The Musical and married duo Rebecca Hall and Ken Anderson, who play together as Hungrytown have been intensively touring the UK, USA and elsewhere for more than a decade.
I saw them perform in Saltburn in 2002, where I heard an evening of entrancing harmonies and great songwriting from world class musicians. A couple of days later I met them near Skipton and we visited Howarth together. Rebecca and Ken told me about their fourth unreleased album, that was just finishing mastering, made during their pandemic enforced break from touring at their home in rural Vermont.
Subsequently I heard the album, which is due to be released in Spring 2024 and was so moved and thrilled by one of the best albums I have heard in a longish lifetime of listening to many thousands of albums, that I wanted to be a part of making Hungrytown better known to the world.
To do this I arranged gigs in three major Northern cities:
Hungrytown played music from their first three albums and previewed songs from their fourth, ‘Circus for Sale’.
At the shows in Sunderland and Sheffield, Hungrytown were joined for very rare UK appearances by Ciska Ruitenberg.
Ciska Ruitenberg is a singer songwriter whose words and voice I have adored since I first heard her sing on a CD I bought in at Virgin Records in Amsterdam’s Magna Plaza more than 25 years ago.
The title song of that CD, ‘Lovely’ by Spot remains possibly my favourite piece of music of all.
After Spot, Ciska recorded the album ‘Hide and Seek’ with the band Violet, which to this day still sounds a truly innovative record every time I listen. Ciska also sang on the Flying Dutchman’s brilliant albums ‘Trip To The Core’ and ‘Pathfinder’, as well as providing backing vocals for Robert Jan Stips’ song ‘ The Long Song’ on the Nits’ masterpiece ‘Les Nuits’
With her band Ndromeda, Ciska made an EP and the great album ‘ Into the Lazy Eye’
For Sunderland Saturday and Sheffield Sunday Ciska was backed by Baruch de Herder and Simon Bijmolt, who play together as the duo Naima’s Jazzists.