The Bridge is an umbrella group dedicated to coordinating local folk clubs and sessions, identifying opportunities for performers in East Anglia, and encouraging creativity through songwriting and performance workshops.

Lally MacBeth is an artist, writer and curator based in Cornwall. Her work takes in history, folklore, performance, ritual and artifice – and the links between high and low culture. She is the founder of The Folk Archive and co-founder of Stone Club. She has written for Caught by the River, House and Garden, and Hellebore, appeared on BBC Radio 3 and programmed events for the Tate, the British Museum and the ICA, amongst others. The Lost Folk is her first book.

A fresh and engaging celebration of the customs, places, objects and peoples that make up what we know as ‘folk’ in Britain.

Cut the Mustard are an eclectic bluesy duo with a distinctive style and a special fondness for ragtime. Dave Oxley and Martin Kaszak (right) have rich and powerful voices, accompanied on National guitar, mandocello, stomp box and blues harp. Got a feeling called the blues! 

Becca Rose is a Suffolk-based singer-songwriter crafting sounds rooted in folk tradition with a bluesy, soulful edge. Her poetic songs explore ancestry, identity, and the stories that shape us, woven within guitar, harmonium and her distinctive vocals. Alongside her original material, she brings a fresh, emotive twist to reimagined classics, and is an intimate and captivating live act. 'There’s a natural emotional depth in her delivery that feels both intimate and expansive, as if each lyric is lived rather than performed.’ 

Amy Pearl is a multi-instrumentalist and singer from Bury St Edmunds. Blending contemporary and traditional folk, she creates a sound that is distinctly her own. Joined by American singer-songwriter Ryan Harvey, this duo brings rich harmonies and songs you’ll want to hear again and again.

Why dwell on the past when we could just live in the present because the future won't shut up about how bad it's going to be? 

But with This Is The Kit, the pseudonym of songwriter / banjo strummer / pinhole camera lover / Winchester UK born Paris dweller Kate Stables, we're going to have to give time just a modicum of consideration. Because not only is Kate still here and making albums of cataclysmic honesty and welcoming tonal embraces, they are continuing to grow, which is probably the only smart way to move forward through time.

This Is The Kit's music places companionship at a premium, so being welcomed into its space feels like an obvious privilege, on record and in concert hall with her stellar supporting cast of Rozi Plain (bass), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums) and Neil Smith (guitar).  And at this current point in our confusing history, continuing to be here at all, to stand tall and make music to gather to, that's a heroic act. Joyful survival as an act of time-wasting,  I'll take that any day of the week. Look to This Is The Kit to spend at least one day of your week this year, I guarantee it will be time well wasted. 

The Thorn (formerly Large Plants), are a musical group from London, England who play psych-tinged heavy folk-rock with nods to jazz and soul that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Numero compilation of lost early 70’s fuzz jams. Initially formed in 2021 to play the solo recordings of founder Jack Sharp (Wolf People), the live band has since grown and changed, developing a life of its own. Joined by bassist Paul Milne (Hanging Stars, Green Seagull), and drummer Itamar Rubinger (Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats), they played many shows supporting the likes of Mudhoney, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Chris Cohen and Johnny Echols’ Love.

In 2024 they were joined by Cambridge singer songwriter Naomi Randall and were able to explore their love of British folk-rock pioneers like Trees, Pentangle, and Fairport Convention. The new name The Thorn was chosen to mark the change whilst acknowledging a continuation of the spirit of the band.

Ustad Noor Bakhsh, from near Pasni, Balochistan, is a maestro of the Balochi Benju (a keyed Zither), which he has played since he was a child. Noor Bakhsh is well known as a legendary instrumentalist throughout the Makran Coast, but only garnered wider attention after his most recent recordings and videos. The Benju, was once a Japanese children’s toy called the taishōkoto before it was adopted by Balochi musicians and made into the refined folk instrument that it is today. Noor Bakhsh plays an electric Benju, getting his sound through an old pickup and small Phillips amp he bought from Karachi 2 decades ago. He carries forward the legacy of his teachers and inspirations such as Bilawal Belgium and Misri Khan Jamali but his own music elicits influences from various traditions and musical forms far beyond Balochistan. His virtuosic playing is deeply rooted in Balochi musical forms and enriched by his knowledge of South Asian Raags, which he also renders in his own, experimental style. 

His repertoire includes Persian and Kurdish tunes that have probably floated in his land since before the modern borders of Iran and Pakistan were set up and Balochistan, divided as it were. In one of his recent recording sessions, he even played an Arabic Ghazal on his Benju. Needless to say, he also renders popular and folk tunes in all the major languages spoken across Pakistan. His Sindhi repertoire is particularly novel in that it reflects a beautiful conversation between the neighbouring musical cultures of Sindh and Balochistan. No surprises, that Noor Baksh plays several Bollywood songs too, after all, he has soaked the sounds around him like a sponge, including those of all birds in the mountains and the jungle near his village. Other than his diverse repertoire, he has several original compositions too, including one inspired by bird songs. His debut album, 'Jingul‘, was released digitally in September 2022, and came out on vinyl via the UK’s Hive Mind Records on September 15, 2023.

For listeners unfamiliar with Balochi music, Noor Baksh’s electric Benju tone and his melodic ornamentations will be reminiscent of Ali Farka Toure’s style, and polyrhythmic sixes and eights with so much groovy innovation and improvisation will make the body move in ways very similar to the music of West as well as East Africa. This is unsurprising, given the well documented migrations and seafaring, historical, intimacies between Balochistan and Africa, via the greater Indian Ocean world. It is this world that his music brings back to life.