Leicestershire's Unsigned

Refuge are a talented six piece acoustic act from Leicester, who play chilled out, emotive tunes.

They've just recorded their debut album 'Etched in Blue', and are setting out for the big time.

Listen: Interview with Refuge

BBC Leicester's Chris Highton spoke to Pete Hirst and Miranda Booth from the band...

Their sound is made up from an eclectic collection of instruments including guitar, piano, bass, flute, glockenspiel and tabla.

Pete is Refuge's front man and composer, and has been involved in every part of the band since it's creation.

Miranda has branched out from classical cello playing in the last couple of years, and is now really enjoying playing in Refuge, plus other local bands.

Fantastic Experience

The band have huge links to Leicester College, and throughout their existence have tried to involve others as much as possible.

Pete said, "It's been fantastic really. We tried to keep it as involved with the college as much as we could.

"We set the time scale and we set it very tight so it made it quite difficult for the college to get involved in the recording side of thing, because obviously with the students and everything there's not going to be enough time for it."

The Album Art

The band did enlist the help of a photography student from the college to create their album cover; an experience Miranda will always remember.

"We were walking through the field and we didn't think anything of it and we just had some photographs with the cows.

"But as we were walking we began to realise they were following us, and quite aggressively with it.

"I think the boys pretended they weren't bothered by it but you could see the fear in their eyes. Then they began to gallop.

"I was really scared, it was like a near death experience."