Pica Pica

New Roots presents PicaPica

One for sorrow and two for joy. Rough Trade signings PicaPica features the vocal interplay of Josienne Clarke (BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Winner 2015, Best Duo, Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker, BBC Radio 2 Folk Award nominee 2017) and Samantha Whates, dual front women who create powerful harmonies atop layers of texture created by Adam Beattie & Sonny Johns (Grammy nomination / Mercury prize nomination), a tiding of magpies picking shiny moments of tone and timbre from 60s west coast, sunshine pop and alternative folk. Josienne and Samantha met on the London acoustic music scene several years ago and immediately shared a love of singing and writing. They have been unofficially collaborating for years, often singing backing vocals for each other’s projects or just singing harmonies together for the pure enjoyment of it. 

PicaPica represents a long-held ambition to write, record and perform new material together and to join with like-minded musicians to explore what it’s like to be in a band. When writing, Josienne and Samantha (AKA “Pica One” & Pica Two”) take two versions of the same idea and the songs are built around that concept in various ways, they sometimes even have two titles for each song, one by Josienne, one by Samantha. Good music loves a contrast. Spring and shade, harmony and melody, brightness and deadpan... So do PicaPica. As writers, they compose songs that hold the sadness closer, yet let the joy fly higher. 

“Pica Three”, aka Adam Beattie, Scotland's king of soft-spoken chanson, brings gently morphing textures and detailed guitar playing to every bar, while “Pica Four” is Sonny Johns - a Grammy, Mercury and MOBO-nominated producer/engineer. Sonny’s bass playing and production give PicaPica's otherworldly compositions a seriously grounded sound.

Their first EP, “Spring & Shade” contains four songs freely-designed to bewitch the listener until its fifteen minutes are over. This is music for memories that creep in under the door. Songs that wear their cares lightly, shining in the dark. Simply, beautiful, beguiling, elegant sounds. 

New Roots is committed to promoting events that shine a light on up and coming talent in the UK alt-folk scene. It’s committed to providing artists with an environment that is sympathetic to what they do, giving musicians the respect they and their music deserves – for this reason we ask for no talking and no use of mobile phones while artists are performing. Our music policy comes from the kitchen table, the roots of public performance- intimate, acoustic based, high quality musicianship with as little interference between performer and listener as possible.

Website: http://www.newrootsevents.com/

New Roots Radio: https://www.mixcloud.com/RadioNewRoots/