Big Apple & Back Tour:
July 27 @ Thunderbird Cafe - Pittsburgh PA
July 28 @ IOTA - Arlington VA
July 29 @ Johnny Brenda's - Philly PA w/ Illinois, The Builder & The Butcher
July 30 @ Bruar Falls - Brooklyn NY w/ Hospitality
July 31 @ The Bell House - Brooklyn NY w/ The Mekons
Aug 1 @ Mercury Lounge - NYC NY w/ The Mekons
Aug 2 @ Beachland Tavern - Cleveland OH

Of the Cathmawr Yards is the debut album from Chicago slowburn-folk troupe The Horse’s Ha, led by Janet Bean (Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater) and Jim Elkington (The Zincs) backed by stalwart Chicago indie-rock vets. Think Fairport Convention, Pentangle and a little Astral Weeks.

[biography] [reviews] [tour dates] [myspace]




Press:

Magnet : "Evokes the spirits of Brasil ‘66 and former Fairport Convention warbler Sandy Denny."

Philadelphia Inquirer : "The songs are moody and cryptic, full of death and moonlight. And with Elkington's deep, resonant voice intertwined with Bean's high, thin one, and his acoustic finger-picking interlaced with Lonberg- Holm's sinuous cello, their mystery is enchanting. It's an eerie and nuanced album, with echoes of Smog, the Mark Lanegan / Isobel Campbell collaborations, and British folk legends Pentangle and John Martyn."

Jambase : "Both break new ground here, tapping hitherto unknown ache & effervescence."

Blurt Online : "More please, soon."

New City Chicago : "Dreamy folk ready for long summer nights."

Time Out Chicago : interview (podcast)

Cleveland Scene : "Wispy, mournful dirges and lazy-summer ballads."

Fogged Clarity : interview (stream)

Flavorpill : "Charming, jazz-infused pop that brims w/understated beauty."

Chicago Scene : "Both cozy & eerie in a single shot...midnight moods similar to early Van Morrison."

Illinois Entertainer : "Tindersticks-meets-Fairport Convention"

Venus Magazine : "A dark, fantastical, genre-bending group."

Goldmine Magazine : "Mellow and meandering, the exotic, laconic melodies become wistful...with infusions of jazz, folk and fusion."

All Music Guide : "This is a very weird album, and an ultimately compelling one... Horse's Ha, which is really Freakwater's Janet Bean and the Zincs' Jim Elkington with a postmodern jazz trio behind them, sure sounds British, a bit like Pentangle on cough syrup. Elkington's songs have purposefully literary lyrics which on more than a few occasions wander off into a kind of slightly darker version of Donovan-land, but it's the pacing here that draws the ear, with Elkington and Bean's well-defined, tense and sultry vocal harmonies working over languidly flowing rhythms."

Time Out NY : "They make a good pair, with a cool air of mystery enveloping the band’s every song."

Onion AV Club : "The Horse’s Ha’s debut album, Of The Cathmawr Yards, blends Elkington and Bean’s voices and sensibilities together seamlessly on a set of songs that relies heavily on intricate acoustic guitar plucking, dreamy violin, and a gently melancholy air. . . on songs like ‘Liberation’ and ‘The Piss Choir,’ the percussion taps away madly while Elkington and Bean harmonize like a ’60s sunshine-pop group dosed on downers. The effect is unique and striking, like a bumpy ride through a moonlit country night."

Dusted Mag : "Balances breezy 1960s British folk choruses w/Stereolab-ish drone."

Louisville Eccentric Observer : "The Horse's Ha is a moody and sprawling outfit. The vocal interplay between the silky melodies of Bean and the smokey, Lee Hazlewood-evocative croon of The Zincs' James Elkington is quite reminiscent of the Mark Lanegan and Isobelle Campbell collaborations, with rich lyrical imagery to boot. . . The driving, ornate anthem "Asleep in a Waterfall" and the freewheeling, orchestral, Califone-esque
"Liberation" showcase an ingenuity not found in many modern folk records. But it's the fluid and bombastic English folk of "The Piss Choir," which should thrill fans of Fairport Convention's Liege & Lief, where The Horse's Ha really carves their own niche."

Americana UK : "Like a hybrid of Dirty Three, Freakwater & Bill Callahan’s recent work."

CMJ : "The Horse's Ha is delightfully weird."

