Toria Wooff

Following her acclaimed self-titled debut album, championed by the likes of Uncut, Clash, Shindig, Record Collector, BBC Radio 6 and Radio X, Toria Wooff (Tor-ee-a Woo-f) enters a darker and more assured chapter with her second album, Aleister. Across eleven brooding folk songs, tape-saturated textures, drones, vintage keyboards, orchestral flourishes and richly detailed acoustic instrumentation surround a voice capable of moving from hushed intimacy to startling intensity. On stage, that atmosphere takes on a life of its own. Whether playing solo or joined by her close-knit band, Wooff's live show expands the strange, shadowy world of her records without losing the restraint at the heart of the songs. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar, spectral keys, textured strings and understated ensemble playing gather around Wooff's commanding vocal, allowing moments of near silence to sit alongside passages of sweeping, darkly cinematic intensity. The result is a performance that owes as much to the peculiar atmosphere of late-sixties and seventies British and Irish folk recordings as it does to contemporary songwriting. Folk tradition collides with gothic literature, northern landscapes brush against the occult. Deeply personal experiences sit comfortably beside ancient mythology, Wooff's stories feeling both intimate but also timeless.