T’is a thrill as ever to announce this next round of Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer. 

Curating these line-ups is a lot of fun, of course there is a responsibility to make each show individual and special, with its own peculiar flavour, and that just helps with the excitement, as the bills come together, keeping the quality high, the art diverse. I’m delighted that we have these four pure braw nights to look forward to.

I’m a fan of every single act coming up and there’s no doubt I’d be attending every one of these shows even if I wasn’t programming them. As ever, I have to thank Creative Scotland for their continued support, helping Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer bring world class talent to the great town of Kirkcaldy. 

Sat 14th September – Jane Weaver / Ian Rankin / Callum Easter

Friday 25th October – Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai) / Bell Lungs / Gwenifer Raymond

Sat 16th November – Hollie McNish / Ye Vagabonds / Nancy Kerr & Luke Daniels

Sat 14 th December – Josie Long / Martin & Eliza Carthy / Rachel Newton

Further info follows below…

Sat 14 th September – Jane Weaver / Ian Rankin / Callum Easter

Jane Weaver

Abusing, evading and obliterating 20 years of whimsical pop trends, Jane Weaver’s experience as a truly independent and resilient female experimental songwriter / sound-carrier commands respect and inspiration in equal measures.

Here we find a model student of second-hand Kraut-rock, female punk, hard-subbed new-wave, synthesiser skip-finds and unpronounceable worldly feminine pop who’s finally reached her eureka moment.

“Motorik rhythms and ancient technology create music that brims with urgency and originality.” MOJO

Ian Rankin

“I’ll be in the middle of writing a new novel (hopefully) so may give a sneaky reading from that.  I’ll mostly be talking about the writer’s life, with a few (hopefully) funny anecdotes along the way.  Should I take questions from the audience?  That could happen.  And there’ll be a bit of chat about growing up in the wilds of Fife (six long miles from Kirkcaldy), my weekly pilgrimages to the Pogo-A-Gogo club (literally next door to the Adam Smith Centre) and how music was my first love (and it will be my last)…”

Callum Easter

Edinburgh-based singer of otherworldly rhythm and blues songs, an artist who has built a strong local reputation emerging from the creative heat of the Leith studio that spawned Mercury Prize-winning act Young Fathers – with whom Callum plays keys and lap steel live and has toured with as support.

Friday 25^th October – Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai) / Bell Lungs / Gwenifer Raymond

Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai)

Stuart is the guitarist and de facto frontman of Scottish post-rock legends Mogwai. This visit to Fife will see Stuart performing an incredibly rare solo guitar set.

Bell Lungs

Celestial drones, mesmerising vocals and glitchy electronics from experimental dream pop musician Bell Lungs. Fiercely DIY, this one-woman powerhouse from Scotland has been touring perpetually for the past few years across the UK, Europe and USA, her striking voice appearing on the airwaves of BBC Radio 3, 4 and 6.

Gwenifer Raymond

Gwenifer began playing guitar at the age of 5 and after years of playing around the Welsh valleys in various punk outfits she began listening more to pre-war blues musicians as well as Appalachian folk players, eventually leading into the guitar players of the American Primitive genre.

‘…a profound talent.’ *****   The Guardian

‘…embodies all that is commendable about these folk titans…’ *****          Record Collector

‘…stunningly confident, in full possession of its art’   Uncut

Sat 16 th November – Hollie McNish / Ye Vagabonds / Nancy Kerr & Luke Daniels

Hollie McNish

Hollie McNish is a full-time writer who loves writing poetry. She has published three poetry collections Papers, Cherry Pie and Plum, and one poetic memoir on politics and parenthood, Nobody Told Me, of which the Scotsman suggested “The world needs this book” and for which she won the Ted Hughes Award. Hollie tours continuously all over the UK and Europe and beyond and is a big fan of online readings – her poetry videos have attracted millions of views worldwide.

Ye Vagabonds

Brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn, sing in Irish and English and accompany themselves on violin, bouzouki, guitar and mandolin. They were nominated for a BBC Folk Award on the strength of their self-released and largely self-written debut album and have receiving several nods from the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards.

Nancy Kerr and Luke Daniels

Two of the British folk scene’s top performers have teamed up for some duo/double header shows to perform their own and each other’s music. Nancy Kerr is one of the most celebrated folk musicians of her generation and has to date won 6 Folk Awards from BBC Radio 2: 2015 Folk Singer of the Year. A stunning mix of contemporary folk music and inspired instrumental virtuosity.

