Ruby Geddes
Ruby Geddes is a contemporary folk musician and visual artist based in Bristol and Edinburgh.
“As a listener, you are invited into a liminal space where you feel at once enamoured with the ephemeral nature of existence and held in a cocoon of moss and soil. Ruby's music is both other-worldly and distinctly grounded in the earth. Lyrically akin to mycelium; almost mythological whilst woven throughout the raw dirt.”
– Maya Blackwell, poet & writer
Ruby Geddes started recording and performing in Edinburgh whilst immersed in the city's thriving traditional folk scene, and captivated by its rich geological history. They began to write music inspired by the genre’s ability to connect people across time and call to a deep sense of home, and sought to extend this to the more-than-human world. Now beginning to settle into the eclectic alt-folk scene of Bristol, Geddes continues to craft contemporary folk that speaks to their kinship with the natural world – solace found in cycles of minerals, light, growth and decay, in eternal change and deep time; their songs grieve and resolve with the seasons. An inquisitive musical topography forms the ground for Ruby’s enthralling lyrics as soft, easeful vocals invite you to travel with them across a range of low tunings, changing time signatures, and diverse song structures.
Intricate finger-style guitar parts are formed around melody lines in much of Ruby’s original song-writing, evocative of Nick Drake, Sybille Bauer and Hayley Heynderickx, whilst their banjo playing is informed by gentler, stripped-back Old Time stylings of the likes of Anna and Elizabeth, Nora Brown, Karen Dalton and Jake Xerxes Fussel.
The artists’ first EP ‘Hawthorn’ – due for release in May 2024 – has been recorded with Adam Bower in the producer’s studio on the water’s edge near Ipswich in Suffolk, and features masterful production, piano, drums and percussion from Adam Bower, double bass from Robin G Breeze, found sound from natural materials gathered a stones throw from the studio, and murmurating polyphonic fiddle lines from alt-folk artist Boci.
In their most recent project, the artist has been gathering traditional songs that have journeyed between the British Isles and North America, and have been shaped by their travelling through various folk traditions. Ruby's own renditions of these songs are reflective of this conversation as they adopt elements of 3-finger/thumb-lead banjo playing into their guitar playing technique, and compose parts for traditional Scottish, Irish, English and American songs with both instruments.