Lauded for projects expertly blending tradition and modernity, Dave Malkin (Dipper Malkin) and Louis Campbell (Owen Spafford & Louis Campbell) come together to explore and reframe their instrument, the guitar, and its role in English traditional music.

Their debut EP, Bird On A Briar, journeys through melodies from centuries-old manuscripts and the aural tradition, reclaiming arrangements from the English Pastoral School and celebrating the musical idiosyncrasies of England, highlighting the exquisite result of a thousand years of migration and cultural collision, all through a thoroughly contemporary lens. The result is refreshingly considered yet pure, documenting the pair’s attention to detail in arrangement, harmony, tone and phrasing with no overdubs, trickery or gimmicks. Their two flat-top acoustic guitars bloom in the natural reverberance of a church hall in South East London, captured by Malkin’s long-time collaborator Tom Moore.

The title track, an arrangement of perhaps the oldest surviving English secular song with a complete lyric, dated to the late 13th century, encapsulates the record as a whole, carefully treading a path between research and imagination.

Bird On A Briar is available as a limited-edition 10-inch vinyl and digital, released on Slow Worm Records, August 2024.