Adam Holmes and the Embers

Adam Holmes and the Embers

One of the brightest rising stars on today’s Scottish folk scene, 23 year old Adam Holmes is a singer and songwriter or rare and timeless potency.

Drawing on influences from either side of the Atlantic, he crafts lyrics that resonate like old ballads, set to melodies as beguiling as slow airs, in a voice both fervently tender and huskily careworn. John Martyn's strum and sting, laced with a slice of Paolo Nutini soul and a touch of traditional folk sums up the band’s sound.

After starting out on fiddle, Edinburgh-born Holmes switched to guitar at 14, and began writing songs a year or so later. Childhood memories of growing up in Edinburgh include getting sneaked into afternoon sessions by his mum at the city’s best folk pubs, the Royal Oak and Sandy Bell’s.

A finalist in the 2009 Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year competition, he also reached the finals of the following year’s UK-wide BBC Young Folk Award. He was then recruited by young traditional firebrands Rura, who themselves won Up and Coming Act of the Year at the 2011 Scots Trad Music Awards - a status affirmed by their subsequent nomination for the Radio 2 Folk Awards Horizon prize 2013.

Meanwhile, Adam was busy performing with his own band at gigs ranging from tiny folk clubs to major Festival stages including Cambridge Folk Festival and Heb Celt.

The debut album for Adam Holmes and the Embers, Heirs and Graces, was digitally released in September 2013 and no doubt contributed to their nomination in the Best Up and Coming Category at the 2013 Scotls Trad Music Awards. Produced by music legend John Wood (responsible for seminal albums by John Martyn and Nick Drake among many others), the album will be formally released on 17 Jan 2014 at Celtic Connections.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M7Gs1uUmJc (404)