After a variety of regular meet-ups, chance encounters and song-filled trips to Margate by old friends, new friends and friends of friends - the nine musicians of Shovel Dance Collective were formed. They are brought together by a communal passion for the folk traditions of England, Scotland, Ireland, and beyond. Not only preserving, they act to nurture and synthesise this source material with the members eclectic interest in other musical forms, by drawing sensibilities from drone, free improvisation, contemporary classical and metal. With a rich array of instrumentation at their disposal they dig up new ways of playing through research in primary sources and folkloric history. Woven deeply into the fabric of the collective is a sense of folk as the music of working people, a set of narratives that hold within them queer histories, proto-feminist narratives and the rich world of those who created and create the wealths of the world. They are simultaneously traditional and experimental, not seeing folk music as an archaeological artefact to be unearthed, but as a living and breathing communal activity that is inviting and generous to those it speaks to.