Ida Wenøe - www.idawenoe.com

“Bewitching acid folk with a deeply personal edge”– Clash Magazine

Amongst a digital mountain range littered with accomplished folk-ish bands and singersongwriters, it is a rare miracle to come across a cave so rich in jewels as the one beneath Ida Wenøe’s ribcage. While she has an obvious appreciation of Americana, her sound is very definitely laced with more English undertones: the kind of sound Edward Woodward might have heard downstairs in the local inn had the Wicker Man been filmed in a remote Danish village, while Sarah Lund scoured for clues in her jumper. Like the best of the Nordic Noir leaving the Danish mainland, the recordings are at once both sonically pure and grimy; there’s a shared loneliness that makes you feel that you’re not at all; and all the while there is an honesty to the songwriting that tugs at your sleeve. While her grasp of English is second nature, there’s some of those intriguing turns of phrase that only a heart that dreams in another language can weave: “The deep conceals things that are real/ look beyond the mirror/look beyond the mirror” , “I know we see things differently/as long as it’s not separately” and “You’re a fish in a bottle/a cock in a coop/the essence of trying…”

Sure, she has the usual credible influences from Vashti to Joni, from Neil Young to Danish folk hero Sebastian; and there’s hints of Sandy Denny and Linda Perhacs. But to list artists she sounds like would be to miss the point entirely. As anyone who has witnessed a live show can attest, Ida Wenøe is very definitely Ida Wenøe. As Carsten Holm at Danish Radio P6 Beat put it, “she has an icy, almost Icelandic timbre. I haven’t heard this in any other Danish artist… an incredibly strong vocal…” God Is In The TV Zine went on to say her voice “boasts angelic notes which can often leak her endearing Danish roots…”

Samantha Whates https://www.facebook.com/samanthawhatesmusic

With Scottish roots, transplanted into London’s soil in her teenage years, Samantha Whates is a cosmopolitan Celt with equal parts concrete and heather to her music. In those songs, you’re as likely to hear the breaking of day as you are broken hearts slowly mending, or just the conversational musings of people on their lunch break. All shades of human experience are subtly blended. Some people settle in The Smoke lose their accent, dizzied by Hackney Carriage fumes and too many rotations round the Circle Line. Samantha’s delivery is smoothly Scottish to its core. Urban and urbane, you’ll hear the timeless qualities in her songs that songs that reflect the existences of real-life folk ought to possess.

Samantha’s live show lends itself to venues of any size, from the back room of a small-town pub to the largest of festivals and major London venues (Union Chapel, Cecil Sharp House, Tate Modern, Royal Festival Hall, Roundhouse). Her debut album, Dark Nights Make For Brighter Days & EP Trees & Gold, earned radio play transcending pure folk shows (BBC 6Music, Radio 2, KCRW, Resonance FM), as well as praise from a reassuringly large body of people who know their onions:

“The most beautiful album...” Bob Harris, BBC Radio 2

"Just gorgeous." Tom Robinson, BBC 6Music

"I love her voice" Dolly Parton