Cape Town’s Touchwood

Touchwood

TouchWood formed in 2012 when lead vocalist Ruth De Freitas and talented musical sisters Tessa and Julia Johnson met at a GreenPop tree planting festival in the enchanted Platbos forest.

The girls started off as a marimba act before experimenting with other instruments and now boast an act filled with vocal harmonies, guitar, ukulele, violin, cello, African marimba and drums. As the band searched for a permanent drummer, Matt Norris, a fellow student at UCT, filled in for a last minute gig and soon joined the band as the fourth and final member.

The bands first official gig was a main stage slot at The Flamjangled Tea Party 2012 and have since gone on to play a special acoustic set at Walking The Daisies 2012, the Green stage at Rocking The Daisies 2012, the LMG stage at Synergy Live 2012 after winning the LMG readers vote, Trees For Zambia 2012 in Livingston, The Lavender Festival 2012, the Grant Erskine stage at Splashy Fen 2013 as well as headlining GreenPop’s Reforest Fest 2013 over two weekends.

TouchWood have enjoyed a growing Cape Town club scene having played at all the major venues Including both TuesdaysOnFire and Wednesday nights and AndUnion, Cool As Folk with Jeremy Loops at The Assembly, a successful year long residency at The Brass Bell in Kalk Bay as well as The Waiting Room, Mercury, Zula and more. TouchWood kicked off 2013 by composing an original song for the One Billion Rising TV ad campaign directed by Diana Keam. The band also completed a new live music for their song ‘Other Words’ shot at Cape Town’s newest venue, It’s A House. 2013 saw TouchWood’s greatest achievement to date as they were selected from 100 local acts by Samro and Casa Africa to represent Cape Town at VisaVis, a battle of the bands competition in Johannesburg, TouchWood emerged joint winners with BCUC and were offered a contract to tour the Spanish summer music festival scene in July 2013.

TouchWood released their debut EP ‘Land In The Sun’ on June 2013 to a 300 capacity sold out crowd at Cape Town venue It’s A House. The band was joined on the night by Two Minute Puzzle as well as a special guest appearance by Jeremy Loops. The EP features 6 new tracks, including a collaboration with Jeremy Loops, and 3 music videos. The EP launch marked the bands first anniversary of playing together and is a great testament to the giant leaps and strides this hard working band have taken together since forming.

After taking their unique afro-gypsy-folk sound to Spain, TouchWood plan on returning to the studio to work on recording new material and releasing a new single.

Suddenly Music Video Facebook Bend live on Signal Hill Twitter Other Words live at It’s A House Soundcloud Ruth De Freitas :: Vocals, Guitar Tessa Johnson :: Vocals, Cello, African Marimbas Julia Johnson :: Vocals, Ukulele, Violin Matt Norris :: Percussion Management Riordan Allen touchwoodtheband@gmail.com 0815953054