Our new end-of-summer event returns for a second year!
As well as a full line-up of music, there's the OldWays Makerspace, talks and activities and lots of ways to slow down, relax and re-connect.
We want to make sure there’s plenty to see and do, but also plenty of space, so we’ve scheduled things so that you don’t have to miss out on anything!
Keep reading for more info about the music line-up and other activities at Septembersong...
Find out more about who's playing at Septembersong...
Tim Wheeler is an Irish singer-songwriter and musician hailing from Downpatrick, Northern Ireland. Born in 1977, he is best recognised as the Gibson Flying-V wearing frontman of alternative rock outfit Ash. An Ivor Novello Award winner, Wheeler also has a career as a solo musician (though Ash is still going strong). We look forward to welcoming Tim to Braziers Park for Septembersong!
Carson McHone is a songwriter from Austin, Texas, now residing in Southern Ontario. McHone’s 2018 internationally released Carousel (Loose Music / Nine Mile Records), produced by Mike McCarthy, was a reimagining of songs from her formative years coming of age playing in dive bars. It established her as a shrewd artist who raises unconventional questions with language equally at home in a poem or a short story. In 2019, during a hectic tour schedule, the songs of Still Life were written, and the following year McHone teamed up with Canadian musician and producer, Daniel Romano, to record the album while sequestered at a home studio in the fall of 2020. Still Life was released on Merge Records / Loose Music in February 2022 with McHone touring the US, Canada, Europe, and the UK in support of the album, as well as joining, and performing with, Daniel Romano’s band, the Outfit. In September 2022 McHone released Camera Varda Variations (Merge Records / Loose Music ), a digital EP featuring two songs from Still Life re-recorded at the Outfit’s new studio, Camera Varda, with the group as her band, akin to the collaboration/live show of the two acts on tour. McHone has recorded and toured three albums as a member of the Outfit, Cobra Poems (2022), La Luna (2023), and Too Hot To Sleep (2024), all released on You’ve Changed Records. McHone’s upcoming EP, ODES, is a collection of carefully curated covers recorded at Camera Varda with her bandmates the Outfit, plus special guest Shannon McGrath, and will be released July 19th, 2024 on Merge Records.
William Tyler is a Nashville guitarist and composer. He spent years woodshedding and touring with Nashville groups like Lambchop and Silver Jews before breaking away to focus on his own version of instrumental guitar music.
Transparently wonderful songs that hold a mirror up to the human condition, the human soul and the human heart - Dan takes you from smart phone screens to glass making in his exploration of ‘The Glass Age’ in which we now live. This is where the light gets in. “Gorgeous… intriguing” The Guardian
Essex-based harp and synth duo Masal follow their acclaimed collaboration with Andy Bell with a new album, “The Galloping Cat”, which was mastered by Andy’s Ride bandmate Mark Gardener and is released in March. The first single from the album, ‘Black Beads’, according to the duo’s Özlem Simsek, is a song all about “finding one’s purpose in life, battling with uncertainty, the unexpected turns and changes while searching for the things that make us happy or make us feel fulfilled”. The Galloping Cat finds this unlikely pair of “neurodiverse nature lovers” collaborating on six meandering tracks of psychedelic grooves, electronic weirdness and motorik basslines, mostly wordlessly exploring themes of self-discovery – and it’s stunning. Even more so, because, in theory, it’s a musical combination that shouldn’t work. Oz is a Turkish/English harpist, theremin player and vocalist whose middle eastern background is entwined with her western studies in classical music. Meanwhile, Alastair Johnson grew up in Hadleigh, Essex, relying on the library’s record collection for inspiration before he started making experimental electronic music as Alien and Weapon Eyes.
Award-winning ‘broken folk’ experimentalists — Lunatraktors strip Anglo-Celtic traditionals to the bare bones of vocal harmony and percussive dance, expanding into weird, playful spaces with eclectic acoustic beats, accordion, whistles and deep drones. Ancient and contemporary, mournful and joyously deranged, Lunatraktors are ‘simply different’ (RTÉ Lyric FM). MOJO Top Ten Folk Albums 2019 & 2021.
