Andy Abbott / ADRA Projects

Shane Parish
This record shouldn’t, strictly speaking, be possible at all. It’s not just that Autechre’s music is electronic and Shane Parish’s is acoustic. It’s not just that Autechre come from electro and techno, while Shane’s solo guitar music is rooted in jazz, folk, and the blues. Those borders, between mediums and genres, are as porous as you want them to be.

“JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT THE GUITAR, HERE COMES SHANE PARISH TO SHOW THAT YOU ARE MISTAKEN.” —THE QUIETUS

“PARISH CHOOSES NOTES LIKE A SPIDER CLIMBING A ROCK WALL, WITH AN AIR OF DELICATE, SINGLE-MINDED DETERMINATION.”—SPIN MAGAZINE

Shane Parish is a guitarist, composer, improviser, and interpreter whose work focuses on the translation of music across traditions, canons, and technologies. Known for his precise and expressive fingerstyle technique and his nuanced approach to transcription, Parish treats interpretation as a compositional practice, using existing works as material for structural and sonic transformation.

His recent solo recordings center on recontextualizing music not originally written for guitar. Autechre Guitar (2026, Palilalia Records) presents acoustic fingerstyle arrangements of music by the English electronic duo Autechre. REPERTOIRE (2024) applies the same methodology to works by composers and artists including Alice Coltrane, John Cage, Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk, Ornette Coleman, and Charles Mingus. Solo at Café OTO (2025, Red Eft Records) documents a live electric guitar performance of English and American folk ballads.

Parish first gained wider attention with Undertaker Please Drive Slow (2016, Tzadik Records), produced by John Zorn. The album established his approach to transforming traditional folk material through abstraction and reduction, drawing on both American vernacular music and 20th-century experimental composition.

In ensemble contexts, Parish is the founder of the avant-rock group Ahleuchatistas (est. 2002) and a member of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, alongside Bill Orcutt, Wendy Eisenberg, and Ava Mendoza.

https://www.shaneparish.com/

https://shaneparish.bandcamp.com/album/autechre-guitar-2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un7BboQn3To

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkQPG5eELe0

Andrew DR Abbott
Andy Abbott is an artist, musician and writer who lives in West Yorkshire, UK. His recent output as ‘Andrew DR Abbott’ centres on instrumental compositions for 8-string baritone acoustic guitar. 
 
Both his ‘Live on Daisy Hill’ cassette (released by Bloxham Tapes in 2018) and ‘Dead in Chellow Dean’ album (released by Cardinal Fuzz in the UK and Feeding Tube Records in the USA in 2019) use fingerpicked guitar, field recordings and handmade instruments to reflect the darker facets of life in the postindustrial North. In 2020 Andy wrote and recorded the final part of the Daisy Hill trilogy ‘Erewyrehve’ and released this on his own ADRA Records imprint on vinyl in 2021. This was followed by a limited lathe cut 10-inch ‘Live from Clover Hill’ e.p released by Sonido Polifonico in 2022, and a contribution to Michael Chapman tribute album released by Tompkins Square Records in 2023.  
 
His current set is built around a long-form composition that combines field recordings and finger-picked acoustic guitar to create an instrumental portrait of the Calder Valley.
 
Andy is best known for his deafening guitar work in the leftfield rock bands That Fucking Tank and NOPE with whom he has toured internationally on the DIY underground circuit, as well as mainstream gigs supporting Foals and appearances at Leeds and Reading festivals. With his acoustic he has shared stages with Gwenifer Raymond, Richard Dawson, William Tyler, Dean McPhee, The Horse Loom, Alison Cotton, C Joynes, Nick Jonah Davis and David Thomas Broughton.  
 
“A minor 21st century folk masterpiece … Abbott ignores the comfort of pure folk structures and bluesy scales, twisting his lush folk guitar into something brimming with potent pangs of a serrated kind of poetic discontent.” – The Quietus
 
“This is another gorgeous release from Andy who has taken an imaginary place as a theme but has clearly used the inspiration on his doorstep in real life and added a little musical fairy dust to transport the listener and the landscape to another place. The everyday, everywhere becomes somewhere special and memorable in Andy’s hands.“ 
– The Terrascope

Live from Clover Hill e.p (2022 Sonido Polifonico) stream:
https://andyabbott.bandcamp.com/album/live-from-clover-hill
 
Erewyrehve album (2020 ADRA Records) stream:
https://andyabbott.bandcamp.com/album/erewyrehve


Calderfornia performance video (2022)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=785d-kOcPsU

