TOPETTE
Pontardawe Arts Centre. Tue 30 Apr
Anyone interested in European folk music needs to check out Topette, an Anglo-French acoustic five-piece who will be visiting Pontardawe as part of their UK spring tour. The Bristol-based band features three-time Radio 2 folk musician of the year Andy Cutting on diatonic accordion along with James Delarre on violin, Julien Cartonnet on bagpipes, Tania Buisse on bodhran and Barnaby Stradling on acoustic bass.
Cutting is a veteran of folk musicm having been on the scene since 1988. The 49-year-old from Harrow joined Blowzabella in that year before helping to release the album Vanilla in 1990. Topette’s coming of age moment came in October 2014, when Venture, a song featured on the album C’est Le Pompon with a lifting, upbeat rhythm, started to attract thousands of viewers on YouTube.
One of the many attractions to Topette, and particularly C’est Le Pompon, is the experimentation of their music. For example, There We Are Then is subtly driven by Barnaby Stradling’s acoustic guitar, while in Venture James Delarre works his violin in tandem with Cutting’s accordion to produce a track that you can’t help but stamp your feet to.
Tickets: ÂŁ12. Info: 017792 863722 / www.pontardaweartscentre.co.uk
words Harry Trend