Puzzle Hall Inn

French Fridays
2026-02-27 17:30 - 18:30, 2026-02-20 17:30 - 18:30, 2026-02-13 17:30 - 18:30, 2026-02-06 17:30 - 18:30, 2026-01-30 17:30 - 18:30, 2026-01-23 17:30 - 18:30 (Europe/London)
An informal group to practice your conversational French – Everyone welcome!

Jazz Night with Al's Django Party
2026-02-26 20:00 - 23:00
Al’s Django Party: a collision of seasoned jazz & troubadours, channelling Django’s transatlantic alchemy.European folk meets American swing, gypsy fire meets smoky sophistication.”The Party” brings a full-throttle celebration of Django Reinhardt’s revolutionary sound, delivered with raw energy & playful abandon.From breakneck hot club romps to ballads that stop time, ADP captures the spirit of a music that refused to be contained by borders, genres, or expectations.
The band are:
Eddie Armitage,ViolinMartin Chung, GuitarMark Mawby, GuitarJames Munroe, Double bass
Trains:If you’re travelling towards Halifax / Bradford / Leeds, the last train leaves Sowerby Bridge at 00.05.If you’re travelling up the Calder Valley, and onwards to Manchester, the last train leaves Sowerby Bridge at 23.23.Please allow 15 minutes to walk from the pub to the station, and please check, on the day of travel, that the times have not changed, or that strike actions are being planned.Bus:There’s a 579 bus to Halifax that leaves Station Road at 23.48, just a few minutes’ walk from the Pub, however, give yourself plenty of time, as it’s the last bus, it can be pretty sharp in setting off.

BREND featuring Misery Bacon/Pope Joan
2026-02-25 19:30 - 22:00
BREND* – a night of spontaneous self amusement and play with guests Misery Bacon (Norway) 9:30pm Soft Noise from Bergen’s Luke Drozd combining found sounds, amplified objects and electronics. Improvised, textural, playful experimentation in a Bohman Brothers vein and Pope Joan (Leeds) 8:45pm D. Millard of Hilary and the Hate Crimes, Failyer, Capo-Dastro melds Suicide and Lotte Lenya via organ drones, rudimentary modular synthesisers, angry sermonising and disappointed wailing.
Plus open mic / sharings hosted by Reet Maff’l. 7pm – 8:30pm – get in touch if you want to do something for ten minutes – anything goes (music, poetry, performance, presentation) as long as it’s new, work-in-progress or untried.
There will be a mic/jack and table. at Puzzle Hall Inn, 21 Hollins Mill Lane, Sowerby Bridge, HX6 2RF 7pm – 10pm (prompt start – live music finished in time for last trains to Leeds/Manc).
FREE ENTRY with donations for guest acts gratefully accepted.
*Fluxus artist Henry Flynt’s term for activity that is neither work nor leisure … ‘Consider all of your doings, what you already do. Exclude the gratifying of physiological needs, physically harmful activities, and competitive activities. Concentrate on spontaneous self-amusement or play. That, is concentrate on everything you do because you like it, because you just like it as you do it.’ (1968)

Chess Night
2026-02-23 20:00 - 23:00, 2026-02-16 20:00 - 23:00, 2026-02-09 20:00 - 23:00, 2026-02-02 20:00 - 23:00, 2026-01-26 20:00 - 23:00, 2026-01-19 20:00 - 23:00
All welcome for this casual but serious evening of chess.

Edward Molby
2026-02-21 21:00 - 23:00
Brought together by a mutual love of fine vegetables and tasty pickles Edward Molby play music as bold and richly sensuous as the finest pie ever cooked. In pie terms the band are a thick deep, savoury and juicy punk with a light psychedelic crust. Molby have been described in The Fly as ‘an unholy hybrid of Pixies, Husker Du and 12th Century madrigals from the remote Yorkshire moors’.
The Puzzle is their spiritual home. Come see, taste and enjoy.

