Debut for singer Silje

1:35pm Friday 16th May 2008

NORWEGIAN multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter Silje Nes makes her City Screen debut in York on Wednesday night on her first British tour.

Please Please You promoter Joe Coates is chuffed at landing this catch at short notice, especially with Madam as the support act.

"It should be lovely, this one. Silje's Ames Room album last year on Fat Cat is filled with fractured beats, wispy melancholy and gorgeous melody, while Madam is one Sukie Smith, herself possessing a voice capable of melting even the most stony of hearts," he says.

"Her Reveal debut caused the entire British music press to fight over adjectives in order to describe the sheer beauty of her music and singing."

Fat Cat Records first became aware of Silje Nes through a "unique and charming demo she sent us in early 2006". Silje had grown up in the tiny town of Leikanger, at Sognefjord, the largest fjord in Norway, before moving in 2000 to rainy Bergen - where she still lives - to study philosophy and visual communication.

Early musical experiences varied from studying classical piano to playing timpani in an orchestra and bass drum in a marching band, and joining an indie pop band. In 2001, she started making her own music, beginning by recording on her laptop.

Silje confined herself to playing locally until she performed a set at Fat Cat's Open Circuit festival in Belgium in early 2007; Ames Room emerged last December, followed by the digital-only EP Yellow this spring, and now a short tour brings her to York for the first time.

Please Please You and Apollo 15 present Silje Nes and Madam, The Basement, City Screen, York, Wednesday, 8pm; tickets£5 on 0871 704 2054.

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