UK Artist Jennifer Reid Performs Broadside Ballads

Rochdale-born, Sheffield-based artist and actor Jennifer Reid performs Lancashire dialect and Victorian broadside ballads a cappella, continuing and honouring the Northern tradition of using music as a social provocation. She also clog dances, and may incorporate a wrestling belt into her stage wear.

With support from California ex-pat Brandon De La Cruz, whose dreamy, loopy electro folk songs will mesmerise before Reid belts it in trad folk fashion.

More about the artists:

Her forthcoming album The Ballad of the Gatekeeper was recorded at the iconic St Katherine’s Dock with support from Pete Townshend. The album features a blend of never-before-heard traditional songs and original material. The songs are intended to address the gaps Reid sees in the folk scene today, and to address universally challenging themes and events. It's her view that folk is a great equaliser and that by seeking to understand each other we'll be able to better support our communities in modernity.

Brandon De La Cruz is a folk artist whose lyricism is uniquely shaped by his interest in mythology, ceremony and RH Blyth’s translations of Japanese haiku. He grew up in the suburbs of Southern California's Inland Empire and has lived and performed regularly in Portland, OR, Berkeley, CA and Aotearoa. His last three records were inspired by the works of Rainer Maria Rilke, Joan Didion and Ovid, while his most recent album Two Kilos Of Blue draws from the images and experiences of his own life from the past 10 years.