Foundling + Marlene Ribeiro
2026-02-15 16:00 - 19:00
ADRA promotions and Puzzle Hall Inn present…
Foundling (Canda / Berlin)Ambient psychedelic experimental-pop from sound artist, composer and harpist Erin Lang.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk4hR-LVdhs
Marlene Ribeiro Hypnotic psychedelic dream-pop made of looping acoustic instruments and electronics on Rocket Recordingshttps://marleneribeiro.bandcamp.com/album/toquei-no-sol
at Puzzle Hall Inn, 21 Hollins Mill Lane, Sowerby Bridge, HX6 2RF4pm – 6pm.
FREE ENTRY with donations for acts gratefully accepted

Foundling
Foundling is the evolving musical project of Canadian-born, Berlin-based composer, vocalist , and harpist Erin Lang, whose work explores the space between composition, improvisation, and deep listening. Known for emotionally subtle songwriting and expansive sound design, Foundling’s music moves fluidly between experimental pop and ambient forms.
The Guardian UK: “-their album Equilibria is an intriguing mix of dream pop, junkyard minimalism and glittery ECM jazz, pitched somewhere between Julia Holter and David Sylvian. “Following the release of the band’s fourth studio albumEquilibria(2024), Foundling entered a more open and contemplative sonic terrain with Artemisia, an ambient, harp-and flute-led work released via Shadow World Records.
Artemisia is largely instrumental, incorporating spoken word and improvised passages that emerge from carefully structured harmonic frameworks. The music balances intention and openness, allowing each performance to unfold differently in response to space, resonance, and collective presence.
In concert, Foundling’s performances emphasize immersion and attentiveness. Harp, voice, flute, and subtle electronics move between composed motifs and free, intuitive exploration, creating soundscapes that feel both grounded and alive. These performances often feel closer to listening rituals than traditional concerts, inviting audiences into shared moments of stillness and intensity.
Lang has toured extensively across Europe and North America, including over 70 performances supporting Agnes Obel at venues such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Le GrandRex, and Le Trianon in Paris, and has opened for Timber Timbre internationally. She has collaborated with Roger O’Donnell (The Cure) Lasse Martin (Lykke Li, Jónsi) Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire) and Mario Thaller (The Notwist, Lali Puna).
Alongside album releases and touring, Lang’s practice occasionally extends into sound-focused presentations for festivals and community spaces, informing her concert work while remaining rooted in live performance. For Fans of Harold Budd, Alice Coltrane, Grouper, Midori Takada, and Laraaji
https://foundlingsounds.com/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXv54y0-iws
Marlene Ribeiro
A travelogue that unites physical and inner space, a series of trance states rendered in vivid colour, a delirious portal into the ether. Marlene Ribeiro’s debut for Rocket Recordings and first album under her own name is all of this and much more. Toquei No Sol is a fresh new chapter for this unique artist, by far the most melodic and transcendent outing yet for her hypnotic dreampop.
This is only the latest release in a long history of sonic experimentation for Marlene, which includes her previous work as Negra Branca across a series of releases on labels such as Tesla Tapes and Zamzam and a long period as a member of audial iconoclasts and Rocket mainstays GNOD, not to mention collaborations with the like of Valentina Magaletti and Thurston Moore.
Toquei No Sol is also a record with a very distinctive and potent sense of place, paradoxically despite having been woven together from recordings made in Ireland, Wales, Portugal, Madeira and Salford. It’s genesis came via a visit to Marlene’s maternal grandmother Emilia, whose influence as well as the sounds of her kitchen in Portugal can be heard on the album’s first track ‘Quatra Palavras’.
“Emilia ended up getting excited about me being able to record things there and then and – total news to me – told me she used to sing a lot when she was younger to the point of getting offered studio time but refusing it as she was fearful of what that could imply in those times” relates Marlene “From that point I planned to include her in this record as sort of the chance she never had of getting her voice out there.”
Elsewhere, a disarmingly catchy and irresistible grace is married to a utilitarian approach to sound and texture. The ritualistic “Sangue De Lua de Lobo” (first released on a Sofia records compilation Songs Of The Lunar Eclipse) contains random objects from Marlene’s then-garden in Ireland, whereas on the drifting, beatific ‘Forever’ the percussion tracks are constructed from the sounds of pots and pans in her own Salford kitchen.Yet at all times her fleet-footed approach to melody rings through even as the tracks conjure visions of heat-hazes, meditative spaces and late-night epiphanies. Although listeners may hear echoes of the loop-driven psychedelia of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch or the incantatory ululations of Pocahaunted in these beguiling soundscapes and magick-strewn mantras, the truth is that the aesthetic here is very much Marlene’s alone.“It’s all a big misty haze of nostalgia, playfulness, self-reflection and hopefulness” is what Marlene reckons herself. Yet Toquei No Sol is also a transporting vision from an artist both returning to her roots and looking out to new celestial horizons.