Širom

The intertwining of diverse musical approaches and tools, histories of sounds and unbridled musical imagination and craftsmanship is the expansive guiding principle of the Širom trio. More than a dozen instruments can be found in the repertoire of Iztok Koren, Samo Kutin and Ana Kravanja and at least as many given musical forms that can be perceived as an inspiration behind the character of this ensemble. However, in their practice as well as experience they remain anchored in their creative process to an extent that allows them to avoid merely reflecting existing patterns. What this generates in an original, stylistically homogeneous form of expression that oscillates between a wide array of folk sounds and contemporary acoustic rock-style meditations. The end result is grounded yet still mystical minimalism. Širom’s music is contemplative, but can get harder when necessary, it is closer to being band- than chamber-like, to being street as opposed to urban in nature.

Line-up:

Ana Kravanja:

violin, viola, ribab, daf, ocarinas, mizmar, flute, balafon, cünbüs, kalimba, various objects, voice

Iztok Koren:

guembri, banjo, three-string banjo, tank drum, bass drum, percussion, balafon, chimes, various objects

Samo Kutin:

hurdy gurdy, tampura brač, lyre, lute, brač, chimes, balafon, frame drum, ocarina, ikitelia, one string bass, ukulele, mizmar, gongoma, acoustic resonators, various objects, voice

Media quotes:

“It occasionally recalls the junkyard compositions of Moondog, the hypnotic tuned percussion of Steve Reich, the controlled chaos of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, or the shanty-town minimalism of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.” **** The Guardian

“This music is syncretic, working folk, medieval, drone and traditional musics into complex, intuitive improvisations …. Full of guttural incantations, circling chants, clattering percussion. A deep-breathing, ecstatic joy.” 8/10 Uncut 

“This is deeply enjoyable music that refuses to be anything but itself and is joyful because of it.” 5/5 UK Vibe

“Fascinating music that you can easily become addicted to, in short, that’s what it comes down to.” – Moors Magazine

Interview with The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/06/songs-should-be-alive-slovenian-trio-sirom-on-their-imaginary-folk-music

Interview with The Quietus – https://thequietus.com/interviews/sirom-interview/

David Thomas Broughton

David Thomas Broughton is an English folk/avant-garde singer and guitarist. Born in Otley, West Yorkshire, he creates the sound of a large ensemble by sampling himself singing, playing acoustic guitar, and making an assortment of other sounds through a Boss loop pedal. He also uses various non-traditional musical instruments to augment his songs, including radios, personal attack alarms and televisions, and occasionally incorporates a use of natural field recordings into his music. He is also known for his love of spontaneity and musical improvisation, recording albums in one take (allowing recording faults to remain) and beginning live performances with no clear plan in mind. He includes self-conscious, ironic dance moves and off-mic (often off-stage) singing in his live performances.

Twenty years after his debut, ‘The Complete Guide to Insufficiency’, David Thomas Broughton continues to craft music that intertwines beauty and discomfort, spanning solo projects and diverse collaborations. His discography includes 2007’s one-take album with jazz-folk quartet 7 Hertz, 2010’s ‘Outbreeding’ produced by Andy Ramsey (Stereolab), the feedback-laced ‘UnAbleTocassette’ from 2013, and 2014’s ‘Sliding The Same Way’ with vocal trio Juice. In 2016, he collaborated remotely with various artists on ‘Crippling Lack’.

His new album ‘Heavy Thoughts’ is an improvised trio recording with pianist Matthew Bourne and drummer Neil Turpin. This Leeds-rooted trio pull together to create unpredictable performances that move fluidly between song and abstraction. Neil & Matt perform improvising explorations around David’s snippets of words and guitar. In turn, David responds to Matt and Neil, building and dismantling loops that can be subtle, often harmonious, sometimes obtuse.

https://www.davidthomasbroughton.co.uk/
https://davidthomasbroughton.bandcamp.com/
https://www.theguardian.com/…/david-thomas-broughton…

Testament

Testament is an acclaimed writer, rapper and Guinness world record breaking human beatboxer who is based in West Yorkshire.

Testament’s work ranges from spoken word poetry, playwrighting and composition, to essay writing, live beatbox show to radio presenting. Testament’s work has received praise from Lemn Sissay, graphic novelist Alan Moore, actor and writer Patterson Joseph, BBC presenter Lauren Laverne and the progenitor of Hip-Hop himself DJ Koolherc.