“Luke Daniels is a master melodeon player” – Mark Radcliffe

Sat 14th December – Josie Long / Özgür Baba / Rachel Newton

* Özgür Baba unfortunately had to cancel this show due to visa issues. His replacement was English folk legends Martin and Eliza Carthy*

Josie long

Josie Long is one of the most respected comedians of her generation.

Her eighth solo stand-up show, Something Better, had a sell-out two weeks at the Soho Theatre in London, followed by a two-week run at the Barrow Street Theatre New York.

She has been nominated for the coveted Best Show award at the Edinburgh Fringe three times and has won the BBC New Comedy Award.

On TV and radio, Josie has appeared on The News Quiz, Just A Minute, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Skins, 8 out of 10 Cats, and Drunk History.

Özgür Baba

Özgür Baba is a Turkish folk musician and singer. He plays the saz, a traditional Turkish string instrument. His music is an enchanting, minimalist interpretation of old, traditional Turkish folk songs. His Youtube performance of Dertli Dolap (“Endless Trouble”) has had over two million views.

Rachel Newton

Singer and harpist Rachel Newton was named the 2017 BBC Radio 2 Folk Musician of the Year and the Scots Trad Music Award Instrumentalist of the Year 2016. Her third solo album Here’s My Heart Come Take It was shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award as one of Scotland’s top ten outstanding albums and was described as ‘a beauty’ in the Observer.

JAMES YORKSTON’S TAE SUP WI’ A FIFER

RETURNS WITH SHOWS IN KIRKCALDY, EDINBURGH AND DUNFERMLINE, 

SUMMER-AUTUMN-WINTER 2018

 

Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer, the eclectic live music showcase curated by Fife-based singer-songwriter James Yorkston, is delighted to announce its biggest run of shows yet in the summer-autumn-winter of 2018, taking place this time not just at its usual home, the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy, but also expanding to the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Dunfermline’s Outwith Festival. Organised with support from Creative Scotland, each show will feature three or more varied and complimentary talents from different global avenues of indie, rock, folk, electronic and spoken word performance. See below for full line-ups. Tickets for all shows are available now.

 

MONDAY, AUGUST 27th @ THE SPIEGELTENT, EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL

Music from Sheena Wellington, Richard Dawson, Yorkston Thorne Khan and poetry readings from Jamaica’s poet laureate Lorna

Goodison and Jeet Thayil, poet and novelist, author of Narcopolis and The Book of Chocolate Saints. [FREE & DROP-IN]

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7th @ THE ADAM SMITH THEATRE, KIRKCALDY + SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 @ ROYAL BRITISH LEGION, DUNFERMLINE (OUTWITH FESTIVAL)

Rachel Sermanni is a Scottish folk-noir balladeer from Carrbridge in Strathspey. ‘Minimal, Murky, Magnificent’ – Mojo. ‘Unnervingly pretty and graceful’ – NME. ‘Stately, Poetic, Rooted in the Traditional’ – Clash.  

Martin Carr was born in Thurso, Scotland. He formed The Boo Radleys in Merseyside in 1987, before making solo music as Bravecaptain. He now records under his own name, his latest album being New Shapes Of Life.

Emma Pollock is a founding member of critically acclaimed Scottish band The Delgados. She has gone on to release three solo albums, the latest of which In Search of Harperfield was shortlisted for the 2016 SAY Award. [TICKETS KIRKCALDY] [TICKETS DUNFERMLINE]

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20th @ THE ADAM SMITH THEATRE, KIRKCALDY

Justin Currie is singer and main songwriter in Del Amitri, who during a long and distinguished career have released four top 10 albums. In 2017 Currie released his critically acclaimed fifth solo album This is My Kingdom Now.

 Nell Ní Chróinín is an Irish sean-nós singer from County Cork. She is the youngest ever person to receive both TG4’s Gradam Ceoil Traditional Singer of the Year Award and the prestigious Corn Uí Riada Award.

Brigid Mae Power is an Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who paints her songs in dreamily expansive strokes, transporting earthly compositions into universal and exultant realms.

[TICKETS]

 

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17 @ THE ADAM SMITH THEATRE, KIRKCALDY

Roddy Woomble is the lead singer with much-loved Edinburgh indie-rock band Idlewild, as well as a prolific alt-folk solo artist. His debut solo album My Secret Is My Silence turned 10 in 2016.

