ROY

ROY's deft, articulate and startlingly observed stories veer from the comic to the calamitous in a breath, cutting to the quick of the broad swathe of people and personalities that comprise his native city, from struggling parents to small-time criminals, pent-up white-collar workers to drinkers long lost to the ale. PJ’s eye is as keen as it is generous, presenting, in the great tradition of English realism, the real lives of people up against it in all sorts of ways, muddling through, trying to make the best of it. His first publication under the moniker 'Roy', Algorithm Party, came out on Rough Trade Editions in 2020. ROY is resident at Liverpool's La Violette Società. He appears on BBC Radio 6 Music, Soho Radio and lends a vocal narrative to the title track of Paul Heaton’s “Manchester Calling” album. In 2021/22 he toured as the support act for Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott. He collects discarded handwritten notes, loves Portuguese custard tarts and aspires to live in The Barbican.

E.R. Thorpe

You may have come across Emma before outside of her own solo releases. Her recurring contributions to Huw Costin's Torn Sail project have seen her stunning voice adding ghostly romance to many songs including ‘Ricochets’ alongside the great Mark Lanegan and Huw himself. She is also an equal vertex of the outstanding earthy-folk triangle that is The Low Drift alongside Matt Hill and Huw again (where I first saw her live actually). Raised on the blues (her Dad Kevin Thorpe was a respected blues vocalist and guitarist), her own hypnotic take on the form has been described as ‘dark folk’ and it fits. Like an East Midlands Karen Dalton (but without the Oklahoma scorched jazz voice), Emma’s strength comes from both her fragility and her ability to cut to the veins of the subject. Her voice can be as sweet as a young girl or burn with a quiet fire. Managing to sound both old-timey and contemporary is a formidable thing to achieve and Emma does it with great ease. Blending stark and abstract imagery with a voice that can caress or unsettle, allied with the perfectly understated way that she plays her guitar makes her the real deal in my eyes...In a darkened pub room, the audience were spellbound by Emma’s songs of death and life, of fears and failures, the earth and of nature. Sometimes it feels as though all of these subjects blur into each other such is her skill at blending the direct with the opaque." Justin Turford (Truth & Lies) Emma's latest EP can be found here at Bandcamp.

Huw Costin

Huw is best known for his band Torn Sail, and their collaborations with artists as diverse as the great American singer Mark Lanegan, Yorkshire troubadour and Harvestrecording artist Michael Chapman, and veteran Berlin based Deep House producer Andre Lodemann. Under his own name he's recorded for Russel Mills alongside Brian Eno, David Sylvian, & Robin Guthrie, for Paper Recordings with Stubb, with BJ Smith for NuNorthern Soul, and released two solo albums and an EP. He performs regularly alongside E.R. Thorpe & Matt Hill in The Low Drift, and is guitarist and harmony singer in the JIM band. With a bent for sonic experimentation and a resigned acceptance of a promiscuous muse, at heart Costin is a singer-songwriter inspired as a younger man by the greats - John Martyn, Joni Mitchell, and Miles Davis to name a few. It's at his solo performances that these influences can be most keenly felt, and perhaps where he's freest to commune with his music in the moment.