The British group of nine musicians are united by a passion for the beauty, emotion, and political charge of the traditional musics of Britain, Ireland, and beyond. They are committed to folk music not as an archaeological artifact, but as a living communal activity, inviting and generous to those it speaks to. Arranging the source material into a kind of musique boue (mud music) – simultaneously traditional and experimental – they engage a deep, cross-temporal synthesis of free improvisation, tape manipulation and field recordings. Their music appears as a patchwork as pieces are stitched together, rearranged and recontextualized. The yarn is threaded with their sense of aesthetic innovation, and with a deep sense of the ways in which traditional music holds the voices of the oppressed and those who, by their labor, create the wealth of the world.

They have performed sold out shows across the UK, with headline concerts at venues such as Cafe OTO, Kings Place, and Cecil Sharp House. The collective have appeared at many major festivals, including Glastonbury, Roskilde, SXSW, and Rewire festivals among others. Publications such as The Wire, Loud and Quiet, NME, Financial Times and The Times have heralded their live performances across the years, and likewise their albums The Shovel Dance and The Water is the Shovel of the Shore have been championed by the likes of The Wire, MOJO, Uncut, Songlines, and both were named albums of the year by The Quietus.