The Unit Ama + Lands & Body
2026-02-14 21:00 - 23:00
ADRA promotions and Puzzle Hall Inn present…
The Unit Ama (Newcastle – Tusk/Gringo Records)Adventurous free-running post-hardcore / post-punk / jazz trio from the North East pushing the guitar/bass/drums/vocals envelope for more than twenty years.https://theunitama.bandcamp.com/album/toward
Lands & BodyHalifax/Leeds baritone guitar and drums duo. Progressive, hypnotic, instrumental noise-folk from That Fucking Tank-ers.https://andyabbott.bandcamp.com/album/charsi-karahi-ep
at Puzzle Hall Inn, 21 Hollins Mill Lane, Sowerby Bridge, HX6 2RF8pm (live music finished in time for last trains to Leeds/Manc).FREE ENTRY with donations for bands gratefully accepted

Forming + Small Gauge
2026-02-13 20:00 - 22:00
Leeds based FORMING have spent years perfecting their raw, direct and passionate indie rock taking byways and highways through the spellbinding psychedelia of their previous incarnation as Unstable Journey to end up with a sound that is fresh, raw and immediate. You’ll hear echoes of the melodic charms of REM, Teenage Fanclub or The Cure and equally a sense of toughened vulnerability all of their own. The band have recently been in the studio putting the finishing touches to their third album, which will be released later this year. Engaging and passionate performers their catchy and cathartic sound is very much a fixture on the Leeds DIY scene and now coming to The Puzzle for you to enjoy.
“An exhilarating, resolutely upbeat blast of indie-rock fuzz” – Louder Than War
“Riding waves of melancholy and melody Forming are an ambitious and rather beautiful band” _ Andy’s Music
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCercY5wEHh8jeH3H-KojTJw
https://forming1.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/formingsound
Small Gauge are a new Leeds band formed from stalwart foot soldiers of the local DIY music scene. In this winning formation they craft a sound combining winsome early 80’s indie jangle, austere post punk and the more melodic end of Goth. This is a welcome return visit for them to The Puzzle having played here last year supporting Theresa Kelly.
“Awesome post punk with a garage rock sensibility” – The Flying Duck
https://smallgauge.bandcamp.com/album/demo-2023
https://www.instagram.com/small.gauge/
https://www.instagram.com/bean.weevil/

