Polly Paulusma announces intimate West Midlands live date as part of her extensive spring 2025 UK tour

Signed to Bjork's record label One Little Independent, the Cambridge-born artist's music has been described by Rolling Stone magazine as "enchanting, understated, intelligent folk-pop" whilst MOJO called her songs "complete, pure and personal."

Her forthcoming sixth studio album ‘Wildfires’ is out on February 28 via One Little Independent Records and Wild Sound. Across nearly two hours and six sides of vinyl, folk instrumentation is peppered with spoken-word poetry prologues amid sounds from caves and rivers. Its artful presentation is the hallmark of producer Ethan Johns (Ray Lamontagne / Laura Marling / Ryan Adams), as such, it presents a step change in Paulusma’s until now largely autonomous catalogue.

Polly Paulusma bares all amidst a collection of textured acoustic guitars and rich, layered melodic flourishes. ‘Wildfires’ is mellow and cosy in its production, but its honesty is bittersweet – an intimate and reflective rumination on love’s many guises, the easy parts as well as the hard. As always, Paulusma’s articulate and emotive lyrics, and her ability to convey the deepest vulnerability with vivid, sometimes nostalgic, imagery is astounding here. The new LP, as filled with delicate earworms as it is with expressive poetry, burns slowly but no less fiercely, and like love, it can be gentle, it can envelope one completely, and occasionally it can be heart-wrenching. 

In an age of fatigue and dwindling attention spans, as well as targeted short-form content pushed over social media channels, Paulusma is asking us to slow down. ‘Wildfires’ is a callback, an ode to the concept album, intended to be listened to in a single, relaxed sitting, allowing for the interconnected stories of love in all its forms to reveal themselves. Like all good things, the reward here is in the commitment.

Paulusma’s live performance with bassist Jon Thorne (Lamb, Yorkston/Thorne/Khan, James Yorkston) will recreate this feel on a newly announced spring 2025 UK tour, with Jon’s haunting and plaintive compositions accompanying spoken word sections as well as his kinetic playing on the songs. His creative collaborative input was instrumental in the project developing as it did.  

Polly Paulusma is also a producer and label founder - her own label Wild Sound released records from nine other artists between 2012-2016 before becoming a folk imprint at OLI. Her academic book ‘Angela Carter and Folk Song: ‘Invisible Music’, prose, and the art of canorography’ was released by Bloomsbury Academic. She was appointed Professor of Song & Literature at ICMP (Institute of Contemporary Music Performance) where she teaches on their Songwriting masters. Paulusma has toured the world supporting Bob Dylan, Jamie Cullum, The Divine Comedy and Marianne Faithfull, and played Glastonbury, T in the Park, V Festival and Cambridge Folk Festival among many others, touring the USA and Italy. She signed to Sony/ATV in LA and opened for Coldplay at their secret show at The Troubadour in West Hollywood. 

Tickets for Polly's UK tour, including her date at Birmingham Kitchen Garden Cafe on 5 March, are available now via pollypaulusma.com/tour.