MARCH: Laura Hill and Ben Searcy Band

About MARCH: Laura Hill and Ben Searcy Band

Laura Hill

Thousands of purling whispers have revealed one of Australia’s most beautiful secrets - Laura Hill.  A singer-songwriter in the great traditions of the craft: fearless, inventive, evocative and honest. A voice that has to be heard to be believed: with range, depth and searing emotion. Songs delivered heart-on-sleeve, tempered with a gentle wit, laughter and a thousand tiny insights.

To understand the beauty of Laura Hill’s songwriting, you need to understand a little of the geography. Laura hails from McLaren Vale and a life spent on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, one of those outrageously privileged places where rolling green hills and vineyards meet an untouched coast, and the sun shines warm and fair over all. Everytime she performs her compositions somehow capture the magic of the landscape, a feeling or a subtle emotion. Laura’s solo shows are a meandering journey from quirky observations on life and love, to the soaring vocals and warm compentent electric and acoustic guitar that charactise her original compositions making her one of South Australia’s finest female singer songwriters. 

Laura has supported, toured and shared the stage with the likes of Passenger (UK) Matt Corby, Wes Carr (Buffalo Tales), Tim Rogers, Kim Churchill, Matt McHugh, Ash Grunwald, Colin Hay, Mark Seymor, Juzzie Smith and many more. 

She has travelled the country side with one simple aim: to connect with and capture Australia and it’s people with the power of live music. It’s an approach that harks back all the way to the Delta bluesmen, tried and true: you make your music through lived experience on the road and the results are showing and after two years in the making her new album is to be revealed early 2018 titled Secrets. 

Ben Searcy Band

“Folkabilly” is what the Ben Searcy Band is all about! Great stories backed by a beat to get you on your feet!

Working as a multi-media artist for twenty years, Ben’s song writing has come back to the fore since  travelling the length and breadth of the USA making the “Open Mic USA”  Documentaries. He launched his first Album “Tree House” in NYC in 2013. Since returning to Adelaide he teamed up with Darren Zaza on Guitar and Nigel Sweeting on bass and in recent times has been joined by Satomi Ohnishi on drums.

Ben has numerous SCALA song writing awards, most recently with the song “Guns of Glanville” which also won the Judith Crosley Award at the 2016 Fleurieu Folk Festival.

A regular performer at the Semaphore Music Festival, The Ben Searcy band blends acoustic through all the genres from punk to flamenco!

Xavia- Opening the show!

Xavia creates whimsical modern-folk, a space to swoon in swirling strings, earthy rhythms and soaring melodies that take you on a beautiful, ethereal journey through song. This is music rich in rumination and imagery.

Live, she has been described as 'one of the most unique live shows on the circuit' (Alasdair MacLean, The Clientele), blending percussive cello, striking vocals and harmonies with a folky ensemble of instruments. Her self-released TallTree EP shows aesthetic affinity with artists like Bat For Lashes, Joanna Newsom, Fleet Foxes, Sufjan Stevens and Bjork, with new work building into a fuller, electro-folk realm.

Xavia has lived and performed in Nashville, Europe, Malaysia and Adelaide, and is now thriving in Alice Springs where she has wowed audiences at Wide Open Space Festival, and the Darwin and Adelaide Fringe Festivals.