The North Wall Arts Centre was a perfect setting to house the rejuvenation of Folkatron Sessions; its cosy wooden interior set the scene for a gig which was intimate, stylish and atmospheric, and last night’s audience welcomed the seven-piece folk electronic ensemble with warmth.

Fresh from a recent Britten Pears residency at Snape Maltings, and with the addition of new members, Folkatron have re-joined the arena of live performance, delivering their own style of experimental folk and electronics to plunge us into a world of sea shanties, strings and synths.

Opening with a hypnotic number featuring pre-recorded looped fiddle playing, the Folkatron musicians demonstrated from the get go that they would be making use of a wide colour palette from their instruments and this soon turned out to be one of their many strengths. Soon the four musicians on stage were joined by another three, and drones and phasing gave way to a rich full-ensemble of live instruments, effects pedals, and synthesizers. These seven musicians used reverberant textures and slow tempos to generate a profound sense of atmosphere, each giving the others space in the ensemble to together create a multi-layered soundscape that drew the audience in.

But it wasn’t all loud and reverberant - smaller groupings and voicing combinations throughout the gig allowed different instruments to come to the fore offering variety and nuance. Notably, a beautiful folk cello solo from cellist Martha Wiltshire served to add sweetness and change the voicings in the mix, and the flugal horn and trumpet from Lissie Daly added tones of nostalgia and brightness, cutting through soft string textures.

At the end of the first half, Hannah Jacobs mesmerized the audience with her honest, effortless vocals, in an arrangement of the traditional shanty Lowlands, and in this number we witnessed a wonderful display of live manipulation as modular synth player Denis Wouters distorted and broke up the ensemble’s live singing. Creating a soundscape of disjointment and destruction very powerfully evoked the imagery of the tale’s drowned lovers, and this unusual approach to lyrical interpretation is indicative of Folkatron’s experimental approach to what electronics and manipulation can offer to traditional music.

Folkatron Sessions are one of a growing number of artists combining traditional and electronic music, but Folkatron have a unique way of staying true to the original folk genre, while enhancing and exploring ideas with new textures and sounds. Themes of long-lost lovers, salty sailors, war and drink all played a part (keeping those of us in the audience with folk-prone sensibilities contended with a sort of base pagan delight). And their own arrangements and compositions were often detailed and complex. Updates to traditional material were included: one song featuring a pining lover left on the shore was contrasted with another who in the same situation has decided to move on. The repeated refrain If he can live without me / Then I can live without him is both a defiant resistance to the trope of the helpless lover left behind in folk songs, yet also had a touch of sadness about it, as she waves goodbye to her fairytale ending.

In the second half of the gig more rhythmic numbers were introduced, and the set finished with a foot-tapping Swedish slångpolska. Guitarist Joseph Woods and fiddle player Lauren Spiceley both had beautiful natural styles, and were equally at home taking up the melody in the traditional jigs as they were adding ethereal and sophisticated string parts to compliment the wider ensemble.

Multiple members of the ensemble introduced the songs and took up the lead vocal at times. The singing was a real strength of the gig - having so many lead singers was a lovely opportunity to experience the colours of different voices, and the backing harmonies were sophisticated - sometimes unpredictable and filled with dissonance, sometimes reassuring and lullaby-like in nature.

Tonight, Folkatron Sessions’ variety of styles and breadth of sounds brought a real sophistication and excitement to the traditional genre, while always leaving room for the folk music to speak for itself. Their blending of instruments and command of atmosphere and space kept last night’s audience entranced, and as the group continue to develop and work with each other more in this newest iteration, we will all look forward to seeing where they take things next.