Acclaimed duo Flora Knight & Sean Donald (CAN/NZ), celebrate the release of their self titled debut album with a nationwide NZ release tour this September.
Winners of the 2017 Gold Guitars ‘Overall Runner Up Award’, ‘Traditional Country’ section and The ‘Freeze Ya Bits off Busking Competition’ Flora Knight and Sean Donald are a duo who despite their disparate upbringings, coalesce to produce harmonious electricity. As the electrons collide, one can discern soft yet exciting songs and tunes, anything from the sad to the humorous.
Fiddle player and singer Flora Knight (The Eastern, The Lonesome Pine Specials) was raised in New Zealand, where singer and guitar picker Sean Donald (The All Day Breakfast Stringband, Pigeon hawk SB) was raised in Canada, and now just a stone’s throw away from Knight, resides in Dunedin NZ. The pair met in Toronto right as Knight was heading down to West Virginia to embark on an old time fiddle pilgrimage of sorts, and Donald had just finished up a number of years of working on various farms in rural Ontario.
The music that Sean and Flora play is reminiscent of a bygone era that resist the wear of time. Whether it's a rip roaring ragtime fiddle tune, a mournful country classic, or a sweet and silly waltz they will have you on the edge of your seat. Their two voices blend beautifully to capture the tight country duet harmonies of the great turn of the century brother duets such as the Louvin Brothers or The Delmore Brothers. The fiddle tunes you will hear are largely steeped in the traditions of American folk music, and the silvery melodies will have you wish for reincarnation as Flora's fiddle itself.
“A superb set from Sean Donald and Flora Knight. Fiddle and guitar, both singing. Close your eyes and it’s music from a crackling old American country and western radio show. “Does anyone here know Lefty Frizzell'” asks Knight. Frizzell would be three-and-a half-times Knight’s age if he were still alive.” - Roi Colbert, North & South Magazine
Acclaimed Australian songwriter and performer Ben Salter is returning to Aotearoa this September to promote his third solo album Back Yourself. He will be performing at Blue Smoke, Christchurch on Sunday the 24th of September in support of Flora Knight and Sean Donald, for the launch of their new live album.
Ben Salter is one of Australia’s most highly regarded performers and songwriters. As well as being a founding member of Giants of Science, The Gin Club and the three-time ARIA-nominated Wilson Pickers, he is an accomplished artist in his own right. His debut solo album The Cat (2011) and follow up The Stars My Destination (2015) established his penchant for eclectic, esoteric arrangements and sounds that take in elements of folk, rock, pop, jazz, country and beyond, whilst maintaining a coherence and inimitable melodic style.
Salter has collaborated, written and performed with artists as diverse as Mick Thomas (Weddings, Parties, Anything), Tim Rogers (You Am I, The Temperance Union), Bernard Fanning (Powderfinger), Gareth Liddiard (The Drones) and Marlon Williams, to name a few. He has toured with acts including Cat Power, J Mascis, Gareth Liddiard, Counting Crows, Marlon Williams and most recently Built To Spill.
Since the release of The Cat, Salter has toured relentlessly both across Australia, throughout Europe, and most recently to Japan and New Zealand. His third album, Back Yourself, is due for release through ABC Music in September 2017.
