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Alternative World Music duo The Beatroot Road release new single, “Morbid Love”

By Kath Galasso on March 27, 2025

Alternative World Music Duo The Beatroot Road have both a mission and adventure in progress as their 4th single “Morbid Love” is released on March 13th. The group forms a deeply meaningful, worldwide collective by not only boldly experimenting with different genres freely, but also collaborating with artists who have roots in Austria, Canada, China, Kenya, Korea, Moldova, Nigeria, Punjabi, Türkiye, UK, USA, and Venezuela. Producer Mark Russell has spearheaded a musical vision that only the open-minded global citizen could participate in, and connected with Hazel Fairbairn to help bring the Beatroot Road to sentience and thriving movement. These two core musicians travel the outer realms of the Universal Mind to fetch the most potent ideas and communicate them to the masses. The blood flow that connects it all thematically is humanity, genuine stories, and an intense passion to find the groove, no matter where it might hide.

“Morbid Love” delves deep into a frantic fusion of punk, rockabilly, soul and pure rock n’ roll, all sped up to the point of fire in the head. “Morbid Love” is a song of a self-destructive maelstrom from the heartbreak of a wronged woman.

‘It’s been recorded over 40 years in 3 sessions and is a Punkabilly Celtic / North American fusion. We are delighted to have guest vocalist Katie Burke from Nashville on this one.”

This is another written by Demmy James and ‘Apes’ with guitar from Richard ‘Titch’ English, motorcycle cog played by Harvey B., drum kit by Mark – all recorded in the 1980s. The fiddle solos and keyboards were recorded in the late ’90s, with vocals, rockabilly fiddle, bass and bodhran in 2022. The bassline was written by Dee Dee Hoptone in the ’80s but not recorded along with the other instruments, so was played by Mark 30 years later.

The city video is by Vancouver film maker Atsu Kanno, and features actors Yoonie Kim and Monica Pop. Video and music were produced by Mark at The Beatroot Road.

The Beatroot Road have persevered on their bold, fearless and wholly unique brand of musical expression, which humbly pays tribute to a literal cornucopia of human experience and artistic traditions. An ambitious multi-genre collective spearheaded by Mark Russell and Hazel Fairbairn, the scope and influence of this alternative and world music fusion project continues to widen due to the wide open minds involved.

Watch the official music video.
Stream or playlist via Spotify.

Written by: Demmy James, Mark Russell and Apes

Musician Names/Instruments:

Mark Russell (Drums, Bodhran, Tambourine, Bass, Keys)

Hazel Fairbairn (Fiddles)

Richard ‘Titch’ English (Guitars)

Harvey B Motorcycle Cog

Vocals Katie Burke

Producer Name(s): Mark Russell

Websites:
Official Website: www.thebeatrootroad.ca
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBeatrootRoad/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the.beatroot.road?lang=en ;
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/The_Beatroot_Road
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2igBGRo0CgkQaQmR6nrk9b
Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/the-beatroot-road/1767267942
Boomplay https://www.boomplay.com/artists/97726626
Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thebeatrootroad

THE BEATROOT ROAD Biography:

The Project:
The Beatroot Road is a brand-new project with new releases every 6 weeks starting October
11th 2024 and leading up to an album release in spring 2025.
It’s an international, intercultural series of songs with half a century of history, originally
conceived in lockdown in a studio in the forest on a mountain near Vancouver – a varying
collection of works that have beats at the core, all showing deliberate disrespect to styles
and conventions wherever possible. Having grown tired of the same line-ups doing the
same ever decreasing variations within fixed genres, this project combines the wrong
instruments and the wrong styles with the right intentions.

The Music:
There is no one genre that could represent Mark’s production style, but these are not
intellectual experiments where you keep waiting for the tune to start. Mark says; “If asked
what it is, I like to call it music for dancing, but I’ve heard it called other things, some quite
kind, some not so much. That’s enough for me. ‘The Beatroot Road’ describes what it is;
this is just where we are right now on the journey.”
This music is, at its heart, processed recorded performances of music for dancing, played
by human musicians.

We mean this – there is no attempt at fame and fortune, we make music because we love
doing it, it’s what we do, and it’s what we’ve always done. We hope you like it.
Some of the songs were penned by the late, great and largely unheard Demmy James, who
wrote lyrics and songs with layers and a message. There isn’t enough of that these days, so
now seemed like as good a time as any to set them loose.

The People:
Mark Russell
Spending most of his early years in Khartoum in the Sudan, Mark returned to the UK to
finish growing up in a multicultural Scotland, where he learnt African, Caribbean and Celtic
drum styles alongside Rock and Roll music and all of its o[springs. He had to lie about his
age to get a job to buy his first drum set at 15, and since then his career has included
a covers band residency at a brothel, European and North American tours with black light
EDM fusion band ‘Horace X’, and playing Celtic dance music for UK royalty in a kilt.
Over the decades Mark’s personal musical high points include: opening for Lee Perry, (and
Toots, and Culture), recording with Dennis Bovell, and Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger,
having a Balkan fusion EP nominated for a UK Mercury award, international touring in
general, with the Canadian Festival circuit in particular.

A lifelong cultural nomad, Mark felt at home every time he toured Canada, and eventually
moved with Hazel to the melting pot of Vancouver where so many others live comfortably
within more than one culture.

Hazel Fairbairn
Hazel abandoned early classical violin training for Celtic fiddle, and went on to write the
world’s first PhD on Irish pub music at Cambridge University. After studying with South
Indian violin master Chandru, Hazel went on to play Romani & Cajun fiddle with Horace X,
while also running a Ceilidh band.

Since moving to BC, she has been adding cutting edge audio e[ects to the constant
exploration of the violin’s boundaries, and working with Mark to create the heavy rhythms,
tunes and textures that glue The Beatroot Road together. Hazel is also experimenting with
immersive audio recording, teaches music technology in Vancouver and creates
soundscapes for films by award winning poet Kim Trainor.

The other collaborators and contributors are all seasoned international session musicians
and artists with roots in Austria, Canada, China, Kenya, Korea, Moldova, Nigeria, Punjabi,
Türkiye, UK, USA, and Venezuela. …so far. They will all be introduced individually with each
release.

We represent and celebrate some of the many cultural integrations that our part of Canada
is travelling towards in the 21st century.