Son of a travelling musician, Jon Bilbrough grew up crawling around studio leads with a backdrop of guitars, African drums, Doumbeks & thumb pianos as a child. He would later be no stranger to the stage, following the footsteps of his father on tour to perform some of his earliest gigs in halls usually graced by Ravi-Shankar in India and in other parts of Asia. This unusual upbringing had a great impact on Jon’s music. Rather than traveling a well-worn musical path his head was bursting with Bhangra rhythms, Sufi-style singing and Bollywood riffs and he began to translate this through voice and guitar, creating a world of his own built upon deranged guitar tunings, hunting lullubyes, tribal rhythms and a rare vocal ability.
Jon recorded his debut EP in Chennai, India, where he traveled to record carnatic/ bollywood musicians famous for their work with award winning Indian composer A.R. Rahman (Slum Dog Millionaire). It was then produced and mixed in East London by Paul Pilot of (Duke Special/ Beth Rowely) and mastered by Andy Jackson (Pink Floyd). The outcome is something wholly enchanting, 5 tracks of weathered gritty guitar and startling exotic arrangements, all driven by Jon’s powerful and emotive voice.
Jon has supported multi platinum selling band, ‘Athlete’ on a recent UK tour. He has also opened for and performed alongside St Vincent, My Brightest Diamond, Guillemots, Official Secrets Act.
He is also a visual artist, film maker, illustrator and a former art student graduating with a 1st Class Hons at The University of Arts London. As well as designing all of his own art work for his music, videos and webdesign his visual creations have begun to weave their way into his live performances too. A recent performance at The London Word Festival involved a musical set that fused 'live-ballad-sheet-screen-printing' in collaboration with The Henningham Family Press.
His artwork, animation and videos and music can be found at www.jonbilbrough.com
Other festival performances have included The Secret Garden Party, Greenbelt festival and London Songwriters Week.
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