Anglo-Scottish folk duo Janice Burns and Jon Doran play Chichester date

Since they released their first EP two years ago, they’ve been earmarked as an act to watch.

The Anglo-Scottish duo met as students on the folk degree course at Newcastle University which included a year spent at the University of South-East Norway.

Janice hails from Glasgow and Jon from Gloucestershire; now both based in Newcastle they know no musical borders. They salute their roots in equal measure with contemporary arrangements of Scottish and English traditional folk songs alongside Irish ballads.

The pair – Janice on mandolin, tenor guitar, harmonium and piano and Jon on bouzouki, acoustic guitar, harmonium and fiddle – won a coveted Danny at the Danny Kyle Open Stage event at the 2021 Celtic Connections festival. Before that, Jon had been a finalist for the Young Folk Award at the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and won Bromyard Festival’s Future of Folk accolade the same year.

They have become increasingly in demand, playing Sage Gateshead, Manchester Folk Festival, Edinburgh Tradfest, Sidmouth Folk Festival, Warwick Folk Festival and Gate to Southwell and opening this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival.

No More the Green Hills was recorded in the Scottish Highlands at Watercolour Music and is produced by Andy Bell. Double bass player Ben Nicholls (Kings of the South Seas, Seth Lakeman Band) joins the duo on three tracks. Exploring man’s relationship with nature alongside themes of love and loss, the album dusts down and reworks treasured traditional songs. It opens with their tender take on False True Love.

Janice said: “We love ballads that have a few miles on the clock. This song has changed quite dramatically from what’s thought to be the original ballad, Young Hunting. As it’s migrated from singer to singer and place to place, a lot of detail has been lost and it’s left us with quite an ambiguous story that appealed to us far more than a more detailed and linear narrative. We found the song in Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles’ book, English Folk Songs From the Southern Appalachians, Vol 2. There were versions already swimming around our heads but it was great to get back to source and discover the numerous lyrical and melodic variations. In the end, we blended a few different versions from the book to emerge with something that we feel is quite a distinct interpretation. After arranging the song we suddenly had a clear idea of the themes that would weave through this debut album.”

The 11-track album’s title is taken from a line in another track The Greenmore Hare which owes its origins to County Armagh. Both beautiful and sad, the duo say the lyrics they sing in this hunting tale are an unconscious fusing of versions by Anne Briggs and Steeleye Span.

Jon said: “It’s hard coming up with apt album names but this one seemed to fit a recording that’s tinged with sadness and a sense of loss.”