The Blue Dahlia + Hugo Kensdale

Doors: 8pm - 3am
Entry Price: £7 at the Door / Free Entry Till 8.30
» Buy Tickets

A night of steaming hot French reggae-swing, ska, klezmer, tango, dub, Samba and blues with The Blue Dahlia and Hugo Kensdale, topped off with a roaring discotheque from Des Was a Bowie Fan, playing everything from 20s and 30s Hot Swing to 50s rock’n’roll, 60s Pop and indiepop, with a sprinkling of searing klezmer and Blakan brass…

The Blue Dahlia, is a 5-piece New York-based world music group let by Dahlia Dumont playing French reggae fused with ska, klezmer, dub, tango, and samba. Instrumentation includes a button accordion, trombone, drums, guitar, bass and ukulele.

Brooklyn girl Dahlia, who was previously based in Senegal and France, brings her Francophone influences to her music, performing original reggae, ska and tango jams in French and in English. She also performs some old-time standards of the French “chanson,” mixing them with grooving reggae rhythms and dub deflections.\

LISTEN: http://www.dahliadumontdecadence.com/music

Opening the night with a solo set is Manchester’s Hugo Kensdale, playing sweet bluesy folk cascading into shimmering pop with touches of Elvis Costello and Calexico.

And a special Beyond Borders night by Des Was a Bowie Fan celebrating the wonderful worldwide cultural exchange of music on a steamy dancefloor. Expect The Supremes and The Ramones interspersed by the Balkan brass of Beirut and the fiery violin ballads of Félix Lajkó; Elvis, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens swinging along with the sweet heartbreak of Sister Wynana Carr and Kim Weston; the Sheffield and Glasgow soul of Pulp and Belle and Sebastian merged with Django Reinhardt’s gypsy swing and Omar Souleyman’s ecstatic Arabic beats; the poetic London counter-cultural lustre of Hefner and Veronica Falls smooching with King Oliver and His Creole Jazz Band, Gogol Bordello and The Turbans; and Johnny Cash, Jonathan Richman and Sam Cooke twisting the night away alongside Palestinian hip hop band DAM and The Yiddish Twist Orchestra.