Jim Moray

Born Douglas Oates in 1981, Jim Moray has built a career that refuses to sit still, moving between the folk tradition and the recording studio. As a singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer, he treats traditional song as raw material, and his albums have ranged from the electronic textures of his debut to the orchestral arrangements that followed, with African kora and mbira thumb piano later entering the mix. He also produces other artists, so his influence reaches well beyond his own records.

While studying classical composition at Birmingham Conservatoire, he released the home-recorded I Am Jim Moray EP and appeared at Glastonbury and Cambridge Folk Festival in 2002. Sweet England, recorded in his bedroom and released in 2003 on his own label, Niblick Is A Giraffe, won the Album of the Year and Horizon Award at the 2004 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Low Culture (2008) took the fRoots Critics Poll and MOJO folk album honours, Skulk topped the Bandcamp chart in 2012, and Salvor, by False Lights, his band with Sam Carter, followed in 2015. Beflean, re-recordings made at Abbey Road Studios, marked 21 years of work in 2023.