Ian H + Project Charlie
2026-02-08 16:00 - 19:00
Ian H is the main songwriting force behind cult Blackburn Indie band, Bradford who shone brightly but briefly at the turn of the 90’s supporting the likes of James, Morrissey, Primal Scream and even the Clash’s Joe Strummer. Having got back together in 2021 and released new music which has been highly praised by critics Ian’s creative resurgence goes from strength to strength. This is a chance for you to catch Ian performing a mixture of his own songs and Bradford hits in solo form.
“Ian H. is a talented chap. His melodic pop-rock songs display a wit and verbal ability worthy of Elvis Costello and he sings them in a way that’ll remind you a lot of Morrissey” – Trouser Press
“Classic songwriting with a timeless nature and a confident assured focus” – Even The Stars
https://www.youtube.com/@bradfordband
Project Charlie are a three-piece acoustic band with songs that are unashamedly pop with shades of punk and indie. Not out of place on a playlist with Crowded House, R.E.M or Talking Heads their upbeat, punchy and melodic songs are full of memorable harmonies and heartfelt lyrics that’ll get your toes tapping and your voices singing along.
“Project Charlie’s music, with its blend of catchy melodies and insightful lyrics, offers a relatable and thought-provoking listen.” – Most Wanted
https://www.instagram.com/project_charlie_band/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562848141017

Pepperjam
2026-02-07 21:00 - 23:00
Pepperjam is a 9-piece band from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, UK. They are well known for their storming live shows with a great atmosphere, always guaranteed to get everyone up, dancing and in a party mood, whilst still delivering a socially and politically aware message. Pepperjam are a collection of very experienced musicians and could even be termed ‘old school’ in that ‘what you see is what you get’ with everything in their shows played live, as you see it.
They play all original songs drawing influences from the very wide range of styles. So their material is varied but they still create an easily-identifiable sound that is distinctly ‘Pepperjam’ and always has a back-beat which is irresistible.
The music is rooted in Reggae, Dub, Rocksteady, Ska, Soul, Funk and Jazz but has a rocky, sometimes post-punky edge.

Lorry’s vocals are strong, rich and often dark, backed up by sweet vocals from Rebecca and Jo.
With this kind of music, the rhythm section is key. The whole sound is underpinned by rock-solid drums from Rob and earth-rumbling bass from Steve.
Stinging and melodic brass riffs are another major characteristic of the sound, ably delivered by Steve and Mick on Trumpet and Trombone. If you like brass, you’ll love Pepperjam!
The top end is held together by Sam’s keyboards, Dave’s lead guitar and Lorry’s rhythm guitar. Between them, these interplay together, providing the all-important back-beat but also creating some scintillating solo’s, along with the brass, which ‘keeps the musos happy’.

Abandoned Buildings + Swivel
2026-02-06 20:00 - 22:00
ABANDONED BUILDINGS are five friends who like to make noise in a dilapidated old mill in Bradford. They fuse elements of shoegaze, post-rock, psych & noise rock to create music that is occasionally fragile & minimalist, but primarily heavy, powerful and dense.
“Abandoned Buildings make music that feels like getting lost in a dream” – RGM
“Their creative vision reinvents shoegaze as a diaphanous-in-spite of distortion howl into the void” – A & R Factory.
https://abandonedbuildings1.bandcamp.com/album/fragments
https://www.facebook.com/Abandonedband/
https://www.instagram.com/abandoned_buildingsband/
SWIVEL are a new band from Manchester who tap into the shoegaze revival creating melancholic and ethereal melodies which can also bring the storm.

Folk Night with Bridget Hayden
2026-02-05 20:00 - 23:00
LORE at the Puzzle proudly presents BRIDGET HAYDEN
Free entry/’pay what you can’ collection for the artists
Join us for the first LORE event of 2026 – a rare trad solo show for Bridget Hayden, one of Northern England’s finest and most fearless interpreters of traditional song, our events also feature floor-spots for local folk singers and musicians (with priority for new contributors); so please join us, and perhaps join in!
Entry to this and most other Puzzle Hall Inn events is free; we also invite voluntary contributions from the audience across the evening to further support the artists that we are hosting.
Widely acclaimed as one of 2025’s finest folk albums, ‘Cold Blows the Rain’ by Todmorden’s own Bridget Hayden & The Apparitions is an enrapturing wintery pilgrimage through traditional standards including ‘Blackwater Side’, ‘Lovely On the Water’ and ‘She Moves Through the Fair’, traced out in spectral banjo, harmonium and fiddle. These most traditional of songs, learned at her mother’s knee and delivered with tender restraint, mark a paradoxically radical departure for Hayden, who has been a key figure of the UK’s ‘Trans-Pennine Underground’ experimental music scene across two decades, including as a member of Vibracathedral Orchestra and the Telescopes, and as a central figure in the Folklore Tapes nexus.
‘Bridget Hayden and the Apparitions start the year with traditional songs as heavy as the sodden moors at midnight. They unfurl at a glacial pace, with analogue synths and delicate banjos buoying up Hayden’s deep, measured voice.’ Folk Album of the Month, The Guardian.
‘Like a skeleton tiptoeing through a field of windblown grass.. quietly heart-rending’ 4.5/5, Uncut Magazine.
‘A mist-soaked album of traditional songs… I found myself quite mesmerised, as the songs weaved their subtle magic’ 4/5, Songlines.

