotions via stephen@ninteen-73.co.uk for further details.

Twitter: @1973promo  This is superb, emotive and sometimes mystical music in the grand tradition of FAIRPORT CONVENTION, JETHRO TULL, RENAISSANCE, CURVED AIR, MOSTLY AUTUMN and SOLSTICE amongst many others."

 

              

 

            

Reviews in Classic Rock Magazine

Here are Stephen's reviews of Kindred Spirit for the Rock Society Magazine both for the "Phoenix Rising" album and our live performance at the Four Play Festival, where he first met us.

 

 

 


 

 


 

 


Martin Ash Surprises Everyone!

At his debut band gig, on April 9th, at the Four Play Festival, Martin surprised everyone, including the band, by jumping off the stage to mingle with the bopping audience at the front, during a couple of numbers, still sawing away on his violin!!

Martin is proving to be a real character and source of infectious enthusiasm. Not only that but he is a brilliant and exciting violin player, who is now being hailed as a "Prog - God - in the making"!

Check out Martin's front of stage antics for yourself in the video of Kindred Spirit playing "The Chain" on the night, below.

Check out the guitarist amongst the audience and what he does at the end of the number too!

 

    
                                                     Photo courtesey of rp-photography-solutions

 

 

"Four Play" Prog Rock Festival - April 9th - what a night!

 

The April 9th gig was an amazing night of prog rock in a great, new venue.  

The band did a great job, even though they were (apart from Elaine) unable to hear each other on stage!

They suitably impressed a well connected prog rock promoter and festival organiser, who had travelled all the way from Gloucestershire to experience the first Four Play Festival and hear the Kindred Spirit Band in particular!

See more pictures and read more reviews of the night here...

 

 

       
                                                       Photo courtesey of rp-photography-solutions

 


 

Elaine gets ANOTHER Taylor Guitar!

 

Elaine has swapped her Baby Taylor guitar for a beautiful 322ce "Grand Concert"! It sounds gorgeous and stays in tune beautifully!
Here she is at her first performance with new Kindred Spirit violin player, Martin Ash.

 


 

 

Exciting New Violin Player, Martin Ash, Joins Group!

 

Martin Ash is a professional musician playing a number of instruments including viola, mandolin, bass guitar, (keyboards and percussion) but specialising in violin.

He is classically trained, performing and also leading orchestras and string groups. He has performed at Lincoln Cathedral and live on the BBC. A fluent sight reader, he can transcribe and arrange parts from solo pieces to a full orchestra. Martin is also a confident and melodic improviser, with a good, bass voice, singing in choral projects. He currently performs with a number of other main groups; Filthy Spectacula and The String Project and has played for Celtic and Pagan rock bands in the past as well as being no stranger to Irish fiddling, already playing St Patrick's gigs!

Martin is passionate about his music and loves performing, as you can see from the photo of him at a Filthy Spectacula gig opposite (photo courtesey of RoseNoir Photography)! We are really looking forward to playing with him!

Martin's first gig is was in March, when he will took over the mantle from Gavin, who has stepped back from Kindred Spirit to pursue more classical projects.

 

 


 

 

 

[News 2015]


[
Home]  [Gigs]  [Biogs]  [Merchandise]  [Pictures]  [News]  [Sounds]  [Links]  [Contact
]