‘Oh My God, that’s really, really good! …there is something quite ‘McCartney – esque’ about the melody’ Adam Walton, BBC Introducing (BBC Radio Wales)

Igloo Hearts are made up of Welsh, married musicians, James and Katie MacGregor. Recent performances include Llangollen International Eisteddfod, Focus Wales, The Liverpool Philharmonic (‘It Takes Two’) , and Purbeck Valley Folk Festival. Selected for the Focus Wales ‘Songwriting Bootcamp’, finalists for the Liverpool Acoustic Songwriting Competition 2023, finalists at the Purbeck Valley Rising Competition 2022, and 2nd place in the UK Folk category at the annual Radio Wigwam Awards.

Their music incorporates classical piano (Katie), acoustic guitar (James) and intricate, close harmonies, in a style that is hauntingly beautiful.

Tennyson King is a nomadic indie folk musician from Hong Kong and Canada performing in Canada, Australia, and Asia. His 2022 album ‘Good Company’, produced by Juno nominee Ross Hayes Citrullo has been featured on CBC Radio, SiriusXM, Stingray Music, OMNI TV Mandarin & Cantonese, and more. Recently named Songwriter of the Year at the 2022 Mississauga Music Awards and nominated for the 2023 Canadian Folk Music Awards. He is touring the UK for the first time in May 2023 with a handful of dates including a performance at the Knockengorroch Music Festival in Scotland and FOCUS Wales. Tennyson has captured audiences worldwide with his reverberant and earthy folk-rock blend, jovial personality, and intimately humorous lyrical storytelling. It’s a raw, gritty, and organic sound that makes the soul feel wild and the heart comforted.

Sarah Zyborska is a bilingual solo artist performing as SERA and a collaborator (Eve & Sera, Tapestri).

Sarah is also co-founder of CEG Music, which is a label, events and mentoring non-profit music company.

Sarah is a music facilitator, working with William Mathias Music Centre, Community Music Wales, Arts Council of Wales’ Creative learning through the arts, festivals, schools and other special projects.

She is also a writer (has an MA in screenwriting) and co-owns SdoRi production company.

Clara Day is a psych-folk artist based in Chester who has performed her carefully crafted, horror inspired tunes at various venues across the North West. Her sound has been described as having “dreamy, hypnotic melodies” with “intimate and haunting lyrics and a sensual sparseness”. Her first two singles, ‘The Ritual’ and ‘The Harvest’, have been played on BBC Introducing as well as various other radio stations. For fans of Vashti Bunyan, Mazzy Star, Donovan and Fairport Convention.

Georgia Harmer is an artist with an unforgettable voice. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Harmer has been making music since childhood, writing and recording her songs singe age 10 and touring the world as a backing vocalist while still a teenager. Across her debut album, Stay in Touch, Harmer captures ineffable moments with expressive detail: the euphoric memory of a summer’s day so perfect you want to live inside it forever, the dusty heat of a Texas afternoon, a tingle of melancholy on a solo walk home after a party. With a wisdom and poise that belies her youthful age, Harmer has penned an emotionally resonant collection of songs that articulate the ways in which even the most fleeting experiences can forge bonds between strangers, create families out of friends, and one by one form the joys and sorrows that make up a life.

Rona Mac (she/her) is a trailblazer for expression within music. She is a queer Singer-Songwriter creating lo-fi Alt-Indie with Folk and Americana influences, crafted in her caravan home-studio in west Wales. Her music comes raw and unfiltered, aching with the kind of nostalgia found in rural, rugged places. Primarily a guitarist, she weaves satisfying riffs with hooky melodies, using lyrics to reach out to people and make them feel. She strives to build texture, space, depth and grit beneath seemingly simple songs.

Despite music composition and performance being prominent in her life from a young age, her solo project began in 2020 and she has since released a DIY debut album ‘Sheelah’ and EP ‘Shades Of Ham’, learning and adoring the process of music production as a way to bring her songs to their full potential, exhibiting her captivating talent with music production.

Running up to releasing her E.P ‘Shades of Ham’ in 2022, Rona released single ‘Polidics’ which challenged her rugged sound by fusing it with a new, dance-able zest. Tom Robinson (Radio6) said it “takes her home-production to a new level”. This track was described by Adam Walton (RadioWales2021) as a “Late contender for song of the year”.

