folk @ temperance | Spafford Campbell

“England's finest and most innovative instrumental duo.” Fiddle player Owen Spafford and guitarist Louis Campbell are breaking the mould. Owen and Louis first met as teenagers playing traditional music. The connection was immediate. The duo began playing live in 2018, prompting double takes with their delicacy, dynamism and seemingly telepathic exchanges, with the startling intimacy of musical conversations nurtured in improv-led writing sessions. Their latest album Tomorrow Held is a visionary body of eight largely instrumental tracks that hold space, resolve into mystery, that fold in elements of jazz, post-rock and chamber music while raiding the folk music toolbox. Call it what you want: post-folk. Trad-noir. Folk nihilism. But Spafford Campbell are blazing a trail that erases genre—and finds gold in the embers. While redolent of Talk Talk’s moody, experimental 1988 opus Spirit of Eden, and riven with a Bon Iver-ish sense of transcendence, Tomorrow Held is a work of bold singularity. A whole greater than the sum of its parts—parts that include effects pedals, ambient cassette loops, flashes of electric guitar, electronic processing on fiddle and impressionistic accompaniment. “Mingling traditional tunes with influences from minimalism, post-rock and jazz, they shift moods exquisitely” The Guardian—10best folk albums of2025 “This is a fusing of the traditional and the futuristic that is quietly groundbreaking, and beguiling with it.” ★★★★ The Times—albums of the year so far2025 “An intense, almost subliminal drama you want to turn up to 11” ★★★★★ The Arts Desk—Album of the Year2025 “England's finest and most innovative instrumental duo.” ★★★★★ Songlines—Top of the World