Archie Fisher is a master guitarist, singer and songwriter, MBE and one of Scotland’s foremost troubadours, known throughout the country as the host of BBC Radio Scotland’s award-winning Travelling Folk show.

Ora Cogan has released seven albums to date and collaborated with a multitude of artists while touring extensively. Her new album, Crickets, has married the intricate and atmospheric style this artist is known for with bold new arrangements that stretch out across many a sonic realm.

“Cogan can be strikingly sparse and overwhelmingly composed in the same sublime breath. She summons orchestral waves of violins and rolling psychedelic guitars, propelled forward by a voice that sweeps audiences away under a tsunami of blissful sonic complexity.” – Sled Island Festival

[TICKETS]

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15 @ THE ADAM SMITH THEATRE, KIRKCALDY

Vashti Bunyan’s debut album Just Another Diamond Day was produced by Joe Boyd and released in 1970, becoming a cult classic. She began to write again and her second album Lookaftering was released in 2005.

Ed Dowie – Lost Map’s Ed Dowie learned the piano and the organ as a child from his father, before becoming a chorister and an organist in Dorset. His music career began in earnest in 1998 when his Bournemouth-based psychedelic-dub-pop band Brothers in Sound – stablemates of the legendary Beta Band on cult Parlophone subsidiary Regal Recordings

Michael Pedersen is a Robert Louis S tevenson Fellowship winner, a John Mather Trust Rising Star of Literature, a Canongate Future 40, Neu! Reekie! co-founder/co-chief and much more.

[TICKETS]

For interview and guest list requests, images or further information contact Malcolm Jack at Simply Thrilled PR:  E: malcolm@simply-thrilled.co.uk T: 07974113751

Friday May 18th 2018

Ian McMillan, Withered Hand, Grace Petrie

Ian McMillan is a writer and broadcaster. His latest collection To Fold The Evening Star – New and Selected Poems was published last year. As well as presenting BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, he’s a regular on BBC Breakfast, Coast, Countryfile. ‘inching towards the status of a National Treasure’ – Andy Kershaw

Grace Petrie, A folk singer, songwriter and activist, Grace Petrie’s Heart First Aid Kit was one of Mojo magazine’s top 10 albums of 2017. She has racked up tour supports with Emmy the Great and Billy Bragg, and supported comedians Robin Ince and Josie Long. She has collaborated with some of the most respected names in folk, including Leon Rosselson, Roy Bailey and Peggy Seeger.

Withered Hand – aka Dan Wilson. His two albums, ‘Good News’ and ‘New Gods’, have garnered accolades and been praised for their depth and startling honesty. A Rolling Stone ‘Artist to Watch’. “New Gods is a record whose amiably DIY musical quality is perfectly matched with a lyrical tone which is at once tuned to a laser-like precision and helped no end by a voice which sounds agonised but still hopeful at every turn” ***** The Scotsman

Tickets here

Saturday 16th June 2018

Michael Hurley/Phill Jupitus/Siobhan Wilson

Rare UK appearance by hugely influential American alt-folk music legend Michael Hurley. His debut album, First Songs, was released on Folkways Records in 1965. Michael describes his music as “jazz-hyped blues and country and western”.

Phill Jupitus is a comedian, actor, performance poet, cartoonist and podcaster. For 20 years he was team captain on BBC Two’s popular music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Influenced by a classical training, Parisian chanson and smoky jazz, Siobhan Wilson’s incisively written, boldly unorthodox indie-pop/folk-noir songs have earned rhapsodic reviews.

Tickets here

Saturday 14th July

Carl Stone / Pictish Trail / Thomas McCarthy

Carl Stone “One of American experimental music’s most eloquent advocates” – Time Out New York.

“One of the foremost electroacoustic composers of the last decades” – Massimo Ricci

“Stone’s Electronic Music from the Seventies and Eighties is a missing link, not only in the history of avant-garde and electronic music, but within the entire body of arranged sound (popular or otherwise).” – Bradford Bailey

The Pictish Trail’s eloquent songs are as wildly varied as his selection of brightly coloured bobble hats and have seen him get mentioned in the same breath as his heroes Beck, The Beta Band and Hot Chip.

Following ten successful years running Fife’s infamous Fence Records, Lynch moved on to pastures new and founded Scotland’s most exciting new label Lost Map Records.

