Three piece Liverpool band IATM is the creation of Adele Emmas (singer, songwriter) Sian Williams (guitar, harmonies) and Alexis Samata (drums) Together they create dark, haunting, atmospheric music which will entice you in to their magical, other worldly universe. With beautiful, siren-esque vocals, tribal, hypnotic drum beats and spellbinding guitar work, Bird are refreshingly unlike anything that’s currently on the music scene. ” Adele’s vocals flooring jaws as Bird channel Warpaint through primetime 4AD ”
After meeting each other through a friend of a friend, Adele and Sian bonded over their mutual love for artists such as Leonard Cohen, Kate Bush, The Cocteau Twins, Warpaint, and Fleetwood Mac. The girls decided to swap numbers and soon after songwriter Adele and drummer Alexis invited Sian along for a ‘jam’ where they realized together they had something very special to give. After signing to Jack To Phono Records, playing a UK tour and sold out EP launch back in 2011, the band have since built up a large, loyal fan base in their home town of Liverpool and other areas of the UK alongside releasing their much anticipated EP ‘Shadows’ in August 2012.
BBC Radio stations including Radio 1’s Rob Da Bank, BBC Radio 2, BBC 6 Music’s Maconie and Radcliffe, BBC 6 Music’s Tom Robinson and Dave Monks at BBC Radio Merseyside have all recently featured Bird on air. The band have also had their music featured on Channel 4 and have had various magazine articles published in NYLON magazine, Bido Lito and many more. After being especially selected by the BBC, last year IATM attended a musicians workshop at Abbey road and Maida Vale London where they got the chance to meet the likes of Jo Whiley, Steve Lamaq and Zane Lowe. Former Cocteau Twin and label owner Simon Raymonde chose IATM as one of his favourite bands of the year!
In recent weeks Bird have been featuring in many best of lists for 2013 and were featured as The Guardian’s ‘New Band Up North’ in December 2012. “Liverpool trio IATM are creating music that’s hauntingly beautiful and forcefully captivating. Their poetic lyrics take your mind on a journey making you feel like you’re walking around in a gothic novel … Knowing they were onto a winning sound after one session must have been an amazing feeling. But after you’ve listened to IATM for the first time it’s easy to understand how they must have felt as you get a similar reaction. Their music moves you.” Blogger Andy Von Pip chose bird as one of his Tips For 2013 – “The music converges around Adele’s exquisite empyrean vocals, and it is they that beckon the listener on through the twilight gate and into a world of off-kilter fairytales where a star fretted sky twinkles to illuminate twisted branches that inhabit the dark enchanted forest of Adele’s imagination.”
Tom Robinson included IATM on his BBC Introducing Mixtape not once but twice in 2012. He also said meeting Adele at a BBC Introducing Masterclass held at Abbey Road was one of his highlights of the day. Music blog Louder Than War placed IATM at number 2 on their Top 50 New Bands for 2013. “When they start playing….. oh my, what a truly exquisite sound they come out with! A disarming, often foreboding, yet undeniably beautiful compound of folk, new age, Gregorian church music and the best bits of the late ’70s / early ’80s goth movement. Theirs is the sound of childhood stories of wandering through dark forests, of discovering hidden caves laced with cobwebs, of hearing wolves howling in the dead of night, all those stories you were told as a small child before you went to sleep at night … This really is music to get completely lost in, proven by the virtual silence from the audience by the time of the second song. IATM stir up an astonishing gamut of emotions, feelings and gut instincts, a quietly revolutionary act whose subtle insurrection is surely only a few months away from coming into action. Believe.”
Another blog that has tipped IATM to make it big in 2013 is Gods in The TV ,“IATM utterly get the medal for grafting right now. It’s therefore just as well that the music, the haunting close harmonies, feeling as pre-Raphaelite as anything in the art gallery down the road, gets more and more compulsive with every listen.” Whilst the blog Just Music I like had this to say; “IATM were guaranteed their place amongst my bands to watch after two recent live performances blew me away … Those live sets saw the trio bring to life their recent Shadows EP with a live power and grace, equally dark and mystical with rich swirling guitar tapestries and superlative defying harmonies, it was like being transported to an otherworldly place of pure, spiritual beauty.” The new EP Ophelia is planned for February 11th and has been produced by Bill Ryder Jones from The Coral. They have also announced their first UK tour….
February
15th Liverpool -The Leaf
16th Sowerby Bridge – Puzzle Hall
18th Edinburgh Electric Circus
19th Inverness Hootananny
20th Glasgow King Tuts
22nd York The Duchess
26th Manchester Castle27th Leicester The Scholar Bar @Leicester University – March
1st Milton Keynes Zone
2nd London Upstairs @ The Garage
4th March Brighton The Hope
5th march Bournemouth The Winchester
7th March Bristol Start the bus
10th March Birmingham The Yardbird Jazz Club
11th London Brixton Windmill
