20 years of Jaminaround celebration event

The core mission of Jaminaround is to draw audience and performer together in a memorable, intimate, spellbound moment, harnessing the resonant energy of the circular space to honour and witness the magic of exceptional performing artistry.

Here is your line-up for the twenty-year anniversary special;

Saturday (5pm - midnight); Sam Amidon / Electric Jalaba / Jan Blake / Miryam Solomon

Sunday (2pm - 10pm); Alostmen / Luzmira Zerpa / Clare Murphy / Sweeney & Campbell

Sam Amidon is a singer and multi-instrumentalist (banjo, guitar, fiddle) from Vermont (USA), now based in London. He has released seven acclaimed solo albums of songs on Bedroom Community and Nonesuch Records, the most recent of which is 2020's "Sam Amidon.” He is currently working on a new album to be released this year. Amidon's material for these albums often consists of adventurous reworkings of traditional American ballads, hymns and work songs, with the New York Times writing that Amidon "transforms all of the songs, changing their colors and loading them with trapdoors."

www.samamidon.com

Electric Jalaba return to Jaminaround for the first time since 2017. Formed as a band shortly after an appearance by lead singer Simo Lagnawi at Jaminaround 2011. Their music is a deep psychedelic, groove-heavy meeting between Moroccan Gnawa music and the pooled musical influences and contributions of Italian/English drummer Dave De Rose and four musical brothers; Henry, Oliver, Nathaniel and Barnaby Keen from Dorset - aka - your Jaminaround hosts! Traditional songs about colourful spirits, mysterious women, men that divide oceans and armies of conquerors weave themselves among enormous infectious riffs, analogue effects and warped guitars.

www.electricjalabamusic.com

Jan Blake is a storyteller specialising in myths and folk tales from the Caribbean, West Africa, North Africa and beyond. She has a well-earned reputation internationally for her dynamic and generous storytelling style. She is an all-time Jaminaround favourite and has appeared numerous times over the years all the way back to the pre-Jaminaround days, performing in the original roundhouse at The Ancient Technology Centre in the early 1990's.

www.janblakestories.co.uk

Miryam Solomon's is one of those voices that catches you and gets under your skin. A London-based artist, by way of Sweden and Eritrea, her music is underpinned by her love for rhythms, vocal interplay and storytelling. There’s a magic and honesty in its simplicity. Repeating rhythms and phrases take on new meaning with each listen, always guided by Solomon’s voice and its offer of intimacy and intricacy.

miryamsolomonmusic.bandcamp.com

The amazing Alostmen will travel all the way from Ghana especially for this event! Their music is based around the Frafra traditions of the kologo, a stringed lute, using traditional instrumentation in entirely new ways. The band comprises Stevo (kologo, vocals), Jo Ajusiwine (goje fiddle, vocals), Aminu Amadu (talking drum) and Sowah (gome box, djembe and conga). “We are Alostmen because we were lost in the street, the forgotten people,” explains Stevo. Infectiously groovy and powerfully energetic traditional dance music.

alostmen.bandcamp.com

Luzmira Zerpa is a versatile Venezuelan singer/songwriter based in UK who has performed internationally and toured extensively throughout Europe as a solo artist and with her band Family Atlantica. This will be Luzmira's fourth appearance at Jaminaround, performing first with Family Atlantica in 2014, returning in various different configurations over the years. This time she will be presenting her new project which celebrates Música Llanera of the epic plains of Venezuela and Colombia, in a trio featuring cuatro, harp and double bass.

www.luzmirazerpa.com

Clare Murphy is another Jaminaround favourite. A performer who brings the ancient art of story firmly into the contemporary world. For this event she will be presenting a version of her new show The Spanking Goddess. Clare exhumes the Celtic canon to bring the wild women who never made the cut, back into the light. These are not your regular myths. Expect wicked tales of badass deities, feral fighters, unorthodox sex, hairy bodies, mastery, and goddess-on-goddess battles – not for the faint-hearted!

claremurphy.org

Sam Sweeney & Louis Campbell

Sam Sweeney is a veteran of the mighty Bellowhead, former and inaugural artistic director of the National Youth Folk Ensemble, founder member of the acclaimed instrumental trio Leveret, and “one of the defining English fiddle players of his generation” (Mark Radcliffe) at the forefront of the revival in English traditional music.

After meeting talented guitarist Louis Campbell as a member of the NYFE when he was just sixteen, Sam invited him to join his band to record ‘Unearth Repeat’ and ‘Escape That’ a few years later. Louis is also known for his duo with Owen Spafford and as a side-person for Sam Lee and Martin Simpson. 

samsweeney.bandcamp.com

The named artists on the bill are primarily the ones 'jamming in the round', rather than it being an 'open-mic' event, although the intimate atmosphere, the circular layout and the communal excitement mean that the audience are vital contributing force to the performances. There is, however, an unofficial Jaminaround after hours open session as well and for this anniversary event there will some extra surprise and impromptu happenings on Sunday daytime.