Alex Highton, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Maia

After growing up in Liverpool, and then ten years or so in London, Alex Highton decamped with his family to rural Cambridgeshire. What he found was an England he didn't know existed and a life he didn't know he was looking for. With no expectations at all he wrote and recorded a bunch of songs that chronicled his journey from the city to the country.

These songs appear on his debut album 'Woodditton Wives Club' which will be released 24th February on The Local Label.

"Frankly it's a real boost to discover a genuine world class practitioner who restores your faith in the genre..." - TOM ROBINSON, BBC6Music

"....an old-fashioned troubadour in the strictest sense. Strumming gentle folk songs on his guitar, his warm and soulful voice conjures up memories of sun-kissed summer nights out on the lawn." - METRO

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Maria Doyle Kennedy is an award-winning Irish actress and singer known for her roles in Downton Abbey, The Commitments, Queen Katherine of Aragon and The Tudors.

Maria’s new album with her husband Kieran is called The Storms Are On the Ocean. A collection of Appalachian standards dressed in darned gowns, its spiritual siblings are Robert Plant's Band of Joy, PJ Harvey's White Chalk and Gillian Welch's stark daguerreotypes. Here are courtly tunes, murder ballads, child ballads and death fugues all backlit by Kieran Kennedy's acoustic guitar, banjo and piano.

Her previous solo albums have been nominated for Meteor awards and her forthcoming project sees her teamed with U.S. country music legend John Prine Damien Rice and Paul Brady.

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Maia are a 4 piece alternative, acoustic band from Huddersfield playing all sorts of disco sci-fi folk pop on ukulele, cajon, trumpet, banjo, mandolin or whatever else is lying around.

“The most impressive aspect of Maia the Band is that they are more adventurous and eclectic within the course of a single song than some artists dare to be in their entire career” - FOR FOLK'S SAKE