VIDEO: Offa Rex Featuring The Decemberists and Olivia Chaney Release ‘Blackleg Miner’ + Tour Dates
Offa Rex, the collaboration between The Decemberists and English singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney, released their new video for ‘Blackleg Miner’. The track will appear on the group’s forthcoming debut album available July 14, 2017 via Nonesuch Records. Produced and recorded by Tucker Martine (Modest Mouse, My Morning Jacket, Neko Case) and Colin Meloy at Martine’s studio in Portland, OR, and mostly arranged by Chaney, the thirteen tracks on The Queen of Hearts draw largely on traditional English-Irish-Scottish repertoire to create a transatlantic musical conversation that flirts with psychedelia and folk rock while maintaining its own inimitable identity.
The origins of Offa Rex can be traced to a tweet. The Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy, a fan of Olivia Chaney’s 2015 Nonesuch debut, The Longest River, struck up a dialog with her over Twitter, which eventually led to her supporting The Decemberists on a U.S. tour. Chaney says: “Every so often [on the tour] Colin and I would have these fleeting but quite intense conversations about songwriting and singing traditional songs. One night he asked me, grinning, ‘Have you ever thought of having a backing group? We’ll be your Albion Dance Band.'”
Meloy adds: “There’s this weird relationship between British and American music, this interesting trade and theft that goes back and forth. My hope was that if we—the neophytes, the dilettantes, the pretenders—brought Olivia to Portland to work with Tucker, perhaps these traditional British songs would be infused with something different.
Offa Rex will tour this summer, including performances at the Newport Folk Festival, Town Hall in New York, and at The Aladdin in Portland. They will also be performing at Travelers’ Rest, The Decemberists’ two-day curated festival in Missoula, MT, on August 12. Additionally, Olivia Chaney will support The Decemberists during their August tour, during which she will join the band on stage to perform songs from The Queen of Hearts. Chaney will also do a few solo shows around these dates. A complete list of shows can be found below.
Offa Rex 2017 Tour Dates
Jul 23 Aladdin Theater – Portland, OR
Jul 26 The Town Hall – New Yok, NY
Jul 28 XPoNential Festival – Camden, NJ
Jul 29 Newport Folk Festival (Sold Out) – Newport, RI
Aug 8 Orpheum Theatre* – Vancouver, BC
Aug 9 MacEwan Hall* – Calgary, AB
Aug 12&13 Traveler’s Rest Festival – Missoula, MT
Aug 15 Red Butte Garden* – Salt Lake City, UT
Aug 17 Fox Theater* – Oakland, CA
Aug 19 Britt Festival* – Jacksonville, OR
