Musical chameleon Miranda Sykes, the stand-out bass player and spine-tingling vocalist who has enriched the unique Show of Hands sound for seven years, will launch her new duo album with mandolin maestro Rex Preston at next month’s Frome Folk Festival in Somerset.

Festivalgoers on Sunday, February 19 will be treated to an hour-long set (starting 2.30pm in Hall 1) from the Bath-based duo at The Cheese and Grain to officially launch the eponymous album, which is already enjoying significant media acclaim and airplay. They will be joined by Irish singer and blistering banjo/guitar player Damien O’Kane.

"This album’s a real cracker. Miranda’s a fantastic bass player but this really brings her great voice out into the foreground and Rex Preston is a fine mandolin player- I love it.” - Mike Harding, BBC Radio 2.

Miranda, one of the few female double bass players in England, has played alongside West Country folk icons Steve Knightley and Phil Beer in the Show of Hands line-up since 2004 and in April will perform at the Royal Albert Hall with them - her second appearance there.

Miranda and Rex’s debut album weaves a timeless, magical mix of traditional and contemporary songs covering folk, blues, Americana and jazz with sensitive and skilful instrumentation and warm, engaging vocals. The rare fusion of double bass and mandolin makes for one of the most exciting new pairings on the acoustic roots scene.

Rex Preston, who has been dubbed “the best mandolin player in the UK”, moved to Bath in 2008 to study for a music degree and joined the much-feted Celtic/bluegrass band The Scoville Units. Recently he has been experimenting with electronica and tutoring young mandolin players.

Free form rather than formulaic, the 12-track album offers fresh arrangements of songs by songwriters from both sides of the Atlantic - from UK folk stalwarts Karine Polwart (Only One Way) and Kate Rusby (Old Man Time) to, more unexpectedly, English Grammy-winning singer songwriter’s Imogen Heap’s sensuous Between Sheets.

American roots songwriters have also proved a rich vein to tap and the duo include two beautiful poetic “relationship” numbers by American Peter Bradley Adams (So Are You to me and I Tell Myself) as well as Slaid Cleaves’ New Year’s Day , Patti Griffin’s evocative Rain and Trouble written by Karin Bergquist of the Ohio-based band Over the Rhine. 

The album has been produced by Preston and Joe Rusby. On the Hands on label, it will be released through Proper Distribution on February 20 following the afternoon launch gig at Frome where Rex will also be holding a mandolin workshop. 

Frome Folk Festival will also offer an exclusive preview of another significant album, due for release on March 1.

Manchester-based singer songwriter Gren Bartley will perform a unique album preview set at The Cheese and Grain on Sunday, February 19 (Hall 1, 12.30pm). 

The musician, who grew up in Stratford-on Avon, carved himself a name in a duo with fiddler Tom Kitching, a former BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards nominee. 

But Gren is now striking out solo, finally tapping into his rich and prolific song writing reserves and effortlessly bridging the Atlantic divide with an acoustic spectrum ranging from English folk to moody American blues.

“As an acoustic finger-picking guitar and banjo player he has few, if any, equals in his age group ; as a rooted-in-folk songwriter he’s developing an alarmingly good canon of work ” - R2 Magazine 

Songs to Scythe Back the Overgrown is a 13-track album on the Fellside label, - all Bartley originals bar his perfectly-judged take on Joni Mitchell’s The Last Time I Saw Richard. 

A showcase for his skilled, sensitive and sometimes quirky song writing, and here and there capturing his wry, self-deprecating humour, the genre-hopping album demonstrates Bartley’s strong, maturing voice alongside his acclaimed acoustic finger-picking guitar and banjo playing with some Ebow and harmonica thrown in for good measure. Guest musicians include the in-demand Katriona Gilmore (fiddle and backing vocals) who appears in the duo Gilmore and Roberts.

Says Gren: “The album is inspired by old English tunes, early American blues ballads and verses that thrive somewhere in between.” It ranges from the catchy, free-flowing late night trawl through a Midlands town Kings and Queens to the dark, unflinching and gutsy blues showstopper My Time is Nearly Over, a song inspired by the prison blues songs of the Mississ

An incredible roster of many of the top names in English folk will appear at the Frome winter festival including several 2012 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards nominees. Headliners are Spiers and Boden and Show of Hands frontman Steve Knightley.

Frome Folk Festival will run from 9am-11pm both days.

Weekend tickets, price £58 (£48 concessions). A family weekend ticket for two adults and 2 children (aged under 15) is £190.No booking fees apply. Day tickets are £32 (£30 concessions).


Indoor camping will be available at the town’s United Reformed Church, just a stone’s throw from the festival venues, on Feb 17, 18 and 19 at a cost of just £8 per night.