With two albums, numerous mini-albums, EPs, and singles under his belt as The Pictish Trail, Lynch has also moonlighted as one half of demented dance-pop duo Silver Columns with Adem (Fridge) for their 2010 album Yes and Dance.

 

Thomas McCarthy comes from Birr in County Offaly in Ireland. His family are the McCarthys who settled there generations ago. He is an Irish Traveller and comes from a long line of old traditional singers and musicians who kept the tradition of singing strong.

“I sing wherever I’m invited, at clubs, festivals, people’s houses, weddings, funerals, christenings, at home, down the road and over the sea. I have sung all over the UK and Europe.” – Thomas McCarthy

Tickets for 14th July are available here

 

Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer returns – with three brawsome line-ups, all the Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy:

September 16 2017 – The Vaselines / Salena Godden / Marry Waterson & David A Jaycock

November 25th 2017 – Philip Selway (Radiohead) / David Thomas Broughton / Kathryn Williams

December 2nd 2017 – Scott Hutchison (Frightened Rabbit) / Serafina Steer / Alasdair Roberts

*

*

September 16 2017

 The Vaselines / Salena Godden / Marry Waterson & David A Jaycock

The Vaselines

The Vaselines were formed in Edinburgh in 1987 by singer/guitarists Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, soon signing to Pastels frontman Stephen Pastel’s newly formed 53rd & 3rd label.

Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain regularly cited the Vaseline’s influence in interviews with the music press and Nirvana would go on to cover the Vaselines’ ‘Molly’s Lips’ and ‘Son of a Gun’ (both later compiled on their Incesticide collection) as well as perform ‘Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam’ on their legendary MTV Unplugged appearance.

Cobain’s gospel-spreading no doubt accelerated their rise to cult sainthood, but the Vaselines would have gotten there sooner or later on their own accord. Lewd but naïve and abrasive yet tender, the band’s shambling, primitivist squall remains a perfect distillation of pop at its most guileless and euphoric.
Eugene Kelly later went on to front Captain America / Eugenius, while McKee spent the better part of the decade out of sight, resurfaced in Suckle, and released a solo album in 2006. The Vaselines reunited proper in 2008 to record their second full album, Sex with an X. In 2014 they released V for Vaselines, a Ramones-inspired album featured many of the same players who helped make Sex, including Belle and Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson and Teenage Fanclub’s Francis MacDonald.

The Vaselines appearance at Tae Sup will be as a duo.

“Even those too young-or not yet born-for the Vaselines’ heyday can appreciate the earnest fun of Sex With an X” – Billboard

“A welcome return, then – let’s hope they stick around for a bit longer this time.” – BBC Music

Salena Godden

Salena Godden is a British poet, performer and author living in London.

She has been variously described as ‘The doyenne of the spoken word scene’ (Ian McMillan, BBC Radio 3’s The Verb); ‘The Mae West madam of the salon’ (The Sunday Times) and as ‘everything the Daily Mail is terrified of’ (Kerrang! Magazine). She writes and performs poetry, fiction, memoir, radio drama and lyrics.

Her short stories and poetry have appeared in Dazed & Confused, Salzburg Review, Le Gun, Penguin‘s IC3, Canongate‘s Fire People, Serpent’s Tail‘s Croatian Nights and Hodder & Stoughton‘s Oral.

Salena has appeared on radio as a guest on Woman’s Hour, The Verb and Saturday Live and most recently wrote and presented a documentary, Stir it Up! – 50 Years of Writing Jamaica for BBC Radio 4.

“Her writing is urgent and detailed, colourful and clamorous. Like all love stories, her memoir is intense and intimate.” – The Times

Marry Waterson & David A Jaycock

Celebrated folk singer Marry Waterson is set to release a brand-new album this September along with guitarist David A. Jaycock whom with she collaborated to write and release 2015’s critically acclaimed album Two Wolves. The new album, Death Had Quicker Wings Than Love will be released via One Little Indian Records. Having enjoyed roaring success with Two Wolves, which was produced by guitarist Neil MacColl and Kate St. John, the duo toured extensively at the beginning of this year supporting Richard Hawley. The album garnered praise from The Guardian, The Independent, Q, Mojo, Metro, fROOTS, R2 and Songlines, and was nominated for two folk awards from BBC Radio 2.

Marry Waterson is the daughter of English folk legend Lal Waterson, who was a member of legendary folk quartet, the Watersons.