"Achingly beautiful" - Rev. Kate Bottley (BBC Radio 2) "One of the UK's most moving songwriters" - John Kennedy (Radio X) Tom Bright’s last 18 months have seen him appear on BBC’s The One Show, Sky News, BBC Radio 2, BBC 5 Live, in session on Radio X, perform at the iconic London Palladium, Shepherd's Bush Empire, tour across Europe and much more, kicking off 2024 by supporting The Libertines and The Leisure Society, and before that opening for the likes of Mystery Jets and Tom Grennan. Before his musical endeavours, Tom was once the UK’s youngest pub landlord, and is also a former patient of Great Ormond Street Hospital, undergoing a multitude of major life-saving operations. His third album, ‘Somewhere Anywhere’ - produced by Ed Harcourt and mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios - was released in October 2023 and is his most personal and reflective work to date
A master storyteller with a voice like rolling thunder’ – GQ Magazine London-based Dubliner Louis Brennan is a singer-songwriter in the folk tradition. His folk however aren’t the field-hands and travelling minstrels of yore, but the repressed middle-managers and ennui-ridden urbanites of late-stage capitalism. They populate tales of bad sex, half-drunk commutes and interpersonal claustrophobia, delivered in Brennan’s cracked baritone, at times embarrassingly intimate, at times spuriously broad, peppered with pitch-black humour. Brennan’s debut album 'Dead capital' (2018) was awarded 9/10 by Americana UK who called it "an outstanding album; deep, dark and demanding of attention" , with comparisons to Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark and Leonard Cohen. A handful of singles, including the duet ‘A Full House’ with AMAUK award-winner Michele Stodart, received airplay from Ralph McLean, Bob Harris, Lonesome Highway and others. His eagerly awaited second LP 'Love Island' , (2022) recorded mid-pandemic at the legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales, and mixed at Abbey Road, was called “An essential album for our times” by Lonesome Highway, with Brennan’s sharp tongue delving further into his dystopian vision of society.
Pete Astor led Creation Records’ groups The Loft and The Weather Prophets, writing songs and releasing records that helped define the sound of the label and the emerging Indie genre. He has gone on to a lengthy solo career since then; writing, recording and releasing music on a range of labels including Matador, Heavenly, Warp, EMI and Fortuna Pop. Since 2017 Astor has been signed to Tapete Records, home to Robert Forster, Lloyd Cole and Comet Gain among many reputable others. He will be playing songs from his new record, Tall Stories & New Religions where he is re-visits and re-imagines his songs from throughout his lengthy and estimable career. A lifetime of listening has led me to believe that Pete Astor’s songs would have always found a way to reach an audience. If he’d been a Californian baby boomer, he’d have ended up in the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, laying down late-night grooves with the Wrecking Crew for a largely-neglected, slightly gloomy, pop album that’d now be worth a fortune. If he’d been born into post-War Britain, earnest girls in sweaters would’ve fallen in love with him, and his songs, in Embassy-fogged folk clubs. - Danny Kelly, NME
Formed in 1985, the 14 Iced Bears’ first single Inside/Blue Suit/Cut got legendary dj John Peel’s attention and he loved the session that followed on his show. They also were caught on the wave of C86 that followed the emergence of bands like the Jesus and Mary Chain, and became a favourite of many a fanzine. After a few singles, their eponymous first lp took a more psychedelic turn and they toured supporting acts such as Julian Cope, Alex Chilton and the Velvet Underground. Splitting up after their second lp Wonder, they became seen more and more as an influence to younger bands of the ilk and reformed in 2010 to tour again, including the East and West coasts of the US. Cherry Red then released all the Bears material in their Hold on Inside CD , which was taken up and released on two vinyl lps by Optic Nerve. Back again after another break and a ringing six-page article in psych oracle Shindig Magazine, and with the second lp lineup, the Iced Bears played their first set in ten years to a sold-out crowd in Sheffield in April 2024, with a tour of gigs ahead, including Paris, London and the Preston Popfest.
