Douglas MacGregor + Toby Hay
Entry Requirements: Over 18s only
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR Douglas MacGregor is a guitar player and composer who blends new with old, simplicity with complexity and melody with texture to create beautiful and dynamic pieces which draw the listener into his intimate and expressive sound world. His unique style is informed by a range of influences from blues, folk and experimental music to jazz, classical and music from around the world. MacGregor’s approach to the guitar is more like an orchestra - as an instrument capable of expressing a symphony – and so he is always pushing at the boundaries of what the instrument can do while retaining the innate musical and artistic sensibility that guides his work.
MacGregor began musical life in various Glasgow rock, jazz, experimental and poly-stylistic bands, including the eclectic Punch and the Apostles, but a 5 year stint in Berlin saw him refocus more on his own interest in natural acoustic sounds and while keeping this borderless approach to style. Nylon-strung guitar pieces are at the forefront of his latest album, The Stillness Dancing , which also includes compositions and improvisations with One Ensemble members on clarinet and cello as well as electronics from Glasgow sound artists Adam Campbell, Gavin Thompson and Charlie Knox.
TOBY HAY The Gathering is the debut album from guitarist and composer Toby Hay. From near Rhayader in Mid Wales he makes instrumental music inspired by the landscape, people and history of the area. Following in the footsteps of the American Primitive guitarists and the British Folk revivalists he composes music for the 6 and 12 string guitar.
In uenced by music from all over the world, Indian Ragas, African Kora music and ancient Welsh harp music from the Robert ap Huw manuscript he makes music to capture the atmosphere of the special and under represented part of Wales where he lives, adding to the long tradition of Welsh string music. Robert Macfarlane writes in the liner notes to the album - “Place, memory, nature, loss and dreamed-of geographies are the subjects of this beautiful music: that gathering of feelings that go by the untranslatable Welsh word hiraeth. ere is a sadness at what has gone here, but not a nostalgia. e world’s dew gleams on this music, but the world’s dust swirls through it too.” He has released a number of EP’s and recieved support from radio stations in the UK, America and Australia and supported artists like Ryley Walker, Songhoy Blues, Marika Hackman and James Yorkston as well as playing at Green Man Festival and Swn Fest in Cardi . He will be touring extensively throughout the UK and Ireland in support of the release
“Something of a young troubadour, Hay makes compositions that feel both incredibly detailed and beautifully light. A rising star and so much more.” — Green Man Festival
“Toby Hay manages to marry craft and melody like few others in contemporary Welsh Folk. His appreciation of the melancholic and melodic voice of his guitar brings out an experimental, gorgeously elongated picking style that touches on American Primitivism and the likes of Bert Jansch or John Renbourne, but with an inviting, graceful air” — Gwdihŵ