David A Jaycock has been described as “A Cornish hermit and underground psychedelic freak-ball”, his guitar playing taking on John Fahey inspired shapes, with echoes of Flamenco and Julian Bream style classical.

“This is an impressive exercise in brave new work.” – The Guardian

November 25th 2017

 Philip Selway / David Thomas Broughton / Kathryn Williams

Philip Selway

Philip Selway has been a member of Radiohead since the band started at school in the mid-Eighties. He plays drums in the band and has toured extensively with them over the past twenty-five years, releasing nine studio albums.

Outside the band, he has been building up a body of solo work, performing and releasing two albums of his own material, and also composing for film and dance.

In 2010, he released his first solo album, ‘Familial’. This record was based around a selection of songs that Philip had been writing for the previous decade. He sang and played guitar on this album, and was joined in the sessions by Lisa Germano, Sebastien Steinberg, and Glenn Kotche and Pat Sansone from American band, Wilco.

In 2014, Philip released his second solo album, ‘Weatherhouse’. He recorded this album with two musicians, Adem Ilhan and Quinta, who toured with him in the live band for ‘Familial’. A particular highlight of the touring for this record included a performance with The Dap Kings on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Philip was also commissioned by Rambert Dance Company in 2014 to write the score for the first re-contextualisation of Merce Cunningham’s choreography. He collaborated with Adem Ilhan and Quinta for this, and performed the piece at the Rambert Event in the dance company’s new home on the Southbank in London.

He has also recently written the score for a film called ‘Let Me Go’, slated for release in Autumn 2017, starring Juliet Stevenson, Jodhi May and Lucy Boynton.

In 2001 and 2008, Philip took part in the ‘Seven Worlds Collide’ projects, put together by Neil Finn in New Zealand.

Also, if you look very carefully and don’t blink, you’ll see Philip playing drums in the wizarding band ‘The Weird Sisters’ in ‘Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire’.

 

David Thomas Broughton

David Thomas Broughton’s performances are sometimes unsettling, and feel at risk of everything falling apart, yet somehow David remains in control. Since David’s first few shows in his native Yorkshire in the early 2000s, he has performed at numerous festivals, toured extensively across the UK, Europe, USA and played a handful of shows in Japan, Korea and China.

His organic approach to looping electronics includes embracing all glitches and mistakes…  building pieces to let them destroy themselves, before swiftly moving into the next. On the face of it, a performance of sad self-deprecating songs and extended ‘sonic strangeness‘ pondering the awkwardness of the human condition through the trial of love and loss, but for those with patience it can reward with great moments of beauty, and sometimes comedic delight.

“Broughton’s live shows are miniature spectacles… He layers sounds in slightly haphazard ways, as though his songs weren’t so holy that he couldn’t subject them to chance” – Pitchfork

“The most brilliant and baffling show I’m likely to see this year.” – Timeout NY
“Straddling the line between music hall turn and avant-garde performance artist, Broughton’s live show is not to be missed.” – MOJO magazine

Kathryn Williams

Often compared favourably to Joni Mitchell, singer/songwriter Kathryn Williams was born in Liverpool in 1974. Her father was a folksinger and, as a child, Williams studied piano and guitar while listening to such ’60s icons as Bob Dylan. She began her career in 1999 with the release of Dog Leap Stairs, a beguiling set of low-key folk songs that drew comparisons to the hushed musings of Nick Drake.

A native of Liverpool, Williams relocated to Newcastle to pursue a fine arts degree, emerging somewhat unexpectedly with a promising musical career when her second album, 2000’s Little Black Numbers, was nominated for Britain’s prestigious Mercury Prize. More expansive than her debut, yet still winsomely intimate, the album was initially released on her own Caw Records label, though it was soon delivered to a much larger audience via a licensing agreement with Warner’s EastWest imprint. With her newly raised profile, Williams began writing her third album and making collaborative appearances with folk legends like Bert Jansch and John Martyn. She has since shared the stage with acts like Ray LaMontagne, Martha Wainwright, and KT Tunstall, among many others.

Williams was given a New Writing North commission as poet in residence at Alnwick Garden and she was selected as a judge for the British Poetry Society’s Ted Hughes Award for Poetry 2016 in conjunction with poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.

