Twisted Folk hits Exeter

Stornoway and Beth Jeans Houghton, Exeter Phoenix, Monday 8th February, 8pm

Over the past four years, Twisted Folk tours have become known for adventurous, hand picked line-ups representing the best in modern folk and twisted popular music.

It is Twisted Folk who put together UK pastoral pop group Tunng and Malawian desert bluesmen Tinariwen, who assembled Nina Nastasia, Jeffrey Lewis and William Elliot Whitmore, who sent Howe Gelb and the Voices Of Praise Choir off on a nine-date jaunt around the UK, and who packaged King Creosote with Jose Gonzalez and Vetiver (then featuring Devendra Banhart) with Micah P Hinson and Vashti Bunyan.

With this latest tour, Twisted Folk are showcasing two of the most talented young acts in the country – Stornoway and Beth Jeans Houghton – in what promises to be a truly unmissable show.

Named after the Hebridean island but hailing from Oxford, Stornoway are a four-piece band of songsmiths, scholars, scientists and men of the earth. The last few years have seen them quietly honing their art, and earlier this year they released their first official single; the critically acclaimed Zorbing.

Their charming brand of quintessential pop, steeped in pastoral hues, landed them on an unprecedented four stages at Glastonbury Festival 2009 and made them Radio 1 Introducing Stage headliners at the Big Weekend.

Beth Jeans Houghton is the Newcastle singer who “joins the dots between Gwen Stefani and Vashti Bunyan” (The Guardian).

She has been playing guitar since the age of 16. She is only 19 now, but has already supported Tunng and Tinariwen, hobnobbed with Vetiver, the late John Martyn, Bon Iver and Joanna Newsome.

She was the hit at 2009’s Green Man festival, recorded a single Golden/Nightswimmer with Adem and more recently an EP Hot Toast Volume 1 with Mike Lindsay from Tunng.

An album is currently being produced by Ben Hillier, the mastermind behind Elbow’s ‘Cast Of Thousands’, Doves’s ‘Some Cities’ and Blur’s ‘Think Tank’.

Tickets cost £10 or £8 concessions. This is a 16+ show.