The Grape & The Grain

His third album for Just Music, 'The Grape & The Grain' sees Leo Abrahams explore instrumental English Folk music in this collection of tender and melodic pieces, featuring mainly guitar, but with added instrumentation, including a Hurdy Gurdy which Leo learnt to play specially for this record. Leo is a hugely respected musician who already has a proven track record playing live, both solo and as a guitarist / multi instrumentalist for many artists including Vashti Bunyan, Eliza Carthy, Kathryn Williams and June Tabor on the ‘Daughters of Albion’ shows and the Sea Shanty project ‘Rogues’ Gallery’ with Richard Thompson, Martin Carthy and James Cooke. He has recently performed successful solo shows in across Europe, Russia and the US. In the studio he has worked with a huge array of artists as both a producer and instrumentalist, including Brian Eno, The Waterboys, Paul Simon, King Creosote, David Holmes, Roxy Music, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Marianne Faithfull and recently produced the acclaimed album by new folk act Smoke Fairies. His first album, Honeytrap, was critically acclaimed and explored instrumental acoustic, folk & world music. His second was a series of collaborations with artists such as KT Tunstall, Ed Harcourt & Foy Vance. His new album, The Grape & The Grain, is a more direct collection of English Folk pieces.

a talent often overlooked when the man behind it stood in the shadow of greats such as Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry...On realising that Leo Abrahams’ The Grape & The Grain is a purely instrumental album, Gigwise professes a slight anxiety that there will not be enough to say about it.