He goes on to say “Rona Mac just effortlessly made her own sound by simply daring to be herself…Very, very, very special”. This track was one of many to be featured on Bethan Elfyns WalesMixtape, as well as freshonthenet’s Eclectic Picks. She then released a second single ‘Smoke’, working with PlusMusicPR and CanvasMusicDistribution to achieve coverage in ClashMagazine, MusicCrowns and a track-by-track in AtwoodMagazine. It also garnered many editorial playlists spots across Spotify and Youtube such as ‘New Music Friday’, ‘Lost In The Woods’ and ‘The Most Beautiful Songs In The World’. This builds on successes from debut album ‘Sheelah’, with one track reaching 1⁄2 million plays on Spotify alone, resulting in 32’000 monthly listeners.

Vicki Blight interviewed her about her EP on the TheEveningShow (RadioWales) as she was getting a lot of airplay across RadioWales and 6, as well as Amazing Radio with 927 airplays so far. Her latest single ‘Pennies’ was played on Radio 1’s Chillest Show, with features in Notion, Lock, Vents, and others. In 2022, she has performed at BBC6 Music Festival, BoomTown, Hub Festival Cardiff, FOCUS Wales, Kendall Calling, Laugharne Festival and more. This builds on gigs from 2021, such as Swn Festival, Half Moon Putney, and Great Escape Festival. Funded by PRS foundation Women Make Music and Help Musicians UK, she will be releasing a new album in 2023, as well as collaborations with artists Dan Bettridge, Minas and Wil Owen.

“So much has happened in just two years, and I have worked tirelessly to create music that feels real to me, in hope that it might feel real to other people. My next album is very dear to my heart, and I strive to push at my boundaries to make something that I am truly proud of”

Described as one of the country’s most exciting new singer-songwriters, his early demos led to a record deal with Run On Records (The Coral, The Royston Club) & Modern Sky (Jamie Webster, Red Rum Club, The Blinders). He is a former member of The Gallerys, a successful band with several UK tours. Now embarking on a solo career, his influences include Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Jake Bugg, but James has grown his own rich sound powered by his compelling lyrics.

Members of JUNO nominated, Canadian Folk Music Award winning neo-folk quintet Aerialists, Elise Boeur & Adam Iredale-Gray explore fiddle music in fluid, easy lockstep. Fiddler and Hardanger fiddle player Elise Boeur draws from the wells of Norwegian and Swedish fiddle music, melds in fistfuls of arcane influences, and emerges with a multi-faceted sound grounded in Nordic traditions. A founding member of indie-folk band Fish & Bird, Adam Iredale-Gray is a versatile guitarist and fiddler with deep roots in Irish traditional music and a commitment to innovation. They each spent years touring as collaborators with diverse projects, and all along they were playing fiddle tunes at sessions, folk dances, and afterparties. With this duo project, you’re invited into these social music afterhours, as they dig into their favourite tunes on hardingfele, guitar, and raging twin fiddles.

Their show is a masterful exploration of traditional music collected from years of travel and immersion in aural traditions. A Norwegian gangar learned in the mountains of Telemark, Irish jigs picked up from countless sessions, a modern Icelandic jazz tune from a favourite record, a Swedish polska lifted from a community dance – the thread that connects these pieces is Boeur and Iredale-Gray’s open-hearted, contagious love of the melodies. Their new album Fiddle Tunes is exactly what the title promises; a celebration of the experience of sharing fiddle traditions the way they’ve been shared for centuries, the tune recreating itself anew with each repetition as folks sit knee to knee and play.

THE 10 BEST NEW ALBUMS FROM AROUND THE WORLD Songlines (March 2023 issue)

“There is an almost telepathic level of communication between the players” Fatea

“Gripping and visceral” Folkworld

Massimo was born, and spent most of his life, beneath Carnic Alps (north-east of italy).

In the charm of a borderland dwelled by an ancient idiom, he forms his very own musical language that portrays modern music, folklore and poetry through using Italian, English and Carnico. This expressiveness is embodied through his first ‘ø’ (2020) and ‘o’ (2021); two eps that collect songs written by Massimo many years ago, which are manifestations of a visceral search for everything that exists outside time and genre schemes.

A music of profound descent into human soul, into desolation and recesses of feelings. His debut album ‘HRUDJA’ will be released in fall 2023.