Acoustic Singaround Session
2026-02-01 13:00 - 16:00
Join us at the Puzzle Hall Inn, the 1st Sunday of each month for an acoustic afternoon informal singaround. All persons of all ages and skill levels welcome.
Hosting, will be the incredible Dave CalvertIn his own words: “Everyone is welcome to come along and sing, play, join in or just listen, the beer is great, as is the atmosphere. Its a lovingly restored, community owned pub which is continuing it’s long history of music events.”
Entry is free, hope to see you there.

Midnight Gallery + Billy Billy 5p
2026-01-31 21:00 - 23:00
Manchester new wave outfit MIDNIGHT GALLERY came to life in 2020 amidst the hush of the pandemic, developing their sound at the forefront of modern post-punk, with a shared enthusiasm for 80’s musical influences and the distinctive sounds of the North. Drawing parallels with artists such as Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen and Interpol Midnight Gallery’s music fizzes with sharp guitars, brooding synths, and evocative lyrics exploring the emotional turmoil and complexities of modern life. With a captivating debut EP and an increasing buzz around live shows, including a sold-out hometown show and a UK tour with IST IST, Midnight Gallery is quickly making its mark in the UK post-punk scene.
“Hypnotic, romantic and mysterious Midnight Gallery have earned a formidable reputation as compelling live performers” – RGR
“Midnight Gallery have an intuitive feel and flow and a rich awareness of songwriting craft” – Even The Stars
https://midnightgallerymusic.com/https://www.instagram.com/midnightgallerymusic/https://www.facebook.com/midnightgallerymusicpage/https://www.youtube.com/@MidnightGalleryMusic
BILLY BILLY 5p are an internationally unsuccessful “supergroup” featuring the least competent members of Leeds bands Two Minute Noodles and Hillary and the Hatecrimes, Liverpool bands The Walkingseeds and Star Spangled Banana, Calderdale bands FADS and KLONK and other acts that you haven’t heard of either. Like the power rangers used to they come together to make something far stronger than their own weedy selves. Their music is inventive, fun and constantly surprising mixing power pop, psychedelia, space rock and classic indie into a charming sound all of their own.
“Eclectic, eccentric and thoroughly joyous” – Louder Than War
https://billybilly5p.bandcamp.com/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozoRocelsLghttps://www.instagram.com/billybilly5p/

Independent Venue Week - Calder Groove Open Mic + The Incident
2026-01-31 14:00 - 18:00
The Incident duo Live plus Open Mic to celebrate Independent Venue Week.

