THE Urban Folk Quartet who head to Oswaldtwistle for a show next week could just easily called themselves the Unique Folk Quartet.

For the band is made up of four very different, talented musicians whose experimental sounds cross over from traditional folk into roots music and beyond.

"None of us are from a traditional folk background," said banjo player and singer Dan Walsh, "But we all like it and do something different with it."

Alongside Dan, the band also features fiddle player Paloma Trigás, Joe Broughton on fiddle, guitar and mandolin and Tom Champman on cajon and percussion.

"We all love traditional music," said Da, "but our backgrounds are very diverse and that has added to our sound.

"Paloma is classically trained and from Galicia while Tom studied jazz. My background is more in bluegrass playing so we have all these marvellously different influences at work."

The combination clearly works with the band's most recent album Escape which was released last year getting a lot of attention in both the music press and on radio.

"We don't try to force songs to fit into a particular genre," said Dan, "with us songs just tend to evolve and usually with the involvement of all four of us.

"Someone will bring an idea to rehearsal and it will develop from there. We are total perfectionists when it comes to arrangements so it can take a while before we are totally happy with a song."

Dan, who has worked with the likes of Seth Lakeman and The Levellers, is the newest member of the band having joined in 2014 when founder member of UFQ Frank Moon decided to stop touring.

"Frank and I are very different musicians," said Dan. "He was more a guitar player whereas I am more a banjo player.

"Frank also was brilliant at playing Latin and Cuban-inspired rhythms, something which I could never hope to imitate. I'm more of a tune player."

With all their diverse influences and radical arrangements, UFQ can't be pigeonholed under the normal 'folk' label which Dan is quite happy about.

"I think that the folk scene is a little bit at the crossroads at the moment," he said. "There is still some of the old infrastructure there which thinks that everything must be traditional but there are also so many emerging artists coming through who are challenging that.

"I went to university and studied folk music but even after that I can't define what the term folk music really means. But that's its great strength."

Certainly live the Urban Folk Quartet believe in putting on a show to rival any band from whatever genre of music.

"Oh, we want to have a lively show," said Dan. "We all regard being entertainers as part of the job. Some audiences are quite shy at the outset and you have to bring them out of themselves but others are just up for it from the word go.

"It's usually the smaller venues like villages halls which are the most lively and those nights when you have the audience with you are the most enjoyable shows of all."

Urban Folk Quartet, Oswaldtwistle Civic Arts Centre, April 2. Details from 01254 398319.