Kathryn’s album, Hypoxia, a lyrically and sonically ambitious set of songs inspired by Sylvia Plath‘s novel The Bell Jar, was co-produced by Ed Harcourt and released in 2015. The following year saw the release of Resonator, a set of jazz standards recorded with vibraphone player Anthony Kerr.

“Nine albums into a solo career that has rarely been anything other than thoroughly captivating, Kathryn Williams delivers a short, succinct and staggering record inspired by the work of Sylvia Plath.  By inhabiting and responding to a genuinely significant work of literature, Williams has produced her own spellbinding piece of art.” – Clash

December 2nd 2017

Scott Hutchison / Serafina Steer / Alasdair Roberts

Scott Hutchison

Scott Hutchison is the lead singer of Scottish indie-rock band Frightened Rabbit, though he occasionally steps out of the woods to perform as Owl John. He has been making music with Frightened Rabbit for over a decade and the band have released five albums during that time.

Frightened Rabbit initially began as a solo project in 2004, with Scott writing songs whilst living in his brother’s cupboard, playing occasional shows around Glasgow. He now lives in a normal-sized flat and plays a lot more shows than he used to. We are delighted to have him perform a rare solo show at Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer.

“The sheer quality and array of styles found on Owl John’s self-titled debut is testament to the prolific song writing skills of Scott Hutchison.” – ALLMUSIC

Serafina Steer

Serafina Steer is a freelance musician who was born and lives in London, via brief spells in Manchester and Suffolk. As a classically trained harpist, she works in contemporary, improvised, collaborative and pop projects. After leaving music college, she started writing songs and went on to make 3 harp-based albums – Cheap Demo Bad Science (2007 Static Caravan), Change Is Good Change Is Good (2010 Static Caravan) and The Moths Are Real (2012 Stolen Recordings). The latter being produced by Jarvis Cocker and receiving very positive reviews across the board.

After harp, Serafina started writing with (at the same time as teaching herself) the bass guitar. This lead to the formation of Bas Jan, an all-female post-punk-esque trio.  Serafina is the main songwriter and the band is now on it’s second line-up but it’s bumping merrily along with a Lost Map vinyl release of their eponymous EP recorded by Leo Abrahams and Leafcutter John due in autumn 2017.

She has recently played in Sean O’Hagan’s ‘Mind On The Run’ a tribute to Basil Kirchin at Hull Festival, performed with 7 harps under the direction of Steve Mackey for a Gucci fashion show in Florence, contributed to two soundtracks in collaboration with Jarvis Cocker for filmmakers’ Iain and Jane, broadcast live with Bas Jan from Maida Vale on Marc Riley’s 6 Music. This summer she was touring harpist with Karen Elson (1965). Last year there were two performances of ‘Medea’ mini opera drama for two voices & midi. This was commissioned by Brighter Sound for Manchester International Woman’s Day 2016 and performed again at Supernormal with Natalie Sharp (AKA Lone Taxidermist) in the lead role.

“Steer is an astringent, droll, sometimes touching narrator; it’s easy to hear why Cocker was so bewitched.” – MOJO

“The Moths Are Real is a crisp and atmospheric set of idiosyncratic and finely crafted pop songs” – The Wire

Alasdair Roberts

Alasdair Roberts is a Scottish musician, born in Germany, who was raised near Callander and has been based in Glasgow since 1995.  He is primarily a songwriter/composer, singer and acoustic fingerstyle guitarist as well as an interpreter/arranger of traditional songs and ballads from Scotland and beyond.

Alasdair Roberts is one of a rare breed of musicians whose work has found favour with aficionados of both experimental/avant-garde music and traditional/folk music – as such, he has been the cover star of both Wire Magazine (March 2010) and fRoots Magazine (October 2003 and January/February 2017).

Since 1997 Alasdair has produced several full-length albums of music (initially under the name Appendix Out and later under his own name), primarily working with Drag City Records of Chicago.  His most recent Drag City album is Pangs, a collection of ten original songs recorded with bassist Stevie Jones (Arab Strap, Sound of Yell) and drummer Alex Neilson (Trembling Bells, Alex Rex)– it was released to critical acclaim and a successful UK tour in February 2017.

Over the years, Alasdair has collaborated with a wide variety of fellow musicians (such as Will Oldham, Jason Molina, Josephine Foster, Mairi Morrison and Karine Polwart) as well as with other artists including poet Robin Robertson, puppeteer Shane Connolly of Sokobauno Puppet Theatre and film-maker Luke Fowler. In 2013 Alasdair became a member of the Scottish/English folk group The Furrow Collective, along with Lucy Farrell, Rachel Newton and Emily Portman.  The Furrow Collective has released two albums on Hudson Records, the most recent being Wild Hog in late 2016; the quartet won the accolade of Best Group in the 2017 BBC Radio Two Folk Awards.