Defiantly working class, Hannah White in full, proud council estate swagger, is coming to Septembersong Festival and baring all. The artist Holler Magazine described as “Americana’s answer to Mike Skinner. More Patsy Palmer than Cline” began 2023 by earning a Americana Music Association UK Best Song Award, and ended it with the release of her much-anticipated album ‘Sweet Revolution’ which reached #17 in the Official UK Americana Charts and #14 in the Official Independent Album Charts & earning her a host of AMA UK 2024 Award nominations. Her typically British, self-deprecating humour does nothing to diminish the emotion which Acoustic Magazine described as “arresting and wholly believable”. Hannah White is an artist who has “a wittiness to her grittiness and a sparkling wink in her poetry”; One who personifies authenticity and shows us all how London does country! Uncut Magazine called her’s “an expressive voice and songcraft”, Krentenuitdepop, Netherlands said she does “roots music on par with the best currently being made in the US”. Fatea Magazine said “songwriting from the top drawer” whilst 3 Chords And The Truth agree ”we are in the midst of a seriously fine songwriter”. “If soul is a feeling, a fire that burns inside you, then Hannah White is without a doubt a soul singer” (Holler).
Our Man In The Field, the musical pseudonym of British singer/songwriter Alex Ellis, is the result of a mid-life epiphany. In 2014, Ellis found himself in the hospital under observation for intense abdominal pains. A tumor was discovered similar to a growth that led to the death of his father in his 40s. As Ellis awaited treatment, he reflected on his dad’s life – hard work in a job he didn’t like, with no ability to enjoy the fruits of his labor before he passed – and realized he needed to make some changes to avoid the same fate. Until then Ellis had been an actor, but it wasn’t catapulting him to a fulfilling life. Upon his discharge and subsequent recovery, he began writing and slowly creating his aesthetic and sonic identity as a musician. “I think of Our Man In The Field as kind of a character and not really even me,” says Ellis. “Something like a Jack Kerouac or an Albert Camus. A writer and a correspondent, a roving reporter like a TV version in the ‘70s; Hunter S Thompson but less guns and LSD. I don’t want the listener to think about the songs as being mine or about me, it’s more about the story and the characters in there. They’re always about real people and hopefully that makes them relatable.” Produced and mixed by Tucker Martine (Modest Mouse, Rosanne Cash, Case/Lang/Veirs), Gold On the Horizon was released on November 3 2023 (ORDER HERE), is a 12-song collection of life observations and the urge to explore their universal meanings through Ellis’s fly-on-the-wall, tuneful alter-persona. Recorded at Flora Recording and Playback in Portland, Oregon, the album ranges from raw and barren in “Come Back To Me,” which showcases Ellis’s soulful vocal harmonies and a sparse arrangement of acoustic guitar and pedal steel, to the spacious mirror ball slow-dance of “Go Easy.” The album opener “Feel Good.” is a full and striding desert noir of horns, backup vocals, and baritone guitar. What informs Ellis and Gold On the Horizon is a lifetime of inspiration and the creative space to “wait for something magical to happen.”
Steeped in American folk traditions and singing as a community practice from an early age, Lisa creates music that seeks to recover a deeper connection with life, within and around us. She creates musical spaces full of aliveness and presence, with her voice as the gateway into a world of texture and harmony, embodiment of hard-won truths and unabashed gospel-like celebration. With her blend of vocals, guitar and live looper, Lisa creates soundscapes ranging from introspective folk to neo-soul inspired grooves. With a heartfelt desire to connect and a belief in the power of song, she inspires the audience to become part of the music, raising their voices and their spirits. Recent highlights include Lisa’s February album release ‘Return Home’ charting at #26 on the FAI folk charts tied with Americana singer Allison Russell, being selected for the prestigious Emerging Artist Showcase at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in Goshen, CT, USA. Lisa was also asked to record backing vocals for a project with Leon Mobley, Percussionist for the renown ‘Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals’. In the UK Lisa has opened for Hannah Saunders & Ben Savage, A Winter Union, Charlie Dore and Julian Littman and Wesley Stace among others. Lisa is working on her new album for release in 2025.
