The summer festivals are fast approaching and Guilfest continues to grow and flourish with each passing year.

Despite the widening range of styles and eclectic mix of artists, Guildford has never forgotten its origins as a folk and blues festival and still provides the opportunity to catch emerging acoustic performers outside of the club circuit.

Martha Tilston is a perfect example, combining an emotive voice with imaginative acoustic arrangements and a love of experimentation.

The daughter of folk songwriter/guitarist Steve Tilston, she grew up in a household with Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan on the turntable and Bert Jansch and John Renbourn dropping by to visit her dad. Little wonder that Martha should follow the same path, although she treads it rather differently: "I've been singing all my life really, but only relatively recently thought of it as a career, when I stopped being an actress," she laughs. "So I thought I'd look for something a bit more steady!

"I've been playing piano and writing since I was four or five and the lovely thing about having a songwriter as a father is that I always thought it was perfectly normal to write songs. I remember asking the other kids at school, so what does your dad write?!

"I'm happy that I got into that side of music independently, I was obviously aware of these people from growing up around them, but I know I would have ended up with Sandy Denny, Fairport and Bert Jansch in my record collection anyway."

Martha's first taste of success came with Mouse, a duo with guitarist Nick Marshall that achieved a fair amount of cult acclaim, but have since gone their separate ways.

Since February, Martha's first official solo album Bimbling has drawn even more friends to her music. And the title means?

"Bimbling is a festival term actually, it means to go off for a bit of an adventure, you're not sure where or what will happen when you get there... which I think is what the album does, in a way.

"I put it out on my own label and funded the album by doing a painting of each song and selling them at a little exhibition that provided the money to press the album. I sold on the premise that if the album does well, the original paintings will be worth more, but the album won't do well until people buy the artwork.

"The cover painting was done for the guy who let us use his recording studio, bless him he would play us bits of crazy 60s psychedelia in between takes and after a while it had an effect you can hear halfway through the album the electric guitar comes off the wall."

On her recent visit to Croydon Folksong Club, Martha produced a stunning performance, notably slipping songs by Portishead and Lamb among her own.

"I try to cross-pollenate as much as I can; I think it's basically all the same you know, folk music is not up to us to decide, history decides what becomes folk' music," she said.

Martha lists Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Simon and Garfunkel and Tori Amos among her influences, while I can hear Julienne Regan and Beth Orton in her work. Decide for yourself, when Martha Tilston and friends weave their brand of magic on the UnCut stage at GuilFest2005.

- Martha Tilston GuilFest2005 Sunday, July 17 01483 454159