Testament’s work as a rapper includes the celebrated Hip-Hop album Homecut: No Freedom Without Sacrifice, as well as several spoken word performances for BBC TV and BBC Radio (1xtra, Radio 4 and 6Music). In 2019 he was Channel 4 Writer in Residence at Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester and Black writer-in-residence for the Yorkshire Dales District Park.

As a playwright Testament has written for theatres such as The Royal Court, Leeds Playhouse, The Globe and Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester among others.

Testament’s work for screen includes writing for NETFLIX, Disney Plus, BBC and Channel 4.

Over the years Testament has worked with a diverse range of people from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Grammy winner Corinne Bailey Rae, Ray Parker Jnr, jazz legends Joe Lovano and Jean Toussaint, Mercury nominee Soweto Kinch and he won the BBC Urban Music Talent Award in 2007. In 2015 he wrote his first show the acclaimed play Blake Remixed – a personal response to the work of William Blake which had a successful run in Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2015 and since then he has straddled the world of music, literature and theatre.

Testament wrote the hit play Black Men Walking and Orpheus in the Record Shop (BBC FOUR TV). He is a writer on the NETFLIX animated show Castlevania Nocturne and is currently working on a William Blake inspired album with jazz composer Matthew Bourne.

https://www.testamenthomecut.com/
https://homecut.bandcamp.com/…/no-freedom-without…

Marlene Ribeiro

Formerly a long standing member of Manchester noise experimentalists Gnod, artist and musician Marlene Ribeiro works within a dream-like sphere of exotic psychedelia.

Stemming from her original solo project under the moniker of Negra Branca, Ribeiro utilises an eclectic range of acoustic instruments, various field recordings, electronics and voice, to create a phantasmagorical and intoxicating blend of hypnagogic-folk pop.

A travelogue that unites physical and inner space, a series of trance states rendered in vivid colour, a delirious portal into the ether. Marlene Ribeiro’s debut for Rocket Recordings and first album under her own name is all of this and much more. Toquei No Sol is a fresh new chapter for this unique artist, by far the most melodic and transcendent outing yet for her hypnotic dreampop.

This is only the latest release in a long history of sonic experimentation for Marlene, which includes her previous work as Negra Branca across a series of releases on labels such as Tesla Tapes and Zamzam and a long period as a member of audial iconoclasts and Rocket mainstays GNOD, not to mention collaborations with the like of Valentina Magaletti and Thurston Moore.

Toquei No Sol is also a record with a very distinctive and potent sense of place, paradoxically despite having been woven together from recordings made in Ireland, Wales, Portugal, Madeira and Salford. Its genesis came via a visit to Marlene’s maternal grandmother Emilia, whose influence as well as the sounds of her kitchen in Portugal.

“Emilia ended up getting excited about me being able to record things there and then and – total news to me – told me she used to sing a lot when she was younger to the point of getting offered studio time but refusing it as she was fearful of what that could imply in those times” relates Marlene “From that point I planned to include her in this record as sort of the chance she never had of getting her voice out there.”

Elsewhere, a disarmingly catchy and irresistible grace is married to a utilitarian approach to sound and texture. The ritualistic “Sangue De Lua de Lobo” (first released on a Sofia records compilation Songs Of The Lunar Eclipse) contains random objects from Marlene’s then-garden in Ireland, whereas on the drifting, beatific ‘Forever’ the percussion tracks are constructed from the sounds of pots and pans in her own Salford kitchen.

Yet at all times her fleet-footed approach to melody rings through even as the tracks conjure visions of heat-hazes, meditative spaces and late-night epiphanies. Although listeners may hear echoes of the loop-driven psychedelia of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch or the incantatory ululations of Pocahaunted in these beguiling soundscapes and magick-strewn mantras, the truth is that the aesthetic here is very much Marlene’s alone.

“It’s all a big misty haze of nostalgia, playfulness, self-reflection and hopefulness” is what Marlene reckons herself. Yet Toquei No Sol is also a transporting vision from an artist both returning to her roots and looking out to new celestial horizons.