Our ‘Old Ways’ maker space aims to showcase some almost-lost skills and technologies, in some cases with the chance to take part yourself, or just to watch the crafts-folk at work. Here's a few of the people who will be at Septembersong:
Pottery
Lucy Young will be bringing her pottery wheel to Septembersong to demonstrate the art of throwing clay on a wheel with the opportunity for people to experience the thrill and complexities of throwing their own pot.
Lucy grew up in the Forest of Dean where her father, established potter Alistair Young, set up a pottery. Having completed a degree in Fine Art Painting at Winchester School of Art and after a career as a teacher, Lucy trained as a production potter at Whichford Pottery in the Cotswolds. She now owns her own business - Lucy Young Ceramics - where she creates high-quality, hand-thrown pottery in Cheltenham, specialising in designing and making personalised tankards for craft breweries.
We are so pleased that Lucy has made bespoke tankards for Septembersong which will be available in advance on our website (with a free pint of course!) or at the festival while supplies last.
Sourdough Bread Making
Learn all about the art of sourdough bread baking with Hannah Bironzo (aka The Gypsy Baker). In 2020, Hannah set up online bread-baking classes and The Gypsy Baker workshops came into being. Small groups of people join her for an interactive learning experience and bake loaves together from scratch, in real time. Sourdough bread requires a ‘starter,’ composed of natural yeast and lactobacilli (beneficial bacteria) so to make it easier, Hannah shares her San Francisco sourdough starter (which has a beautiful story) with every baker who joins a workshop. Hannah has now taught hundreds of bakers from all over the UK (and beyond) and still runs monthly workshops. We were so lucky to have Hannah at Wood Festival 2024 bringing her online workshops to life in a tent and teaching people about the magic of sourdough, creating sourdough bread sticks, cooked over a fire. Hannah returns for Septembersong to meet more people and bake and break delicious sourdough bread together.
The Porch Preserves
Nicola Elmore from The Porch, (Oxford's oldest resource for the homeless and vulnerably housed) will be talking about Porch Preserves, a social enterprise running for over 12 years at the Porch Day Centre. Porch Preserves is perhaps the ultimate in food recycling, using donations from the Oxford Food Bank, produce from their own allotments and sometimes gifts from neighbours, friends and family. Porch Preserves offers the opportunity to experience jam, marmalade and chutney made by hand, with love and with the aim of providing a therapeutic experience when possible and a way of raising money for the Porch Day Centre for the homeless and vulnerably housed in Oxford.
Willow Weaving
Emma and Stuart of The Coddiwomplers will be running Willow Weaving and Willow Crafts drop-in workshops throughout the day. Just turn up, tell them what you'd like to make, then they help you make it! There is a charge for this and they offer a wide range of things to choose from, from simple woven fish, through to more complex bird feeders, with prices starting at £6. Check out this instagram reel to get a feel for what it’s like.
Toko Bowls
Artist and sculptor Simon Clements will be showcasing wood carving and also offer a chance to take part in a communal carving session making TOKO BOWLS. Try your hand at carving a wooden bowl using bespoke carving tools, notice the growing pile of delicate curved wood chips as your bowl takes shape, and learn about the character and nature of timber as you carve. Carving with a knife or ‘whittling’ is a quiet, contemplative activity. Simon is a sculptor and printmaker working from his rural Oxfordshire studio.
Woodturning
Alistair Philips of Woodworks and Coracles offers the chance to try your hand at the traditional craft of woodturning with his collection of foot powered lathes. Have-a-go drop-in sessions will be available throughout the festival, with spindle turning and bowl turning lathes on show.