Biography:

The Horse's Ha was formed in 2002, when British ex-patriot James Elkington and just South of the Mason Dixon ex-patriot, Janet Beveridge Bean met at a Chicago concert and started discussing the concept of playing other people's songs in expensive wine bars for money. A set-list of roughly 20 standards was drawn up and then gradually abandoned over the course of a year as James started to write original songs for Janet to sing. They soon joined forces with stellar Chicago musicians Fred Lonberg-Holm, Nick Macri and Charles Rumback to create a sophisticated and compelling musical hybrid between jazz and folk. Their sound is infused with echoes of the English folk revival, that morph into lulling Bossa Nova rhythms and find their way right back to pure pop, giving the The Horse’s Ha a uniquely enduring edge.

The band’s lineage has deep Chicago roots. Janet Bean is a member Chicago's Eleventh Dream Day in addition to her continuing country music partnership with Catherine Irwin, forming the duo, Freakwater. James Elkington was leader of The Zincs and performs solo. Fred Lonberg-Holm, Chicago’s premier improvisational cello player, has richly contributed to forging the vibrant improvisational jazz scene in Chicago as well as working on recordings by Wilco, Jim O'Rourke and countless others. His masterful playing is underpinned by the rhythm section of bass player Nick Macri, an ex-Zincs member whose wide-ranging history has seen him go from his own band, Euphone, to playing with Mark Eitzel and Jeremy Enigk, and Charles Rumback, a jazz drummer relocated from Kansas who performs with his own band Leaves as well as Chicago groups L'Altra and Via Tania. These players set the stage for James and Janet’s voices, that harmonize throughout, to bring you the first album by The Horse's Ha: Of the Cathmawr Yards.

Work began on Of the Cathmawr Yards in January of 2008 and was recorded and mixed by Griffin Rodriguez (who has recorded albums by Beirut and Akron/Family under the name Blue Hawaii) at his south-side Chicago studio, Shape Shoppe. The band recorded in bits and pieces over the next few weeks, surviving parking tickets and foul weather, with additional recording and common sense provided by Mark Greenberg (from the Coctails and 100 varied Chicago bands) at his studio, Mayfair. Of the Cathmawr Yards captures The Horse's Ha in an almost live setting, with all the intimacy and invention of their shows still intact: In “Liberation,” Fred Lonberg-Holm plays a two-minute solo that arcs from plaintive single notes to a fiery frenzy and recalls John Cale's viola-playing at its most possessed. Macri and Rumback remain fluid and responsive throughout, and manage to keep the beat steady while taking the group into uncharted territory in "Asleep In A Waterfall' and the album's closer, “Map Of Stars.” Elkington's deft guitar playing shows a strong English folk influence, but steps out to take a ringing solo worthy of Johnny Marr in “The Piss Choir,” while the massed voices of Janet Bean stop the show in “Heiress.” Martin Wenk, Janet's friend from Calexico, generously recorded some trumpet parts from his home in Germany for the song “Left Hand” to complete the album.

“The Cathmawr Yards” is the name of a fictitious graveyard in Wales and is the setting for the Dylan Thomas short story about zombies, entitled “The Horse's Ha.” Although no reference to Thomas or the story are made in the songs on Of The Cathmawr Yards, the lyrics themselves resonate with similarly dark and fantastical themes: talking woodcuts, walking skeletons, and at least 11 references to the moon merge together to form an unsettling yet familiar feeling that forces other than our own are at work in the physical world. A diva digs her own grave in “Asleep In A Waterfall” and modern-day witches are offered a friendly warning in the album's opening lullaby, “Plumb'” "So hold on to old hands, starting with yours / They're softer than leather and harder than oars / And row your rivers of temperance and toil / If you won't float in water, you're bound for the soil.” Elsewhere, mankind is under attack from nature in “The Piss Choir,” and “Map Of Stars” celebrates being lost in the wilderness as being set free from all timely constraints, both real and imagined: "Make kindling from clocks and cinders your watch / You have you no place to be / You're ripped at the roots and willed by the winds / A cloud with four limbs of fire.”

The Horse's Ha, driven by Bean's swooning voice, Elkington's finger-picked acoustic guitar, Lonberg-Holm's inspired cello playing and the artful rhythm section of Macri and Rumback, reconcile the new and old to form a unified debut that is Of the Cathmawr Yards.

.