Category: CQAF2025 – Sunday 11 May

Rachel Sermanni is a Scottish based singer/songwriter that makes the mundane moments mystical: shock-positive pregnancy tests in train-station toilets, coffee machine breakages, cold river swims, the regret of not saying ‘I love You’, the moon & how it pulls, bare feet on wood floors, the soft glow of a house plant, ‘what even is consciousness?’, strange dreams lingering in quiet mornings…

She brims with dreamy indie-folk pop that speaks of the struggle and desire to Flow, to love, to live, to feel. Sometimes, her songs speak of the rare moments of quiet-still, found in the midst of this struggle & desire.

Rachel’s most recent offering is her 4th studio album : Dreamer Awake. An in depth assortment of playful and candid vignettes, peeping into life: after birth, after separation and in the wake of recognising the internalised conditionings of patriarchy. She seeks to be honest with herself and her environment. She seeks to express from this raw place. She seeks to speak from the descent, the plateaus, the dream-catchings and contemplations of womanhood.

There are no conclusions to be drawn. It is a call to arms, of sorts, to wake up and dream the future, to dismiss the external for a minute and tend to the inner landscape of heart and mind. To not be distracted. To focus on the light and the shadow in equal measure.

Since the release of Dreamer Awake, Rachel has become a mother for the second time and continues to explore this experience while offering her songs and also her insights into creativity.

Lael Neale’s minimalist drone pop draws inspiration from the Transcendentalists, the high lonesome sound of primitive American gospel music & the alienation of modern life. Since signing with Sub Pop in 2020, she has split her time between rural Virginia and Los Angeles in addition to extensive touring throughout Europe and select shows in the U.S.

In collaboration with producer and accompanist Guy Blakeslee, Neale has created two internationally acclaimed home-recorded albums. They have recently completed a third which is slated for release in 2025.

“A unique, boldly weird proposition, and one that proudly carries the faint hint of tractor grease. Half of it comes on like cult 70s folk artist Karen Dalton hanging out with the Velvet Underground and Suicide, while the rest offers somewhat more modern balladry, placing her more in the world of Angel Olsen and Cat Power.” – THE GUARDIAN

“Neale is imaginative, but she’s steeped in songwriting craft and she knows her way round a whopping chorus.”★★★★ – MOJO

“The simplicity is part of what makes her record so beautiful; just her voice, her words, her electric guitar, and her omnichord are enough to put the listener in a trance.” – SPIN

“She’s managed to infuse a very done old female singer-songwriter, emotive approach with fresh abandon. She abandons a lot of the traditional instrumentation and doesn’t often bother with a beat and just kind of lets the whole feeling of the thing go into a place that suddenly doesn’t sound like it’s of the industry. And I like her record.” – Iggy Pop (BBC Radio)

Bernard Butler is a Brit and Grammy Award winning musician. In 1989 he formed Suede releasing the Mercury winning debut Suede. The era-defining Dog Man Star was followed by his collaboration with David McAlmont on the anthem ”Yes”.

Two solo albums on Creation yielded a Brit nomination before  producing seminal releases by The Libertines, Tricky, Black Kids, Kate Nash, James Morrison, Texas, Mark Eitzel, Paloma Faith and Duffy – spawning her Grammy and Brit Award winning debut Rockferry.

He has played guitar for Pet Shop Boys, Bryan Ferry, Roy Orbison, Bert Jansch, The Libertines, Neneh Cherry, Robert Plant and Ben Watt. Butler is Patron to the Bert Jansch Foundation and Generator NE and lectures in songwriting for the Abbey Road Institute.

In 2022 a  collaboration with Jessie Buckley “For All Our Days That Tear The Heart” resulted in the shortlist to the 2022 Mercury Prize. Currently he has completed albums by Sam Lee, The Clockworks and a new solo album a solo album for 2024 release.

A quarter of a century since his self-inflicted coronation, and self-released debut solo album,  Kenny Anderson – DIY pop voyager, ancestral seaside home restorer, Fife for lifer, diamond miner, hijacker of hearts, and the man also known as King Creosote – has released over 100 records,  collaborated with the likes of Jon Hopkins, KT Tunstall, Beta Band’s Lone Pigeon, and had his songs covered and performed by artists including Patti Smith and Simple Minds.

A note from Kenny –

2024’s springtime tour “Any Port in a Storm”- a mix of modular synth, I DES tracks and KC ‘classics’ was such a success that we are delighted to announce 2025’s follow up “Any Storm in a Teacup” from April-June.