Stone carving
Will O’Leary will again be demonstrating the art of stone carving. Will has been carving stone for many years and makes anything in stone, but specialise in memorials and carving work. Some major commissions have included : a large Buddhist memorial pagoda, lettering on the base for Sir Edward Elgars' statue outside Hereford Cathedral, the design and carving of a coat of arms for the pediment of a new mansion in Hampshire, a half ton green Cumbrian slate plaque with cut and gilded lettering, for Prince Charles' architectural foundation in London. and even a 4 ton lobster for a private garden in Shropshire!
Spoon Carving Demonstrations
Rob Morely brings his green wood wares and skills to Septembersong, and will be demonstrating spoon carving.
This year at Septembersong, we are also introducing the Junior Makerspace, which will feature crafts, like hapa zome natural printing, as well as kids’ yoga, family singing, and a loose parts play area furnished in part by the Oxfordshire Play Association. As always, the Woodland play area will be open too!
Start each day with ways to connect to yourself, the environment and one another, like yoga, meditation and singing groups.
Seasonal Meditation
Anna, an Oxford-based yoga teacher and sound bath facilitator with over a decade of experience, will lead a guided yoga nidra style meditation inspired by the cycles of nature and the Celtic wheel of the year, blended with the soothing sound of gongs, chimes, and singing bowls. Connect with the energies of the season and reflect on how these relate to our lives. Participants can choose to lie down or be seated.
Barefoot Walking
American philosopher Henry David Thoreau famously wrote “An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” – 150 years later, that still stands true. Hannah Secouet of Base Camp takes us on a morning barefoot walk for adults (30 minutes). Find out why regular barefoot walks (or grounding) are good for your health and wellbeing, and be guided through some mindfulness and reflection exercises along the way, to ensure you’re present and prepared for the day ahead.
Family Barefoot Walk
Hannah will also lead a family walk (60-90 minutes) so participants can take time to really feel what is beneath our feet as we tread (carefully!) through the different textures of nature, without our shoes and socks. There’ll be a few games along the way, as well as the chance to make your own lasting footprint from Septembersong - that is, if you’re brave enough to walk in mud! Finishing off with some reflection and relaxation, you’ll leave the woods feeling re-energised and re-balanced.
Communal Singing
Lisa Doscher, who will also be performing on Sunday at 4:20 pm in the Wonky Church, will lead a harmony singing workshop on Saturday: a joyful singing experience welcoming all types of voices. Sing layered harmony songs and add a bit of rhythmic body percussion/ beatboxing if the spirit moves us! No singing experience necessary.
Song Fishing
Dan Whitehouse (performing on Friday at 7:25 pm in the Marquee) will lead a songwriting workshop on Saturday morning, in association with Company of Song and Songwriting Campfire, called ‘Song Fishing’, designed to connect with your inner child and focus on the activities of writing as a playful experience, a kind of performance in itself.
Feral Singing
Singing to ground you, lift you, inspire and connect you. Elena, an experienced outdoor educator, will be leading a singing workshop on Sunday morning. Elena is deeply inspired by the natural world to sing and serenade respect and gratitude in return for it's incredible gifts. Join her and experience the joy of putting voices together to connect to each other and the earth.
Circling
In the afternoons, Karen Skehel will be facilitating a circling session (90 minutes). Circling is an authentic relating practice that fosters deeper, more meaningful connections with ourselves and others. Put simply, circling is a different way of having a conversation. Unlike our typical way of communicating which draws on memory and pulls us back into the past or forward into the future, Circling brings us to the present moment. It is concerned with what it is like to be together right here and right now. Circling is sometimes seen as an interpersonal meditation that calls us to be simultaneously present with our experience and the experience of others. Karen is a Facilitator of the Healing Arts, leading wellbeing workshops and sharing her work on ITV, BBC1 and on international TV as well as being a regular contributor to Natural Health Magazine.
event photos by Fyrefly Studios
Location
Braziers Park Camp Field, Ipsden,
Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 6AN
Opening Times
Doors open Friday 6th September (3pm)
Music ends Sunday 8th September (9pm)
3 nights camping included with weekend ticket, same-night included with day tickets.
