For the first time Ireland’s Heidi Talbot and Scotland’s Adam Holmes are joining forces to tour, write and record an album of original material together. Between them they have been nominated for multiple BBC folk Awards, SAY awards, Irish music awards and played for First Ministers and US Presidents. This new collaboration will see the pair work under the name Arcade, with plans to record and release a new album of songs in 2019 produced by Louis Abbott (Admiral Fallow) followed by an extensive UK and European tour.

Heidi Talbot was born in Ireland became a folk star in the USA as a member of the Irish American band Cherish the Ladies, and now lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. With a background like that, it’s hardly surprising she should develop a style that switches easily between Celtic and Americana, but Subtlety is Talbot’s magic ingredient. From her gossamer voice to the delicate re-working of traditional and contemporary material that has earned her rave reviews for her records and Live performances. The girl from Co. Kildare, who spent several years in New York, slips effortlessly between musical worlds but retains a personal modesty rooted in traditional folk.

Only in the world of folk music could you imagine the staff at one of the liveliest, smokiest and most famous music pubs in Britain making a space at the end of the bar so that an eight year old child could get the best view of the singers and musicians. But that was the experience in legendary bar Sandy Bell’s of Edinburgh singer/songwriter Adam Holmes, who now at the age of twenty-one has been a Celtic Connections Young Traditional Musician finalist, BBC Radio 2 Folk Award nominee and Scottish Traditional Music Award winner.

With his band The Embers he combines the songwriting influences of artists such as John Martyn, Bon Iver, James Taylor and Townes Van Zandt with the rhythm and blues, country and folk music textures of The Band, Neil Young and Ryan Adams and The Cardinals to play his own unique brand of Americana, with a hint of Scotland.