May 29, 2022
Hidden Door is committed to supporting new up and coming artists, and as well as bringing you some of the most exciting breakthrough music acts from all across the UK, we want to celebrate the talent that is local to the festival.
That’s why we launched the Open Call for Live Music. Out of over 200 incredible entries, we managed to select 6 acts that we thought were special and fitted our programme.
Make sure you don’t miss them!
The acts are:
Read more about the acts below…
Swiss Portrait’s DIY-Dream Pop foundations were built by Scottish born multi–instrumentalist and conceptual artist, Michael Kay Terence. He is joined live by friends: Carron (Bass), Andy (Drums) and Brett (Guitar).
Living in rural Midlothian, Michael keeps a DIY approach – recording, playing, mixing and producing everything himself. Since Swiss Portraits’ birth from lock down solitude, they have exploded onto the Scottish scene and are tipped for a massive 2022.
After selling out the limited edition cassette of their debut EP “Familiar Patterns” on the day of release, via Z Tapes, and playing a sold-out show at Sneaky Pete’s, they have continued to garner enthusiastic support across BBC Introducing and BBC Scotland.
With their distinctive, dreamy, jangle-pop sound, Swiss Portrait promise to continue making waves.
Ariane Mamon is a French-American jazz vocalist, whose music is highly influenced by Esperanza Spalding and Björk.
Born in Paris, but then later moved to Boston to study jazz vocals at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Mamon has fused her mastery of the voice and skill for improvisation and composition, in creating unique ethereal and electrifying wordless jazz compositions, where she extends her voice as a melodic instrument.
Her love for jazz composition, classical music, and Brazilian music, in particular the music of Pat Metheny, Jean Sibelius, and Milton Nascimento reflect in her compositional style and process, and are also deeply linked to her spirituality and connection to the Earth.
As an artist, she refers to jazz as a natural ecosystem that she tries to recreate and regenerate in her music.
Les BOF! are Scotland’s answer to the 60s French yé yé garage beat. The singer’s rasp, too much for his native Marseille, was given a home by a bunch of beatniks in Edinburgh. Sung in the French language with music played in English, the band have release two long players: Nous Sommes Les Bof! (Copase Disques) and Voila! (Dirty Water) amongst a handful of EPs and singles.
The band have extensively toured Europe, cities and the festival scene, North America – and festivals and cities up and down the UK since forming over 15 or so years ago. They’ve also hit the radio waves, playing live sessions on NYC’s WFMU, 6Music and BBC Scotland.
Buffet Lunch are a band whose members are spread evenly across the holy trinity of Scottish Cities; Glasgow, Edinburgh & Dundee. Operating somewhere on the Chas n Dave to Devo axis, delivering reasonably catchy, imperfect pop songs.
Aberdeenshire folksinger, Iona Fyfe, has become one of Scotland’s finest singers, rooted deeply in the singing traditions of the North East of Scotland. In 2021, she became the first singer to win the coveted title of Musician of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards. Iona is a fierce advocate for the official recognition of the Scots Language, leading a successful campaign to pressure Spotify into recognising Scots and add it to its list of languages.
Honoured at the Scots Language Awards with the title of Speaker of the Year in 2021, Iona performs both folk and pop songs in the Scots language, remaining true to her rooting in tradition. Iona has featured in several publications including The Sunday Post, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Times. She won the title of Scots Singer of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards in 2018 and was described as “one of the best Scotland has to offer.”
Snarling vocals over feral guitar riffs, backed by pounding drums and bass – garage punk three-piece Casual Drag have earned a reputation as a must-see live band through a series of frenetic and high energy shows across Edinburgh and Glasgow. Following a trio of singles, which has seen them championed by BBC Introducing, Casual Drag’s debut EP – recorded at Glasgow’s famous Green Door Studio – will be released in Autumn 2022.
