Hailing from the North-West of England, singer and composer Joe Yorke found his true love for music during his teenage years. Seduced by Punk, Folk and Reggae music, he started diving into the styles and after learning guitar he was a common sight on the streets of Wigan and Manchester busking his favourite songs. In 2006, he went to the Notting Hill Carnival and experienced the UK’s soundsystem scene for the first time. Shaken and moved by the sounds in the streets of the famous north London festival, his desire to become a part of the movement was galvanised. He moved to Moss Side, Manchester, in his late teens and started to get fully immersed in the Dub and Reggae scene centred around The Junction Pub and The Big Western. Spending his days working a day job alongside producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Eeyun Purkins, and his nights shaping songs in studios across the city, a musical partnership was born. They both played in a crew called “Black Star Dub Collective” and took part in weekly jam sessions in Hulme. This training ground exposed Joe to a lot of talented musicians from the local reggae community. Around this time, Joe joined “Conscious Youth” and alongside his comrades met Nucleus Roots’ Paul Lush, from whom they learnt many valuable lessons. Fusing live music on the one hand and soundsystem on the other, Joe Yorke embraces the full spectrum of the Reggae scene. In recent years, the young thirty-something has shaken up the international reggae sphere with breathtaking live performances and a string of singles, EPs and albums that have found their place both in record bins and in the hearts of roots & soul music addicts. Collaborations with Stand High Patrol, L’Entourloop, Gentleman's Dub Club and O.B.F, appearances at major festivals, and tracks played by soundsystems the world over: the adopted Bristolian has captivated crowds with his roots, rocksteady and dub sound, while drawing just as much from the many other influences that shape his unique musical identity. After the release of his debut album "Noise And Emptiness", steeped in UK dub / UK roots, in autumn 2022, Joe Yorke unveiled "A Distant Beat" in spring 2023: a second LP of rocksteady / roots recorded with The Co-Operators. A few months later, in autumn 2023, he released a third album on his own label, Rhythm Steady, awash with soul influences and titled "Hopeless". That project, which earned him an invitation to Les Transmusicales de Rennes, introduced him to a wider audience while cementing a production approach built on openness. Soul, disco, northern soul, new wave, dub techno, musique concrète, post-punk: Joe Yorke experiments and composes across a wide range of influences. His latest offering, "Shallow Fantasies", is a new album with a distinctly British identity, threaded through with echoes of 60s pop and the Manchester scene of the 80s, drawing inspiration from post-punk, new wave and shadowy guitar music.