Playing Original blues songs influenced from a time gone by and passed down a long line of tradition C.F Boneslum was drawn to the blues early in life and now follows on from a genre of musical storytellers.

Bluesmen such as Robert Johnson, Howling Wolf, Blind Willie Mctell, among many others influence songs written about life, love, drink and the devil. Foot stomping rhythms and jazz influenced nuances with the twisted sounds influenced by Tom Waits all coming together and you have…

C.F Boneslum on Vox, harmonica and Electric Guitar
Lloydd Munro on Bass Guitar
Richie Goss on Drums

At the tender age of 19 Megan Lee is a seasoned musician. Having been raised by musician parents, Megan started touring with her family band at the tender age 11. Megan is now an accomplished singer-songwriter, a talented multi-instrumentalist and an experienced performer. Megan’s first instrument is guitar and she performs as a solo acoustic artist regularly across the UK. She also plays electric guitar, mandolin, banjo and Piano. Megan has fronted full band performances nationwide, at festivals, weddings, corporate events and grass root music venues.

Although Megan’s first love is country music, which influences her own original material and vocal styling, Megan performs a diverse range of cover material. Megan can be found performing anything from a 1950’s rock n roll classic to a current chart topper. Megan’s unique style makes each song authentic, rather than a cookie cutter copy of the original track. That’s not to say that Megan isn’t capable of mimicking the styles of other artists or playing a role. After spending many years at theatre school Megan is no stranger to playing a part and stage characterization.

Megan has appeared on many radio shows to promote her own material and has been nominated for radio awards in her chosen field. The success of Megan’s career is marked by an iTunes number 1 country album with her family band followed by 2 number 1 solo singles. Megan is an accomplished writer and has written for and with many other country artists.

Megan has an air of professionalism that isn’t often found in performers her age. Having spent many years performing to audiences in their thousands at some of the UK’s great festivals, television performances, song writers’ rounds, pantomime and musical theatre shows and playing subtle acoustic covers in bars, Megan has all the skills to embark on a bright and fulfilling career in the music industry.

Tom Emlyn crafts honest, swirling songs; tall tales and dark jokes that cut straight to the bone. His current solo work maps an alternative Southwalian landscape, a hallucinated community drawn from psychogeography and local history. Written on foot and by bus, his observational, poetic lyrics and simple 60s-folk influenced melodies explore what it means to belong to a place – the bitterness, the love and the humour. In the particular is contained the universal; and Tom Emlyn’s captivating songs explore the particularity and peculiarity of human experience in a unique way. His sound, while rooted in garage rock, is tinged with psychedelia, folk, and jazz/blues overtones – including a recent adoption of the harmonica as a lead instrument. In summer 2022, Tom released his debut solo album News From Nowhere, a bittersweet love letter to his hometown of Swansea, described by Adam Walton (BBC Radio Wales) as a record of “undoubted brilliance, eloquence and energy”. It has been hugely positively received, with airplay and support from Radio Wales, BBC Horizons, R.E.P.E.A.T. fanzine, God Is In The TV, and Joyzine, among others. Tom’s second album I’ve Seen You In Town followed hot on the heels of the first – a more mellow, acoustic affair which was similarly well received. He is currently promoting these records with intimately explosive solo and band performances across Wales and beyond, and more long-awaited releases planned for 2023.

Adjua is a Welsh/ Ghanaian alt-rnb vocalist and guitarist, from Splott. She has been making music since 2021 and has recently just released her debut EP, ‘Self’, which is available on all platforms. She writes and produces her own music, drawing inspiration from her life experiences and her spirituality.

Art Ross (they/them) and Aaron Green (he/him) come from disparate backgrounds and musical forms, meeting in the middle to comprise a band that’s tender and fierce, exuberant and gentle.

Green—a veteran of the Halifax rock scene, the guitar anchor of Floodland and Hello Delaware—and Ross—a trans songwriter with an acoustic guitar—started writing songs together over text, by accident. Pillow Fite emerged publicly at the start of 2021 with its non-binary gender-subverting aesthetics already in place and a languid lead single in “Playing the Fool.” Halifax, a town built on and stuck in rock music made by men, responded with supportive fervour, selling out back-to-back shows that saw the duo expand its sound with help from the scene’s most in-demand players.

