Phenomenal folk trio Uiscedwr is one of Britain’s most exciting contemporary bands coming to Quay Arts on Sat 27 March in the Anthony Minghella Theatre at 8pm.

Featuring founder members Anna Esslemont on fiddle and vocals and Cormac Byrne on bodhran and percussion (of Seth Lakeman band fame), the result is the most thrilling modern folk music you’re ever likely to hear. Underpinned by driving guitar, this folk trio promises a night you won’t forget.

Underpinned by driving guitar, this folk trio promises a night you won’t forget.

With awards from the BBC and the PRS Foundation and two highly acclaimed albums under their belt, Uiscedwr’s music is fatter, funkier and folkier than ever before. The eclectic repertoire draws on traditions form all over the British Isles tempered by influences as diverse as jazz, Latin, blues and klezmer.

If music genuinely reflects the inner soul, it’s little wonder Uiscedwr are such an amazing band. Passionate, irrepressible, vital, imaginative, sincere, sorrowful, joyous and supremely skilled, the exciting Welsh/Irish/Anglo box of tricks that is Uiscedwr have been to hell and back over the last four years. Nothing if not survivors, they’ve reeled from the knocks, nursed their bruises – literally in the case of their extraordinary fiddle player/singer Anna Esslemont – and shrugged off a cruel catalogue of traumas to channel both good experiences and bad into the fireball of creativity that has seen them storm back with a rip-roaring third album Fish Cat Door (which, apart from anything else, is a title considerately designed to help pronunciation of their name – just delete the first letter of the first word then the last letter of the second word and you’re there!)

“There have been times when I felt we were cursed,” says Anna, “but whenever things looked at their bleakest, we always seemed to turn a corner. It’s incredible. There’s something about this band – we create this big fat sound and audiences respond. I think of us as this small package with massive power…”

Uiscedwr are a folk band of sorts – with various award nominations and numerous headlining festival appearances to prove it – but this is folk in its widest possible sense and their explosive stage show and the mesmerising assortment of influences they draw on to throw into the mix will astound anyone still labouring under long-antiquated clichés and misapprehensions about folk’s relevance to the modern world. Exhaustingly energetic and thrillingly open-minded, they draw on classical, rock, world, jazz and any other damn musical force that takes their fancy to assume their proud position at the vanguard of young artists tearing apart hoary old folk images.

Leading that charge while retaining the respect, admiration and affection of folk’s traditional base is an achievement few ever successfully deliver, itself a measure of Uiscedwr’s unique strength and status.

Sat 27 Mar 8pm doors 7pm £12 / £11*