A couple of years ago, Darren Morrissey and Greg Marshall arrived in London from Dublin with two acoustic guitars and a headful of shared dreams. They set about hauling themselves up the hard way from the rough and tumble of street corner busking and open-mic nights to playing at some of the biggest and best venues and recording studios in the city. Now it’s all about to kick off with the release of their second album, We Rise, a hard-hitting, high-kicking, rock & roll band production that reflects this period of profound personal and musical growth.

For Morrissey & Marshall it’s all about the journey, literally so in the video to their anthemic single “Love and be Loved” which finds the pair taking a ride in a black cab through the London night. Their voyage begins in Queen’s Park, where they recorded their first album And So It Began (released in 2014) and its amazing successor We Rise with producer and drummer John Reynolds (Sinead O’Connor, Damien Dempsey). The drive progresses through Camden where the pair played their first London gig; through Trafalgar Square where in 2016 they played their biggest gig, in front of 20,000 people; and past the Abbey Road studios, where they mastered the new album and where the rest of the Morrissey & Marshall band can be seen on the famous zebra crossing as the taxi goes by. The ride ends with the two men being dropped off at their local boozer in Finchley, North London, a location that has loomed large in the shaping and making of their music over the years. “We’d be on our fifth album if it wasn’t for that damn pub,” Morrissey jokes.

Morrissey & Marshall have spent the majority of their time in the capital honing and harnessing a range of classic musical influences to produce a live act and album of timeless pop-rock appeal. While their debut, And so it Began, won them plaudits as the finest pair of harmony singers to have emerged on the circuit for decades, Morrissey & Marshall have now upped their game with a new collection of songs to rival those of the very greatest groups. With its epic production and seamless combination of vocal, instrumental and songwriting prowess.

"they sound like the biggest band in Britain, in waiting." - Arts Desk

"massive Brit-rockin’ pop" - Arts Desk

"their voices merge splendidly" - R2

Butterfly are a young British band with a bunch of quite luscious songs. They are twin brothers Ollie and Eddie Taylor, Aaron Burke and Jordan Dendy. Their songs been singled out for praise by such varied musical luminaries as Blaine Harrison of Mystery Jets, Nick Heyward and XTC, and the band have played support to Gengahr, Mini Mansions and Yuck as well as headlining their own shows at a variety of London venues over the last 18 months. The 1970s are a big inspiration to them, musically and visually, but there’s no lazy re-selling of that decade here…the Butterfly sound is an irresistable concoction of the melodic, the lush, the heavy and the mysterious. As a live experience it has swagger, but a big smile on its face too.

Tom McQ is a travelling troubadour, a wondering wordsmith and a busking Bard. His music is something that lives in him and is something that reaches out and grabs you by the chest. It draws you in and once you've been caught in its inexorable force there's no way to get out.

Anything else wasn’t an option. From the age of 4, Bob Baker was always going to be a musician. Born 20 years ago in Preston, Lancashire, Bob caught the bug from his father who could turn his hand to playing guitar, piano, and trombone.

In 2005 the Baker family upped sticks to Jersey, where Bob had nothing better to do in his spare time than to learn to play guitar and listen to the records of Johnny Cash, The Beatles, Don McLean and Elton John. Later discovering for himself the sounds of The Smiths, Oasis, Jake Bugg, and The Courteeners, to name but a few.

It was in the Channel Islands where Bob first started performing live. Throughout his time in primary school he was always recording songs, and honing his guitar playing of course.

When he was just ten, he played at the Jersey Live festival, sharing the bill with Madness, The Streets, and a little-known chap by the name of Ed Sheeran. He continued to perform at local events, as well as clubs and pubs most weekends. It wasn’t until he reached the grand age of 12, when he won his school talent show, that he started playing his own songs to the local Jerseymen.

Within a couple of years he’d regularly be travelling to the UK to record his own material and play gigs in London and Manchester.

At seventeen, Bob had his fill with island life and made that long-awaited move to the streets of London. He enrolled at BIMM music institute, hung out with other young music types, and left a year later with a diploma and a 4-piece band. Having nailed the performance of the night at the end of term showcase, he was snapped up by management.

An introduction to one Matt Jones (Ultrasound, Jamie XX, Beady Eye, Minuteman) led to Bob starting work on recording his own material - proper. The first song, chosen from a list of 26, to be released is “The Way It Is”.

Bob was determined that his first professionally produced recordings were to be about the Sound as well as the Songs. Maybe it was those early years of listening to Johnny Cash that made the Baker boy want his work to sound like they could have been recorded at Sun in Memphis, or RCA in Nashville. Matt got it straight away and, over the course of the 92-minute train journey to Echo Zoo in Eastbourne, The Bob Baker Sound was well and truly under way.

Bob has left Jersey behind for the big smoke. He continues writing and gigging. “The Way It Is” will be released on October 28.

Anything else wasn’t an option.