Fans of the intimate and observational lyrics of Kathleen Edwards and the intensity and moodiness of Radiohead will find similar amenities in Pillow Fite. Between Ross’ boldly queer, bravely intimate lyrics and Green’s tasteful and inventive guitar lines—he’s also cut his production teeth on this project—they evoke weeping and singalongs in equal measure.

Drawing on the influence and emotional heft of songwriters such as Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Tegan and Sara, Pillow Fite’s debut record solidifies a fusion of a diverse array of experiences, genres, and ideas. Flutter is a an album that is as deeply heartfelt as it is catchy against all odds. The the Halifax duo collaborated with John Mullane (In-Flight Safety, Loviet, POSTFUN) to create a project that is bold yet quiet, intimate, and full of tender moments. Pillow Fite is music for your break-up and your rebound, the future and the now, a cut and a kiss.

Jack in Water (William Clapson) is a British artist living in Mallorca known for his melancholic and alternative music where he explores various themes such as masculinity and mental health.

Last year he released his debut album ‘You Don’t Feel Like Home’ following a series of EP’s . Trauma, repression, difficult family relationships or alcohol abuse are some of the complex aspects that this body of work addresses in contrast with the freshness provided by the tender ballad dedicated to his best friend and previous collaborator Oliver Chapman in ‘Unconditional Love’.

In 2022 he released an EP of songs he wrote during 2020 called ‘The Year We Lost’. It is a set of songs written as gifts requested by fans and friends when COVID hit and the world started to lock down. There are songs from friends to friends, Mothers to sons and partner to partner. All were forced apart so wanted to send a message of hope or love to each other via the medium of music. What does 2023 have in store? A new album and a few more surprises.

‘A songwriter with real depth.’ Clash

‘Out of his comfort zone and into the intimidating space of emotional vulnerability.’ Atwood

Ellen Froese is what you’d call a “prolific artist”; committed, too. For someone who only just passed the threshold of their mid-20s, she’s amassed a resolutely solid body of work and, with a variety of projects, achieved more than some many years her senior. For Each Flower Growing, Froese’s fourth full-length, produced in collaboration with the Sheepdogs’ Sam Corbett, is her most accomplished statement to date, drawing on her established sound as a folk & country-based singer/songwriter while incorporating a wider frame of reference in the rich production, supple instrumentation, and overall sonic soundworld. It’s much harder to pin down than any simple description can convey, making it all the more worthwhile to check out.

The impressive scope of this rich, imaginative amalgam of an album is largely due to the expansive creative vision of Froese herself, who says the album is “based around ideas of 1970s science exploration via Carl Sagan’s series Cosmos, Arthur Russell’s drum machine folk music, finding humour in sadness, and analyzing past relationship choices”. Some of these guiding elements can be attributed simply to the continuing growth of a serious artist, but others lie in less sunny realities. Jill Mack, Froese’s original recording engineer and close friend, sadly passed away during the making of For Each Flower Growing, and subsequently the album became, as she puts it, “something different – it is now an homage to her and will always hold memories of my time in the studio with her”.

Despite this deep sadness underpinning the album’s creation, Froese was lucky to find a wonderful creative foil in Sam Corbett, helping her move past old ideas and reimagine her conception of what “folk music” can be. With the addition of drum machines, synths, and more intricate vocal production techniques, Froese reflects that “folk music can be anything I want it to be; I don’t have to be stuck in an antiquated mindset to hold strong musical ties to the past”. And the results of that mindset are stellar; For Each Flower Growing is exquisitely warm and inviting, foregrounding the singer’s lilting, ethereal vocals atop right-in-the-pocket, pillow-y drumming, melodic bass lines, ripples of Hammond organ layers, and – for the headphone listener – a bevvy of expertly-placed sonic details tucked into the margins of this highly accomplished album.

The album is an easy listen, immediately inviting and begging for repeat listens. And while it sits nicely alongside contemporary songsmiths such as Angel Olsen, Laura Veirs, Jessica Pratt, and Adrienne Lenker (Big Thief), Froese’s sound moves beyond those realms, also recalling the aforementioned Arthur Russell, an iconoclastic songwriter and producer whose songs traded in similar contemplative, horizon-gazing moods, and even the more relaxed moments of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco. In other moments, Froese’s roots in the trad-folk world shine through, revealing an affinity for ’60s British folk trailblazers such as Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, as well as under the radar gems like Judee Sill and Sybille Baier. Froese recently completed a string of live dates with beloved fellow Saskatchewanians Deep Dark Woods, and she is gearing up for a residency at the legendary Cameron House in Toronto for the month of November. The album is due out on November 10 via Victory Pool Records, and appreciators of fine music would be well-advised to check it out.

