“She is legion. This Welsh musician plays really loud and really fast too, like a vengeful bluegrass musician conjuring up roiling fury, then dropping into languorous eddies, switching between paces with pin-sharp precision” – Guardian

“Just about anybody with an interest in the new school of American primitive will tell you that Gwenifer Raymond is one of its most promising proponents” – Bandcamp Daily

Gwenifer Raymond is your classic triple threat: a computer games programmer, Astrophysics PhD holder, and world-class folk guitarist. She began playing guitar at the age of eight, having been exposed to the raw power of punk and grunge music. After years of playing around the Welsh valleys in various punk outfits, she began listening more to pre-war blues musicians and Appalachian folk players, before eventually honing her interest in the guitar players of the American Primitive genre.

In 2018, she signed up with the American label Tompkins Square and released her first album, You Never Were Much of a Dancer, to widespread acclaim. In 2020, her second album Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain shifted somewhat from straight Americana and started to take more of a spiritual influence from the landscape of her homeland of Wales. Recalling from her childhood memories of spooky trees, black against the grey sky and breath misting in cold air, Gwenifer’s style of guitar playing could easily be referred to as Welsh Primitive.

Her live performances leave audiences breathless: thundering, muscular music that resets your expectations for a folk gig. In a five star review for the Guardian, Kitty Empire said of Gwenifer: She is legion, and that sense of awe remains a key factor in the performances of one of the most unique, most exciting talents in British folk music today.

Support comes from Valerie Van Roey, a Belgian folksinger undertaking her first tour of the UK. Her music offers the perfect counterpoint to a Gwenifer Raymond set, and is built around Valerie’s mellisonant vocals, which remind us of Katherine Priddy and Joan Baez. Perhaps serendipitously, Valerie’s own music has been influenced by the sounds of North America – in this case, a 6000km hitchhiked journey that the singer made across Canada at the age of nineteen.

Paired with her training in traditional Persian singing by renowned artists Hossein Alizadeh, Valerie’s music is a unique proposition, and something we’re thrilled to share with UK audiences for the first time.

Support: Valerie Van Roey