‘One of our most talented, important and relevant songwriters and song-adapters.’ – Folk Radio UK

‘Quietly escalating towards Scottish national treasure status’ – Mojo

‘An artist in consummate control of his art’ – Uncut

Well, here we are. Delighted as ever to announce the first three Tae Sups for 2017. For more information on the artists, please click through below. Suffice say, every line-up is looking Braw as the Craw.

01/04/17 Adam Smith Theatre Kirkcaldy: Roddy Woomble / Oliver Coates / Yorkston Thorne Khan

More info and tickets Click Here

13/05/17 Adam Smith Theatre Kirkcaldy: Lynched (Lankum) / Michael Chapman / Harry Giles

More info and tickets Click Here

10/06/17 Adam Smith Theatre Kirkcaldy: Martin Simpson / Duke Special / Seamus Fogarty 

More info and tickets Click Here

Tae Sup wi’ a Fife – Saturday May 13^th 2017

Hosted by James Yorkston

Tickets here

Lynched / Michael Chapman / Harry Giles

Lynched are a four-piece traditional folk group from Dublin, Ireland, who combine distinctive four-part vocal harmonies with arrangements of uilleann pipes, concertina, Russian accordion, fiddle and guitar. https://lynchedmusic.com/

‘The most convincing band to come out of Ireland for years!’

5 stars, The Guardian

‘Anarchic, yet connected, rootsy and gutsy… I love their music, it is just so damn good!’ Mike Harding

Michael Chapman is one of the UK’s finest finger picking style guitar players and is part of a continuing musical lineage that includes the likes of John Fahey, Jack Rose, Ralph McTell, John Martyn, Davey Graham & Bert Jansch.  Chapman is still as active as he ever was and his playing is on top form. http://www.michaelchapman.co.uk/

‘This is the sound of a real songwriter who’s lived a real life and all that entails’ – Q Magazine

‘The nicotine drawl is more mature and evocative than ever. Settle back with your Jack Daniels and enjoy’ – Record Collector

‘His playing, the stuff he does with guitars and the way that he builds atmosphere, never ceases to amaze me. If this was a sensible world, where talent and originality counted, then it would sell hundreds of thousands of copies and be up for a Mercury Prize’
Review of Americana – Marc Higgins:

Harry Giles – 2009 BBC Scotland slam champion Harry Giles is a writer and performer from Orkney who lives in Leith; their latest book is Tonguit (Freight 2016) was shortlisted for the 2016 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. www.harrygiles.org

As a poet, Harry has toured North America, given feature performances at venues from the Bowery Poetry Club to the Soho Theatre; hosted events at festivals from StAnza to Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, won multiple slams including the UK Student Slam (2008), the BBC Scotland Slam (2009), the Glasgow Slam (2010)

Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer – April 1^st 2017

 Tickets here – Music starts 8pm

Roddy Woomble / Oliver Coates / Yorkston Thorne Khan

Roddy Woomble – With a long running career in both Indie and folk music, as a solo artist and with his band Idlewild, Roddy’s place is firmly set as one of Scotland’s finest songwriters.

‘The harmonies are pitch perfect, the bass and drums drive a stake through the heart and Woomble‘s voice is gritty enough to deliver material that deserves to be soaked in whisky by a roaring fire’

‘One of Britain’s most distinct and talented voices’ Kerrang

‘Tender and epic, enormous yet touching’ BBC Music

‘… a moving and quietly joyous collection of pieces weaving together strands of folk, jazz and country. Frankly, it sounds like the sort of record you might make if you had largely decided to turn your back on the modern world.  – The Guardian

Oliver Coates is a cellist, composer and producer based in London.
He has performed solo shows in China, Russia, Brazil, Egypt and Australia, and made his New York debut at Le Poisson Rouge. He was the winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2011 and is an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre. Two major commissions will premiere in early 2017: HELIOTONES, for girls’ choir, flutes, cello and electronics, for Borealis Festival in March, and Shorelines, for string quartet and electronics, for Cryptic in May.

