Noise jams and pro-Gaza sentiments abound at Daisy Rickman’s End of the Road set

Following last year’s album Howl (Cornish for “sun”), Rickman has been cropping up everywhere, part of a broader folk revival that has seen bands like Lankum reach boggling heights. She’s been involved with the London folk collective Broadside Hacks – who will play the same stage a few hours later – and is a key participant among Cornwall’s young and skyrocketing grassroots scene.

Rickman brought her enveloping avant-garde folk to End of the Road’s Garden Stage during intermittent downpours. She also brought urgent messaging, the likes of which has seen hundreds of peaceful protestors arrested over the last tumultuous few months. It wasn’t just her Palestine flag backdrop; Rickman’s banjo/guitar player Isaac Ockenden addressed the crowd part way through the show: “Wanna take a quick second to announce our solidarity with the people of Palestine, the people of Gaza. Boycott! Do anything you can!” he says, and, after a beat, “royally fuck the IDF.”

Besides this, Rickman and band were wrapped in the music and didn’t need to speak much, letting drones created with violin bows dragged across guitars to slowly pervade the Garden Stage for 15 minutes before lilting, ghostly vocals came in.

Before she played “Winter Solstice” from Howl, Rickman brought on the band’s merch seller, Molly, to man the tambourine for a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, a haunting but perversely uplifting song that banished the rain and devolved into a freak-out feedback jam – gnawing into emotions that words were unable to reach.

End of the Road Festival continues this evening with headline sets from Caribou, The National’s Matt Berninger, and Joy Orbison.