https://marleneribeiro.bandcamp.com/album/toquei-no-sol

ADRA Promotions

Andy Abbott is an artist, musician and arts organiser based in West Yorkshire. He started organising grassroots music events as a teenager in Derbyshire and then as part of the thriving Do-It-Yourself music scene in Leeds in the 00s. Between 2011 and 2018 Andy was the Fellow in Music for University of Bradford. He used this role to establish the cross-city and cross-region music festivals Bradford Threadfest and Recon that celebrated local underground music culture and platformed international artists including Nissenenmondai (Japan), Stella Chiweshe (Zimbabwe), Richard Dawson, King Ayisoba (Ghana), Gang of Four, Oneohtrix Point Never and many more. More recently he has promoted music events for Calderdale Borough Council’s Culturedale and Antidote programme (including Slovenian folk trio Sirom and Pakistan’s master Benju player Ustad Noor Bakhsh); The Puzzle Hall Inn in Sowerby Bridge, and an evening of immersive music as part of the Tate’s touring Jenny Holzer exhibition at 2021 Visual Arts Centre in Scunthorpe. Andy’s music programming is driven by a belief that the most transformative music experiences are to be had in humble and intimate of surroundings, and that grassroots culture is a path towards a more equitable and sustainable world

We first met IRKED at The White Hotel in Salford. They were first on the bill. The venue is a repurposed warehouse on an industrial estate, cold on hot days and a dampness in the air even when it’s dry outside. As with all great bands they made the venue theirs. The White Hotel is the perfect space for a group to OWN when they’re on fire and IRKED were on fire. We think playing live is still the best way to make friends and IRKED make lots of friends when they play. We kept in touch, hassling them to record the songs we’d heard and loved.

First came a One Sided 12″ (pressed twice, sold out twice) after which they were invited onto the Marc Riley / Gideon Coe BBC 6Music show to do a session. Then came a Tour 7″ (in time for their UK dates with Pigsx7, also long sold out).

They’ve gone up and down the UK numerous times – playing with the likes of Uranium Club, Part Chimp, Benefits, Hey Colossus and Swami John Reis as well as festivals like Manchester Punk Festival, NOISE ANNOYS, Clamlines, our own Wrong Speed Fest, Twisterella, Summer Streets and Rock Against Racism. Their enthusiasm for being in a band is genuine and infectious.

The Grievance is born out of this excitement for playing live and the noble desire to rip it up. However, as with all the best party music there’s a mission statement too. Dancing to Betty Davis or Syl Johnson or Bikini Kill or Public Enemy is all well and good in the clubs, but when you really dig into it, you are taught and inspired as well as entertained. As the title suggests, there is spleen being vented here, just as when Huggy Bear vented, or Dead Kennedys vented, or X-Ray Spex vented. IRKED’s rage might be tempered by wit and killer hooks but it’s still laser focused. The Grievance is genuinely righteous music made by people embedded in their local community and rightly enraged at the world around them.

We’re not here to tell you how to file this record or what type of music it might be. We’re here to tell you that IRKED belong alongside anyone who wants to bring a zest to a room, who wants to question what’s going on, and who wants music played by folks who aren’t cosplaying. We’re done with that. We can spot it. The Grievance is inspiring, raging, uplifting, sometimes-hilarious/sometimes-brutally honest, catchy-as-f*ck punk rock and you’re going to love it. – Wrong Speed Records

Foundational math rock / post-metal / jazz-core band Dazzling Killmen have announced they have re-formed and will be performing live again starting in September of 2025.

Founding members, vocalist/guitarist Nick Sakes and drummer Blake Fleming will be playing together for the first time since disbanding 30 years ago. The two will be joined by bassist Evan Jagels and guitarist Ben Greenberg of the band Uniform.

Dazzling Killmen formed in the St. Louis area in 1990 and was composed of vocalist/guitarist Nick Sakes and jazz students – drummer Blake Fleming and bassist Darin Gray. The group issued four singles, a live cassette and two full-lengths before officially ending in 1995, with a majority of it released through the independent label SKiN GRAFT Records. Guitarist Tim Garrigan later joined the band after guesting on their “Medicine Me” single. The group would break up in the fall of 1995, prior to a planned tour of Japan with Jim O’Rourke, Melt-Banana, Space Streakings and Zeni Geva.

Sakes went on to play in the band Colossamite with future Deerhoof members Ed Rodriguez and John Dieterich. He is currently a member of the Minneapolis post-hardcore trio Upright Forms, who released their debut LP “Blurred Wires” last year. Fleming was the founding drummer of Laddio Bolocko and then The Mars Volta. He recently performed with Jagels in the band Shatter on Impact, as heard on SKiN GRAFT’s “Sounds To Make You Shudder!” Halloween compilation.

Taking influence from hardcore punk and jazz music, Dazzling Killmen has been noted by critics and peers as having influenced the genres that came to be known as math rock and post-metal. The band’s final album “Face of Collapse” was reissued in a deluxe, expanded edition in 2016 and again in 2022 in by SKiN GRAFT Records.

Live in 2025 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn36I8OTHP4