greenman festival

Fence Collective is a collective of musicians based in Anstruther in the East Neuk of Fife affiliated to the Fence record label. The more established acts are often dubbed nu-folk by the press. Although the collective also features practitioners of rock and electronica. Leading acts include King Creosote, James Yorkston, Pip Dylan, Pictish Trail, Gummi Bako, The Red Well, Lone Pigeon, HMS Ginafore and MC Quake. KT Tunstall and The Beta Band have also been involved.

Anonymity has become both a gift and a curse for the blogosphere — a “gift” for feeding our hunger, and a “curse” for, well, not informing us as to who is feeding us. Burial has the world eating out of his hand, picking and choosing various publications access and admitting truths like “only five people know I make tunes.” Argh. And then there are the artists that leave you a message that reads: “If you are wondering who we are, we will soon reveal all.. we are planning some wonderful all night parties, we wear belts with huge buckles and we play the best music ever.

San Francisco may sound an unlikely place for a young guitarist, singer and songwriter from Llanelli (South Wales) to start his musical career but that’s where the story begins for Christopher Rees. In 1994, after playing guitar and developing his song writing skills during his time at Cardiff University he packed his bags and like his hero John Cale bought a plane ticket to New York. A period of self discovery followed with a Zen-like summer spent teaching Kayaking and Canoeing on the lakes and rivers of Vermont before a Kerouac-inspired journey across America.