Jazz Night with Panjumby
2026-01-29 20:00 - 23:00
Our January band will be bringing music and rhythms from the sunny Carribean and South America.
Come on down and groove the night away,
Panjumby are:
Dudley Nesbitt, steel pan, cowbell
Richard Ormrod, sax, flute, percussion
Barclay McKay, keyboard, guitar
Paul Baxter, bass
Sam Hobbs, drums
Led by steel-pannist Dudley Nesbitt, Panjumby are a five-piece band with a repertoire of Modern Jazz, Contemporary Calypso and classic Latin tunes from Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad and Jamaica, the crew are a high-energy group of engaging and accessible performers.
Nesbit grew up in Trinidad and was a child prodigy on the steel pan, eventually becoming a regular arranger for the prestigious annual Panorama competition at a very young age. He has an extraordinary musical mind and is fully capable of composing a through-written piece of music for a pan orchestra of over a hundred players in his head, teaching them all their parts from memory without recourse to scores or notes, or of orchestrating pieces from the classical canon for the same size ensemble.
He is one of the world’s prime exponents of steel pan; one of the few musicians to truly translate steel pan techniques into a jazz context and to bring a group close to understanding the real underpinnings of Calypso, Soca & Trinidadian rhythm.
The present line-up has been steady for fifteen years, and the musicians have developed the kind of instinctive rapport that most groups nowadays can only aspire to.
Free admission, collection towards the band taken, please be generous if you can.

Independent Venue Week - Mike's Alternative Pop Quiz
2026-01-27 19:30 - 23:00
Do you know your David Bowie from your Drimble Wedge & The Vegetations? If so you are probably wildly successful, rich, popular and having more sex than you can cope with.But on the off chance that you are free on Tuesday 27 January then pop down to the Puzzle Hall Inn and put your knowledge to the test, and the peasants in their place.Form a team in advance or just turn up and form one on arrival and take part in the slightly strange but highly entertaining alternative / independent pop quiz where points mean prizes and the prizes are pants. It will be heaps of fun though.

Makuta
2026-01-24 21:00 - 23:00
MAKUTA is Doug, Aleata, and Rose Makuta, an American cinematic rock band out of New York. Their forthcoming album will be released in 2025, supported by extensive touring — both domestically and internationally (including a headlining date at the world-renowned Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland). Their songs have been featured on Wells Fargo, CBS, and more, and they have also collaborated, and written for/with fellow artist friends, including Janis Ian, Ab-Liva, Ron Carter, and others.

Tom Waits For No Man
2026-01-22 20:00 - 22:00
Tom Waits for No Man is a homage to the song writing prowess of one of America’s most enduring composers. They don’t seek to impersonate Waits work, rather celebrate it; sometimes re arranging the material, seeking new interpretations and sometimes by stripping it back and letting the sheer calibre of the song writing speak for itself.From the tender nostalgia of ‘Martha’, the gospel infused ‘Picture in a frame’ and the variously, dark, comedic and lewd content of such numbers as ‘Pasties and a G-string’, ‘Tango till they’re sore’, ‘The Piano has been Drinking’; this may be an opportunity to reacquaint yourself with this stellar artist, or perhaps discover for the first time, a few of the reasons that maintain his reputation as songwriter of international acclaim.
“It isn’t necessary to be a card-carrying member of the Tom Waits fan club, anyone with an ear cannot fail to be other than impressed by a set that is nothing short of fabulous. Tom Waits for No Man is a winner.” – Bebop Spoken Here.
“The energy of Tom Waits for No Man was full-on from start to go, with the performers’ personalities shining through in their individual interpretation of the legendary Waits’ songs. From gravelly rock ‘n’ roll to soft, crooning ballads and everything in between, this was quite simply a beautifully put together show”– In Daily
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064603251861#
https://www.youtube.com/@tomwaitsfornomanuk5816

Steamtown
2026-01-18 16:00 - 19:00
Steamtown are a folk duo from North Yorkshire whose well crafted original songs could easily pass for classic US roots music from 1957 or 47′. With joyful harmonies,twanging guitar/banjo and a rollicking accordion this is Classic Americana delivered as only Yorkshire folk know how.
“A mix of traditional and modern folk containing some exceptional storytelling that will make you both evaluate life and smile.” -Fatea Magazine
https://steamtown.bandcamp.com/music
https://www.facebook.com/Steamtownband/
https://www.instagram.com/steamtownband/
