Northgate Folk Festival is a new experimental and contemporary folk all-dayer festival brought to us by North West-based promoters Choir of Outsiders. The festival is set in the heart of Chester, nestled within its ancient Roman City Walls, where they will “celebrate the wyrd and wonderful traditional talents of these Isles.”
The lineup aligns beautifully with our own tastes here at Folk Radio, so the artists they have lined up will be familiar to many of our regular readers and listeners.
It’s an exciting time for music…something this lineup demonstrates. Many of the names here are exciting exploratory artists forging new and unrestricted paths in folk music. Still, I think it’s probably fair to say that there aren’t many promoters putting on such original lineups as this, so I applaud their efforts, and I hope this sort of venture encourages others to start being more creative with their lineup choices…a lot of the big festival lineups I’ve seen this year appear too familiar and similar…artists that are forging new ground deserve more exposure…and some people do want to have their musical horizons broadened.
Northgate Folk Festival Lineup
When seeking artists whose vision is set on broad musical horizons, Northgate Folk Festival’s choice of headliner – Brìghde Chaimbeul – couldn’t be better. As Thomas Blake said in the opening of his album review – “It is a quirk of musical fate that some of the most traditional forms can produce the most experimental sounds.” – That’s an area in which the Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul has excelled, as evidenced by her most recent album, Carry Them With Us, which saw her join forces with the acclaimed Canadian sound explorer and saxophonist Colin Stetson (Arcade Fire), who also co-produced the album. Blake described the album as:
…an extraordinary experience that has slowly begun to resemble a series of strange, beautiful dream-stories, told with flair, nuance and incredible technical proficiency, but more importantly, with a real sense of ambition and innovation.
Just as this album was met with wide critical acclaim, so was her debut, The Reeling, which was named Folk Album Of The Month by The Guardian – who called it “simultaneously ancient and modern, profound and direct” -it garnered five-star reviews across the board.
The progressive folk nine-piece Shovel Dance Collective have been making equally big impressions with their unique interpretations of traditional music. Their most recent album, The Water is the Shovel of the Shore, was described in these pages by Thomas Blake:
…one of the most forward-thinking and original collections of traditional material you’re likely to hear this year, or any year.
As I read through the lineup for this festival, the smile on my face just kept broadening, I am genuinely moved and excited by the careful thought that has gone into this lineup. A name I have been following for a long time now is Gareth Bonello, aka The Gentle Good. His music is steeped in the folk traditions of Wales yet fully attuned to the present day. Helen Gregory described his 2016 album Ruins/Adfeilion (a Featured Album of the Month) as an absorbing, thoughtful and ultimately forward-looking collection of songs which perfectly showcase Gareth’s flawless musicianship and creative vision.
Another firm favourite who is performing and also DJing throughout the day is Bobby Lee. One reviewer on FRUK once said: This is music meant for altered states and slipping in and out of lucidity and fevers. Like a serpent swallowing its own tail, no tracks truly stand out, just a hot afternoon spiral perpetually throating itself.
We just shared the news of his new album Endless Skyways and chose his lead single, Acid Grassland, as a Tune of the Day.
He will be joined by the many-tasselled, multi-talented Toria Wooff, a breakout act in the North West; we premiered her single ‘All I Dream About (Is You)’, and, as said then, she finds beauty in the bleakest places. A hyper-real painter, poet and musician with Synesthesia, the characters she encounters emerge through song and ‘All I Dream About (Is You)’ showcases a more vulnerable side to her artistry.
The highly-idiosyncratic, hypnotic banjo player Jacken Elswyth is also making a welcome appearance. In fact, this quote from the review of their ‘Six Static Scenes‘ could be used as a rider for this festival – a celebration of the other, the road not taken, and as such, it shows just how much scope there is for finding new and unrestricted paths in folk music.
An equally adventurous band that knows no bounds is Milkweed. Of their most recent album, Mound People (like a reconstituted form of folk music that feels as if it were created with alien technology and then left in a burial mound of its own for a few hundred years), Thomas Blake said: Folk music has always been inextricably tied up with history, but rarely has the relationship been as mysterious and rewarding as it is here. As for their debut EP, Milkweed Sings Carols –
They seem intent on reviving the more outlandish, eccentric traditions of folk music, where old and new religions intermingle and where strange, bewitching sounds proliferate. This can only be a good thing.
Also appearing is the velveteen-voiced singer-songwriter Calum Gilligan; David Weir…one of the promoters, saw this singer at the Den Festival at Cambridge Folk Festival in 2019; in his review, he described him as a gifted songwriter with a voice to back it up. He was right…
Also appearing are Lancashire broadside balladress and actress Jennifer Reid, who is in Shane Meadows’ new BBC series The Gallows Pole, and Robbie Caswell-jones who will no doubt be getting those feet a tapping with some old time numbers.
Northgate Folk Festival – 26th August 2023
Tickets and details can be found here: https://alexanderslive.seetickets.com/event/northgate-folk-festival/alexander-s-live/2656094