Our dearest Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh is a Glasgow based viola player exploring the tonal possibilities of gut strings and wood in both amplified and acoustic contexts. Amalgamations of influences from improvised, traditional and early music styles can be heard on solo recordings Oreing (Fort Evil Fruit 2017), The Rounds (KRUT 2021) and most recently Live At Sonic Acts (Scatter Archive 2023). Lux Gratis (KRAAK 2025), recorded in residency at Q-O2 in Brussels, was not only exercise in tonal expansiveness but also serves as a sonically militant commentary on the world around her.

Milkweed describe their sound as slacker-trad, which is both true and somehow insufficient. For three years Milkweed have refined a formula – taking existing source material (a folklore journal, a book on Welsh myths, another on bronze age human remains and most recently Thomas Kinsella’s masterfully stark translation of the Táin Bó Cúailnge), cutting up the words and feeding them through a woodchipper of lo-fi production and experimental folk music.

On the face of it their musical concerns are transatlantic – they follow the rich creative line that runs between British traditional music and the songs and tunes of the eastern United States. In reality their scope is global, and rooted in deep time, with influences from prehistory bleeding into a troubled and troubling modern era. As a result their music doesn’t sit easily anywhere, but ricochets between bewitching folk music and disconcerting hauntological experimentation.

Sam Grassie is a fingerstyle guitarist & songwriter from Glasgow. A rising star in the world of trad folk, he's part of folk collective Broadside Hacks and wears his Bert Jansch influence on his sleeve, but his debut EP Sandwood — a flurry of woodwind, sax, drones, and double bass — carves out a sound of his very own.