In 2016 Coates released a solo record, Upstepping, on PRAH Recordings, and a collaborative record, Remain Calm, with Mica Levi on Slip. He works closely with Levi, London Contemporary Orchestra,
Elysia Crampton, Jonny Greenwood and the visual artist Lawrence Lek, for whom he has scored the award-winning video pieces Unreal Estate and QE3. He has conceived and programmed the Southbank Centre’s long-running Harmonic Series and its first DEEP∞MINIMALISM festival in 2016, which featured Pauline Oliveros’ last public Tuning Meditation.

 

Yorkston Thorne Khan – An experimental collaborative group that includes James Yorkston one of the most “influential singer/songwriters on the Scottish folk scene”, Jon Thorne, best known as jazz double bass player with electro outfit Lamb and Suhail Yusuf Khan, award winning sarangi player and classical singer from New Delhi. YTK will release their second album in Spring 2017.

★★★★★ Record Collector ‘New Album of the Month’ “Throughout, this is the sound of three world class talents raising their respective games, as if trying to keep up with each other, creating something far greater even that the sum of their world-class parts.”
★★★★★  fRoots “Joyous, contemplative, playful, euphoric and bleakly beautiful album”
★★★★★★★★  UNCUT “It isn’t easy to pigeon-hole but it could just be one of the albums of the year”

Sat June 10^th – Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer

Hosted by James Yorkston

Tickets here

Martin Simpson / Duke Special / Seamus Fogarty

“Martin Simpson has transcended borders and oceans to quietly become a superb storyteller and musician of great depth and unquestionable taste.” Stephen Fearing

Universally acclaimed as one of the finest ever acoustic and slide guitar players, and a fine banjo-picker to boot, his solo shows bear witness to an artist at the very top of his game. Whether interpreting material from tradition or singing his own potent self-penned songs, Simpson is a remarkable storyteller: captivating and profoundly moving. His own songwriting produced the poignant ‘Never Any Good’, from Prodigal Son, 2007’s Folk Album of the Year.

Duke Special is a writer, performer, singer and artist who magpies between art forms, then brings it all to a boil in the world of music and song. His creative talents have seen him involved in projects as diverse as writing the theme tune for the Irish Sesame Street to writing the music for and appearing in Deborah Warner’s critically acclaimed 2009 production of Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ at London’s National Theatre. More recently, he has joined forces with stand-up comedian Andrew Doyle and together they brought a brand new musical adaptation of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ to the Lyric Theatre in his native Belfast, where he has also just completed a year as their Artist In Residence. As part of this residency, he also wrote a musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn, based on songs written by Kurt Weill, which will premiere at The Lyric in 2018. He has also recently been collaborating with traditional Irish band, Ulaid, to create a new body of songs entitled Belfast Suite.

Seamus Fogarty left his home in the West of Ireland in 2009 and ended up in Anstruther performing at the legendary Homegame festival.  His debut album, hailed by the Irish Times as ‘one of the best Irish albums of recent years’, was released on Fence Records in 2012 leading to a slot on the main stage of Greenman and tours alongside James Yorkston, Pictish Trail and Malcolm Middleton.  Having spent the following two years touring the UK and Europe, he released an EP “Ducks & Drakes” on another Scottish label, Lost Map, in 2015.  Gideon Coe from BBC6 Music proclaimed the title track to be ‘one of the songs of the summer’ while Max Rheinheart from BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction proclaimed it the work of an ‘Electroacoustic Wickerman’.  A new album is due out in late spring.

‘Deep listening psychedelic folk, a peaty brew’ – The Quietus Magazine

Hello all,

Delighted to say that Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer is returning for seven more shows, throughout 2016 and 2017.

First up, we will have a Christmas show:

Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer – Dec 3^rd 2016 – Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy

Tickets here

Read More…

King Creosote Fife’s Kenny Anderson, aka King Creosote, has become one of Scotland’s most acclaimed and prolific singer-songwriters: a squeezebox Casanova and a seafaring pop heart-breaker.

Kadialy Kouyate is a singer songwriter and kora player, born into the great line of Kouyate Griot in Southern Senegal and inspired by the West African Griot repertoire. http://kadialykouyate.com/

Laura Cannell plays fiddle, overbowed fiddle, double recorders, sometimes percussion and other rarefied wind instruments, “Exploring the space between experimental, medieval and improvised music”. http://www.lauracannell.co.uk/

A further six shows will be added for 2017, dates and acts TBA.