Woodpecker Wooliams

Woodpecker Wooliams

Woodpecker Wooliams is the musical project of British musician Gemma Williams, based in Brighton and originating from West Sussex. Williams begins the project in 2009 and continues it until 2013. The name is associated with freak folk, folk, acoustic, experimental and singer-songwriter music, and with Williams’s use of harp and kora.

Releases

Woodpecker Wooliams releases the studio albums Diving Down and The Bird School of Being Human. The Bird School of Being Human appears through Robot Elephant Records and brings wider critical attention to the project. The project also releases a string of cassette and EP recordings in different places.

Live activity

Williams tours Woodpecker Wooliams widely across Europe, the Baltic states and Russia, and performs at festivals including The Big Chill, Positivus, The Alternative Escape, Sound Tracks, Wilderness, How The Light Gets In, Supernormal, Serralves Em Festa, Woolfe Music, End of the Road and Bestival. The final Woodpecker Wooliams performance takes place at End of the Road festival in 2013.

Background and later work

After leaving midwifery training because of serious illness in 2009, Williams moves to the Devonshire countryside to recover and teaches herself to play a hired harp. Her work receives attention from The Guardian and The Independent, and commentary in The Sunday Times and on BBC.co.uk. Williams also lends guest vocals to Ghostpoet’s single “Meltdown”, which is remixed by Squarepusher. After Woodpecker Wooliams, she becomes one half of the electro-synth-pop duo Becky Becky with Peter J D Mason, formerly of Fence Collective.