Vena Portae (2)

Vena Portae are an Anglo-Swedish alt-folk band, comprised of BAFTA award-winning singer songwriter Emily Barker, songwriter and performer Dom Coyote, and Swedish producer and multi-instrumentalist Ruben Engzell. In the winter of 2012, Vena Portae found themselves in the snowed-in Swedish town of Mölnbo just outside Stockholm. They built a makeshift studio, full with analogue equipment, spring reverbs, electric guitars, banjos, pianos and an array of instruments. Over the space of a month, they recorded songs, inspired by heartbreak, passion, and intrigue, which together make up the album Vena Portae. "Vena Portae" means "vein portal" in Latin; it’s a short vein that carries blood to the liver. Emily Barker is the BAFTA award-winning writer and performer of the theme to BBC TV crime drama Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. With her band The Red Clay Halo, she also provided the theme to highly acclaimed noir thriller The Shadow Line. Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo have released four albums, toured over the world, performed alongside friend and collaborator Frank Turner at the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony and released their album ‘Dear River’ in the UK on Linn Records. British songwriter-theatre maker Dom Coyote is an associate artist with the world renowned Kneehigh Theatre and has performed in shows with them throughout the UK, South America and the U.S. He has performed and composed for companies such as The Royal Shakespeare Company, Art Angel and the National Theatre as well as creating his own brand of gig-theatre, mixing alt-folk, rock, world music and multimedia. Ruben Engzell has been working with Christian Kjellvander, Peter Morén and EP’s Trailer Park. Ruben worked on London projects such as Future Cinema and Sona Soul before returning to his home country to set up his own studio in SoFo, Stockholm. Jesper Jonsson, who joins the band onstage as a live drummer/percussionist, grew up on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic sea, before moving to Stockholm where he headed up the rhythm sections for artists such as EP’s Trailer Park, Lisa Lindal and Laakso.