The Wraiths

are an acoustic group who set classic poetry to music.  The band began its evolution when singer-songwriter Mog Fry met Spiro guitarist Jon Hunt in 2003. 

Initially working as a duo they were both drawn to the words of the great poets such as Tennyson, Keats, Herrick and Emily Dickinson.  Following the release of their debut album "This is Charing Cross" (2006) the line-up expanded to include piano, strings and bass.

The current line-up is:



Mog Fry: vocals, ukelele, drum


Jon Hunt: acoustic guitar, cello, backing vocals


Johannah Gate-Eastleigh: bass guitar


Helena Eagles: piano


Reviews

'Gorgeous gorgeous stuff'

"There's a satisfying lushness to this album that draws you back to sink into its intricate acoustic tapestries over and over again. And then you listen - properly listen - to the words, letting them unfurl their vivid imagery once more. It all works perfectly, thanks to three impressive elements: Mog Fry's amazing voice, a faux-artless folk instrument with the reach of a diva; Jon Hunt's meticulous multi-instrumental imagination; the dozen well known chosen poems from the likes of Keats and Blake that provide the lyrics. Yes - it's real poetry, but set in these rich arrangements and spelled out in Mog's compelling delivery you simply hear crafted lyrics: Tennyson's 'Touch of a Vanished Hand' could be Morrissey, with a string arrangement by Jonny Marr. Gorgeous gorgeous stuff in a world of its own."
Tony Benjamin, Venue *****

'Captivating'

"Captivating...total immersion music that dunks you into the poem and gently holds you there.' Decode Media

'Ethereal and splintered by turns'

"Ethereal and splintered by turns...a strange Victorian world of velvet menace. Odes by Dickinson, Wilde and Hardy, all set to slow-burn acoustic soundtracks that grew assuredly from placid to menacing." Venue

'An unexpected thrill'

"This duo took a clutch of classic poems by Tennyson, Wilde et al out of their aspic and set them to their own edgy haunting acoustic ballads. Her voice has something of Beth Gibbon's autumnal glow: he has the wildest eyes this side of a death-metal convention. An unexpected thrill" Venue

'Beguiling, mysterious and intriguingly fresh'

"The Wraiths' music is beguiling, mysterious and intriguingly fresh; it has a very fluid, organic feel to it that perfectly matches the cadences of the poems themselves, whether they be in 'free verse' or strict meter. From Shakespeare to Emily Dickinson, Romanticism to Imagism, theirs was a homage to the work of great artists that became, in and of itself, a new and fascinating art form. I gush... we loved them"
Nathan Lewis Williams (FFF)Glastonbury Assembly Rooms

Listening to The Wraiths one senses more than two presences: firstly these accomplished musicians of today with their fresh and lifelike, ever-reverent interpretations; but also the ghosts of the various chosen poets themselves, their lives and loves, their dreams and fragile glimpses of immortality.
That poets throughout all ages have aspired to, and been inspired by music is apparent; from Brythonic bards and the troubadors of Provence to a twentieth century Yeats, replete with lyre and Celtic incantations, the raving Ezra Pound, the howling Ginsberg, or T.S. Eliot's clipped accented drone at 33.3...

"...There is always another one walking beside you


Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded


I do not know whether a man or a woman
-

But who is that on the other side of you?

"
The ghosts of past and future are gathered here,

and it is in the crystalline structures

of these free-flowing surges of music

that the once-dead live again, "in endless song".

Drink deep; here are waters for all souls.

How can we keep from singing?
"

by Nathan Lewis Williams

Join us on Facebook

Idyllic Records

Promote your Page too