Half Czech, Half Welsh and part Mermaid, Katus (pronounced Katoosh ) is adding to her clutch of festival awards. After a recent performance at the Buxton Fringe Festival along with partner and percussionist John Burns, they were picked as "The Best Performer" and also received the accolade of best entry.

Katus and John live in nearby Glossop ( well nearby for us in Sheffield ) and came into the studios to do a session for GondwanaSound a year ago.

The latest album release has all the Katus favourites, Maggio, Smile, Mermaid's Call and Hey Hey, the song adopted one Glastonbury by the Joe Strummer stage as their anthem.

New songs are also here, Mrs Johnson, Ivana Rada, Mad Dogs amongst others. Katus is becoming a seasoned festival performer having spent a number of months in New Zealand last year. As a live album they have been very honest leaving everything in there, the occasional f word, the occasional "bum note", pleas to the sound desk to turn up the sound in the monitors and the chat to the audience. I don't know about you but personally I get annoyed with sanitised, cleaned up live albums, where the applause suddenly stops and any intro to the song or chat with the audience is chopped out. What's the point, you might as well have a studio album with some overdubbed enthusiasm.

This album is for real and Katus' approach to this album is a great balance which allows you to feel part of the gig as well as, I'm sure, as acting as a calling card for future bookings.

At the time of writing Katus was playing the Cambridge Folk Festival