ALICE and Fanø Free Folk Festival invites you for a special evening with two of the greatest voices on the experimental British folk scene.

Richard Dawson is known for his idiosyncratic guitar style, his black-humoured songwriting and his intense live performances. His 2017-album ‘Peasant’ was widely praised as one of the most original takes on moderne English folk. An album tat gave a voice to the citizens of the ancient early medieval northern kingdom of Bryneich via a set of narratives as bawdy as Chaucer and as epic and bloody as Beowulf. With the follow-up, ‘2020’, Richard Dawson switches the focus with equally stunning results. The album is an utterly contemporary state-of-the-nation study, that uncovers an equally tumultuous and even bleaker time. With a highly personal mix of folk song, weird synths, avant-guitar and surprisingly catchy pop choruses, Dawson has created an album full of character studies so rich that one could call it a musical equivalent to Balzac’s ‘La Comédie humaine’. Funny, tragic and grotesque. The album has already received rave reviews. The Guardian wrote: “2020 is a reminder of the need for basic decency in a country that is forgetting it, voiced by the most brilliant and humane songwriter working here today.”

Previous visits to Denmark – such as his solo shows at Jazzhouse and his concert at Roskilde Festival in 2018 – has shown Richard Dawson as an extraordinary performer. At ALICE he will perform in a trio line-up and no doubt it will be equally intense.

Burd Ellen is a new solo project from Debbie Armour (who has worked with Green Ribbons, Alex Rex and Alasdair Roberts) featuring Gayle Brogan (Pefkin, Barrett’s Dottled Beauty) and Lucy Duncan (Luki). The group uses traditional song to explore and evoke dark landscapes and deep stories. Innovative instrumentation, drone and sound-wash support detailed vocal work to create a unique sonic atmosphere. Their brilliant debut album ‘Silver Came’ was released at the beginning of 2019 to great reviews. The album explores women’s narratives in British folk song and investigates ideas of persistence, defiance, devotion and transformation. Burd Ellen played a brilliant concert at this year’s Fanø Free Folk Festival and we’re thrilled to be able to present them in Copenhagen where they will perform as a duo with Debbie Armour and Gayle Brogan.