Braziers Park Camp Field, Ipsden, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 6AN
What3words for campsite: bought.cubed.movie
BUS: Braziers Park is served by the X40 Thames Travel service connecting to Oxford, Wallingford and Reading. The Braziers Lane stop is a request stop so ask the driver, and it’s a 5 minute walk to the festival site from the stop. Take care if crossing the busy A4074. You should be able to see the yellow AA signs and other event signage.
TRAIN: It’s best to go to Reading station and then catch theX40 bus to Braziers Park, as these buses run from just outside the station. Goring & Streatley Station is around 40-60 minutes walk with steep hills and no buses- occasionally taxis.
To catch a bus from Reading railway station, leave the station at the main entrance, cross the road opposite and make your way to bus stop EB. The bus takes approximately 30-35 minutes.
There is a £20 (weekend) parking charge.
Single day parking is a flat rate of £10.
Parking can be paid in advance.
Why not try Liftshare?
Liftshare is free to use and helps people who are going to the same place connect to share lifts. There is a dedicated Liftshare Community for people attending festivals.
https://liftshare.com/uk/community/festival
A limited number of camper van passes are available.
You will require a separate camper van ticket – available from the ticket page.
Camper vans will be sited in the main field.
3 nights camping in the beautiful surrounds of Braziers Park, Oxfordshire, is included with your weekend ticket, same-night included with day tickets.
We need to keep an emergency access lane through the campsite, and also to make sure there is room for everyone to camp; please pitch your tent sensibly and co-operate with any requests from our friendly campsite stewards.
We regret that no gazebos are allowed in the campsite.
For your safety the campsite is monitored 24 hours.
Luxury bell tents for 2 - 4 people are available to hire from our friends at Beautiful-Bells.co.uk.
Your tent will be ready and waiting for you on your arrival at the festival!
Includes:
5m cream canvas bell tent furnished with flooring, rug, cushions, mirror, bedside tables, LED lanterns, fairy lights and REAL plants.
Beds and mattresses - each single comes with additional memory foam topper, duvet with cover, fitted sheet, 2 pillows with cases and additional blankets.
Bell tents can be booked when purchasing tickets for the event.
Our wood-fired showers will be running throughout the weekend.
A limited number of rooms can be booked in Braziers Park house.
Please contact Braziers Park directly to book – 01491 680 221.
Children under 18 must be accompanied by a paying adult.
Children under the age of 16 must be supervised by a parent or guardian at all times.
Children aged 13-17 need to have a Teen ticket.
Children 2 and under need to have a Child ticket.
Children under the age of 2 go free but we do ask that you include them in your purchase so we know who's coming.
We kindly ask that all children under 13 wear wristbands with the phone number of their parent or guardian These wristbands will be provided when you arrive at the main entrance to the festival.
We have accessible parking, camping and toilet facilities.
A discounted ticket is available for carers accompanying a child/children with a disability or if you’re a carer accompanying an adult or teen with a disability.
Please contact us for further details.
Please report any issues or concerns to Festival HQ. Someone in our team will be able to direct you to the help you need.
We’re sorry but dogs must stay at home. This field is used for grazing when we are not here.
Open fires are not allowed. You are warmly invited to sit around the main campfire from dusk ‘til late.
You can have a raised BBQ for cooking purposes only. This needs to be raised off the ground and leave no trace when you go home.
All the toilets are composting. Don't knock it until you try it!
Here's what people have to say about them:
"..much more environmentally friendly and much nicer to use." -Laura M.
"It proves that you don't have to go to the loo in a horrible plastic box that smells awful."- Sam I.
"Some of the nicest loos on a festival site that I've ever used!" -George U.
Food Stalls and Trading at Septembersong
If you sell ethically sourced, fairly traded, traceable goods in environmentally friendly packaging and would like to trade at Septembersong, please get in touch!
Keep up to date with all the latest news!
