Blackbeard’s Tea Party have been playing folk-rock together for over ten years. The band started out busking on the streets, but Blackbeard’s Tea Party are now more likely to be found on a festival stage, arts centre or rock venue.

Theirs is a well-known name amongst festival goers, having played at events as diverse as Glastonbury, Cambridge Folk Festival, Fairport’s Cropredy Convention, The Rainforest World Music Festival in Borneo, FolkEast, Towersey Festival and many more.

Wednesday, the North Carolina rock band led by generational songwriter Karly Hartzman, share a twangy and timeless new single titled “Elderberry Wine,” alongside a video directed by Spencer Kelly.

The Bevis Frond (guitarist and songwriter extraordinaire Nick Saloman) have ultimately become the UK’s leading underground psychedelic rock band. Their music is an iconoclastic collision of distinctly British psychedelia, space-rock, grunge, slow-burning soulful laments, even grizzled folk and more than occasional moments of sublime pop genius.

Live, the line-up today includes: Paul Simmons (guitar), Louis Wiggett (bass, vocals), Dave Pearce (drums) and Nick Saloman (vocals, guitar and sitar).

No one in Foxwarren has ever made a record quite like 2. The Canadian quintet, built on 20 years of friendship, ostensibly plays folk music, where warm tones and cantering rhythms buoy songs of characters wrestling with existential quandaries inside of twilit vocals. But after touring their lauded 2018 self-titled debut, Foxwarren decided to do it all differently, eventually dropping the familiar band-in-a-room routine to instead plug those songs, and various other sounds into a sampler.

One of the driving themes of Anthony Powell’s roman-fleuve, Dance to the Music of Time, is the contrast between those characters driven solely by power and those more in tune with life’s more sensual pleasures. Inevitably, time and fate catches up with each protagonist and the reader can ponder if their fates are justified or not. The New Sound, Geordie Greep’s debut solo album, often feels as if it is a rerun of Powell’s theme, soundtracked by a miscreant - and totally wired - Palm Court Orchestra.

Guitarist Ant Law’s background mirrors his musical versatility. Described as “a game changer” and “an innovator” according to The Guardian, his ninth album ‘Unified Theories’  features ten original compositions. This music will be the focus of this concert where Ant is joined by long-time ally Michael Chillingworth (alto saxophone), Conor Chaplin (bass) and Ananda Brandão (drums).

Mike Hall is a jazz saxophonist and educator based in Manchester. He began his musical career with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra which led to work with the late composer/pianist Michael Garrick with whom he toured Malaysia and made several CD recordings and Radio 3 broadcasts.

Boba Swing transport you to the heady jazz clubs of 1930s & 40s Paris and the music of legendary guitarist and composer Django Reinhardt before venturing further afield fusing elements from the group’s own musical backgrounds of Argentinian Tango, Romani trad. and Latin American Jazz.

Since forming during a Manouche inspired trip to France just over a year ago they have received great acclaim for their UK performances at Jazz festivals Rainford, Marsden and the JazzLeeds presentation at the Leeds Jazz Festivsl tent in 2024.

The ReDiffusion All-Stars are inspired by the disposable TV and library music and the soundtracks to thriller movies of the 50s, 60s and 70s. They stretch into the grooves of these fantastic pieces of music and bring them alive in their own inimitable way. This will be a very entertaining afternoon..

Kathy is a jazz guitarist, composer, educator and researcher, living in Yorkshire. She performs with and writes for an octet, duo, trio and quartet playing original music and standards. As well as playing with Inside Outside, she regularly plays with Deirdre Cartwright in the duo ‘Emily Remembered’ dedicated to the memory of Emily Remler.