On her return as Austel, Devon-born, London-based artist Annie Rew Shaw treads a different path from the one that saw her receive widespread plaudits for the delicate, luscious piano songs of her 2024 debut album Dead Sea.

Following years as a session musician – performing at festivals such as Glastonbury and touring the UK – Austel’s 2018 debut EP earned praise from BBC 6 Music and The Line of Best Fit, with her 2020 follow-up Cold Love gaining further support from Fresh on the Net, O2 Music and BBC Introducing. In 2024, she released her debut album Dead Sea, a dreamy exploration of loss, recovery and transformation. Self-produced and featuring collaborations with Grammy Award-winning engineer Guy Massey, the record marked a milestone after seven years of artistic development.

Now exploring the folkier intimacies of the guitar for music that’s also in conversation with the field recordings of Jon Hopkins & King Creosote, Adrianne Lenker and Cassandra Jenkins, Austel is developing a very personal sound that she still manages to make feel spacious and open.

Olive Grinter & Joe Shrimpling

Good friends Olive and Joe recently discovered their shared passion for songwriting and have come together to create a collection of songs telling tales of nostalgia, friendship and whimsy. Drawing influence from John Martyn and Nick Drake, Joe’s delicate and thoughtful fingerpicking style embraces Olive’s warm, sensitive vocals which are likened to Laura Marling and Norah Jones. It’s important to the pair that the narrative of their music is always developing while retaining a character that the listener can recognise from song to song.