One of the brightest rising stars on today’s world-renowned Scottish folk scene, 23-year-old Adam Holmes is a singer and songwriter of rare and timeless potency. Drawing on influences from either side of the Atlantic, he crafts lyrics that resonate like old traditional ballads, borne on melodies as beguiling as slow fiddle airs, in a voice both fervently tender and huskily careworn.

Despite his youth, Holmes’s music distils a long and diverse wealth of experience. Childhood memories of growing up in Edinburgh include getting sneaked into afternoon sessions by his mum – a keen folk fan since the 1960s – at the city’s best-known folk pubs, the Royal Oak and Sandy Bell’s. Dad, meanwhile, was a devotee of classic singer-songwriters, introducing his son to Stateside greats like Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Townes Van Zandt and Ry Cooder, while Holmes’s own adolescent tastes extended to grunge and hip-hop.