Hannah Scott draws much of the inspiration for her music from her affinity with Italy. A year living and working on an olive press in rural Tuscany in her late teens provided the backdrop to her early work and she has found her musical home with creative partner, writer-producer and multi-instrumentalist Stefano Della Casa, who she met in London but may well have met in Italy years earlier when passing through the train station he was working in!

Hannah performs contemporary folk music and is building a loyal following thanks to her distinctive voice, powerful melodies and thought-provoking lyrics which leave a lasting impression on her audiences. Her latest album “Drawn To Darkness” was funded by Help Musicians UK and a Kickstarter campaign which reached more than double the initial target.

Her music has been heard in hit TV series, Grey’s Anatomy, and has been played regularly on the BBC with releases supported by Dermot O’Leary and Bob Harris on BBC Radio 2 and Tom Robinson on 6 Music. She’s also been featured by MOJO, The Guardian and Clash Magazine. She has been selected to take part in English Folk Expo’s highly competitive Artist Mentoring Programme this year, while live highlights include opening for Madeleine Peyroux to an audience of 2000 at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre and travelling across Ireland with Paddy Casey to open shows for him in Dublin and in a tiny Irish speaking village near Galway! Her arresting live performances have also earned her support slots for artists including Seth Lakeman, Cara Dillon and 10cc and she has twice travelled to New York festival Mondo NYC.

Maddie Morris was the winner of the BBC Radio 2 Young folk award, and is a contemporary folk musician, who is heavily influenced by traditional protest song Originally from Bedfordshire and currently based in Leeds, Maddie is a strong believer that ‘the personal is political’, and uses her own experiences to raise discussion around issues such as LGBTQ rights, CSA, Feminism and trauma, too name a few.

Heather Ferrier is an accordionist, clog dancer and composer from Stockport. Regarded as an “engaging talker and magnetic performer” (NARC magazine), 2022 has seen Heather release her debut solo concept EP From the Ashes. This EP intertwines virtuosic alt-accordion composition with lush electronic soundscapes and through its powerful, folk-influenced melodies and bold contemporary arrangements, explores the emotional processes we undergo during times of uncertainty. The EP has been favourably reviewed, as well as being played on BBC radio Newcastle and other grassroot radio stations. This year also see’s Heather expanding her solo sound, by joining forces with guitarist Alasdair Paul (Pons Aelius) and drummer Adam Stapleford (Taupe). In their forthcoming EP; the trio have created music that is an explosion of groove and melody that embellishes Heather’s signature alt-folk style. The combination of Ferrier, Paul and Stapleford’s melting pot of influences and cross-genre collaborations transcends the limits of contemporary instrumental folk music, using Heather’s distinct compositional style to create emotive and upbeat arrangements.

Having been honing his song-writing craft and live performances over the past decade, George Boomsma has been quietly gaining some well-earnt attention and acclaim. Based in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, George’s pure voice and tumbling guitar make for a bewitching combination – warm and melancholy, melodic yet powerful, he exhibits a maturity and poetic lyricism that have left audiences around the country entranced.

He has been invited to play alongside many impressive and established artists such as Richard Thompson, Scott Matthews, Katherine Priddy, Gaby Moreno, Kathryn Williams, The Travelling Band, Chloe Foy, Neill Maccoll, Jefferson Hamer, Emma Langford and Martha Tilston. On top of these live performances, his music been featured on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 Music and RTE Radio 1.

2022 has already seen George perform at the prestigious Glastonbury Festival, A UK tour accompanying Katherine Priddy, a slot at the acclaimed Port Fairy Folk Festival in Australia and also a trip to Kansas City for the Folk Alliance International conference. He has also been chosen as one of the four artists to be a part of this years English Folk Expo’s Artist Mentorship Programme, which will help to support and develop George’s career in the music industry throughout 2022/2023. Other highlights include performances at Latitude Festival & Moseley Folk Festival, a musical appearance on UKTV’s Taskmaster and a featured track on Japanese TV show ‘Terrace House’.

Wrexham legend, Kip (A.K.A ‘the human jukebox’) is the friendly host of our folk at the ‘Oak sessions at the Royal Oak pub once again this year!