Hollyann & The Katie Winter
EP:Her Fine Bones
Collaborations between Hollyann and The Katie Winter have always had that static electricity dynamic about them and "Her Fine Bones" is no exception to that rule. Their voices and songwriting styles are not what you might all perfect, but it all works so well together to spend time looking for the flaws seems petty. The two tracks contained here simply aren't enough. As the final notes from the b-side "The Day I Met The King" fade they leave an emptiness that still needs to be fulfilled. The voices and the songs keep calling out long after the melody has left the building.

FATEA AWARDS 2010
Single/EP/Mini Album Of The Year 2010
Winner: The Sky Inside - Hollyann & The KatieWinter
1st Runner Up: A New Dawn - Circus Envy
2nd Runner Up: Born To Wonder - Louise Jordan

Losing today/Sunday experience review for sky inside and each day is a song remix

Hollyann and the Katie Winter ‘the sky inside’ (treetops). Heartfelt embarrassed apologies are due to Hollyann and the Katie Winter for our foolish neglect of this their official debut release. Having previously graced and indeed let it not be forgotten - wooed us in previous dispatches and purely just for those a little slow on the uptake or just plain ignorant, the Katie Winter is none other than Les King who was in a previous musical life Uncle Black - whose releases for Backwater records wrestled quiet acclaim from all who had the fortune to trip across their wares.
The Katie Winter - initially just a side project to fondly feed his folk muse soon found kindred spirits - one such equally minded soul was Holly Burton of Manchester via Seattle, midi files were traded to and forth across the web with Holly’s lilt lined drifting vocals providing the perfect foil to King’s roving rustic rambles.
’the sky inside’ features four such genteel and lulling nuggets, weaved of a tapestry once thought lost and of late rekindled anew by the likes of a growing list of labels such as Autumn Ferment and Rif Mountain - to name just two - it’s a mercurial art timeless, unbound and wild, like fleeting apparitions to a tradition past these faded folk follies spectral in detail archaic in design are mellowed and cut to the heart beat of nature herself, a breathless feast of idyllic lazy eyed mayday mysticism and an olde village green flavouring dappled in a craft once captured by such esteemed play smiths as Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Mellow Candle and the Watersons. Atop of King’s delicately dispatched pastoral strums Burton’s vocals shimmer with a softly opining spell craft their serene beckoning mystery inhabiting a place somewhere between Anne Briggs and Alison O’Donnell its something best exemplified on the sets defining moment ’giving’ which all at once as though by some devilish slight of hand manages to conjure a demurring draft whose ingredients court with a warming homely hushed hymnal tinged love noted murmur spiced with a drifting medieval pageantry whose tongue talks in a language more familiar of those Soft Hearted Scientists types. A gem.
www.treetoprecords.com

each day is a song – bassik groove remix

Staying with Katie Winter we got an email from Les King once of Uncle Black and now the Katie Winter drawing our attention to an ambient re-drill of an old KW centred around Holly’s original vocals - not entirely sure how these things work and whether or not we here are meant to give out the link for public consumption no doubt we‘ll get some kind of complaining email so bugger it here we go - http://soundcloud.com/bassik-grooove/holly-and-the-katie-winter-each-day-a-song-bassiks-bones-of-my-feet-mix-1 - anyhow its been done by a work colleague of Les’ by the name of Bassik Grooove - clearly not the name he was born with - here re-wired as the Bassik’s Bones of my Feet mix ’each day a song’ is transformed and turned from its woody 70’s folk environs and caressed with an icily detached - and we might add - woozily arabesque armoury that somehow manages to instil, fuse and speak in a timeless Tibetan tongue whilst simultaneous gathering to its bosom a subtle though all the more recognisable minimalist noir tweaked landscape more pertaining to a 90’s era Bristol underground scene. While you’re there check out Bassik Grooove‘s own ‘the kozmic phonk’ a kooky and off kilter funky slice of trance tipped lounge exotica trip wired with a head turning nocturnally toned trip hop / chilled drum n’ bass flavouring.

The Sky Inside review Fatea Magazine 27.1.10

There is one big problem with "The Sky Inside", four tracks is woefully short when a release is this enchanting.

Hollyann & The Katie Winter, actually a duo, have delivered an ep of exquisite delight.

The vocals on their own have a charming quality that transfixes and seduces, but laid over a simple, at times slightly gothic, slightly dark accompaniment, that charm seems to intensify, almost to the point where you feel you're the ant caught in the magnifier.

There is a delicate beauty that envelopes around you as your drawn deeper into the spell. One to savour.

Holly & The Katie Winter
EP:Come To Me
Label:Self Released
Website: http://www.myspace.com/thekatiewinter
There are some combinations that are just made for each other, sweet and sour, peaches and cream, Laurel and Hardy and now Holly & The Katie Winter. It's a vocal blend that's rich and lush, deep addictive harmonies supported by only a minimal guideline of a guitar. Stripped back almsot to the bare wood, to allow you to appreciate the natural grain. "Come to me" isn't just a fusion of two songwriters that have impressed in other projects, it brings with it a sense of understanding that they 'get' what the other is about, the silence as important as the notes, the ying and yang.

we here are thinking of a shyly retiring Pentangle performing a campfire duet with a seriously chilled Nico and with that look forward to hearing more - soon. Losing Today