Harry's Tricks is a collection of Brighton-based musicians, led by the magnificent Mike the Mic, the pioneer of 'swing rat scat', a style of singing like no other. Returning to Livestock as a trio to open this year's festival, Harry's Tricks specialise in joyful jazz from the 1920's to the 1940's, the halcyon days of pop music.

Since 1997 Mike the Mic has masqueraded his muse under a number of names, such as Tulip Tree, The Haberdashers, The Fridge Magnets, Lost Sock Club, and Cat Dog Rat Weasel. Mike is an entertainer for all seasons, having wowed crowds at weddings, anniversaries, pubs, festivals, county shows, garden parties, wine tastings, charity events and even at Lambeth Palace. Mike's accomplices, Felix Vandersluis (double bass) and Feliks Tabis (sax and violin) - the mighty Double Felix - complete the picture.

As resident DJs at the Chat Noir in Brighton, Mike and Harry's Tricks have been pick of the week in the Guardian Guide numerous times. Should you find yourself promenading around that part of the south coast, you might even see Mike busking. Mike's altruistic like that, saving shoppers from the monotony of the shops by bringing a bit of twinkle-eyed musical gladness to the high street. We're thrilled to have Harry's Tricks back at Livestock.

Oxford's "undisputed heavyweight champions of chav jazz" are gaining a reputation across the land for raising more than a roof or two. They have a packed tour diary, with appearances at Glastonbury and Bestival, and recently played a knockout BBC radio session on the Mark Lamarr show 'God's Jukebox'.

Those early birds who've booked their Livestock tickets already will no doubt be enjoying their free download of the band's debut album. Only 50 are available, and time is precious - so get booking! If you're too late, don't be disheartened, because truly there is no substitute for the blistering live experience of The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band.

Baron Stuart Macbeth leads from the front, pounding his piano like Jerry Lee Lewis, and singing like a young grizzled Satchmo, or the great Louis Prima. The band's thundering horn section, Bunny Eros (trumpet), King Martin (trombone) and Muggsy (tenor sax), get your joints jumping like a pneumatic drill.

This is raucous speakeasy jazz, and it picks you up by the scruff of the neck and batters you. Gin and kazoos are sometimes involved. It's great fun, untamed and rebellious and often the cause of pure dancefloor mayhem.

What better way to start the weekend?

Bigg Taj is a Glaswegian beatboxer, producer, singer and songwriter. One of the great ambassadors of contemporary mouth music, Taj has spread the beatbox gospel at workshops for the BBC, appearing with Shlomo of Foreign Beggars.

In fact, Taj has performed alongside some of the best-known and most-respected names in hip-hop, including Grandmaster Flash, J5, Scratch from The Roots, Killa Kela, Biz Marikie & Roxanne Shante, Cutmaster Swift, DJ Format, fya, C2C, DJ Spinna, Fingathing, Skinnyman, DJ Food & DK, Slum Village, Guru, Lman, People Under The Stairs, Giant Panda, Ugly Duckling, Abdominal, Wiley, Jay Sean... the list goes on...

Bigg Taj also played at Edinburgh's first breaking convention in 2007 and at We B Girlz in Berlin. He was crowned beatbox champion of 2005 in Newcastle, and was a finalist in the UK beatbox championships in 2005 and 2009.

The track below featuring rapper Scatabrainz perhaps says it most succinctly:

"One of the best in the realm of beatbox,
He'll even make your f---in' head nod when you sleepwalk..."

Andrew Cronshaw is a British multi-instrumental explorer, producer and world music journalist. His dramatic, spacious music combines perspectives from English, Scottish Gaelic, Finno-Ugrian, Iberian, Middle Eastern, Polish, Serbian, Armenian and other traditions.

His eighth and most recent CD, "Ochre" - reimagining English folk song melodies through the playing of Arabic, Welsh and Greek musicians - is one of only two albums ever nominated for both BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music and BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Andrew's musical career revolves around a 74-stringed chord zither, an instrument of which he's almost certainly the world's sole professional player. He took it up and electrified it for the first time 40 years ago, and has since made continuous developments to its sound and technique. To this he adds other instruments far from the mainstream including marovantele (a unique Finnish kantele/Madagascan marovany hybrid of his own invention), the huge Slovak flute fujara and the metal-reeded Chinese ba-wu.

Over the past three years Andrew has been joined in a mesmerising duo by Tigran Aleksanyan, a master of the duduk, Armenia's exquisitely soft-toned apricot wood oboe, one of the world's most plaintive and beautiful wind instruments.

Born in the Ararat Mountains in Armenia, when he was seventeen Tigran joined the Armenian State Dance Ensemble and toured worldwide with them. Having played a number of concerts with the Ensemble in London, he moved to Britain in 2001. The move has opened up a new world for him and his music, playing among others with Cronshaw, singer Yasmin Levy, percussionist Mostafa Shams, the 35-piece La Banda Europa, and in studio and film sessions.

The experience of listening to Andrew and Tigran is so out of the ordinary as to defy description. Their sound is sublime, it comes from nowhere and everywhere, and it transports you far beyond the orbit of any ordinary gig. It's an honour to welcome them both to the Red Lion.

Modeste was born Modeste Hugues Randramahitasoa in Betroka, a town in the central southern part of Madagascar. Modeste's music is unique to Betroka, where traditional local sounds are woven together with softer South African dance rhythms. Modeste combines a velvety singing voice with some of the most dextrous guitar playing you're likely to see. By turns delicate and irresistibly rhythmic, Modeste's music has brought him to stages all over the world. The story of how Modeste came to the music is best left to the man himself:

"When I was about 15 years old I heard a neighbour play the guitar and I loved the sounds so much I knew from that moment that the guitar was going to be part of my life forever. I borrowed my neighbour's guitar and started to teach myself how to play. When he moved away, I had no money to buy a guitar of my own, so I built one in a workshop at a local technical college where my father was a teacher. I used fishing line for strings so it meant I had to hold the guitar very close to hear the sound. Even though it was out of tune and difficult to play I loved trying to recreate the natural sounds of birds, insects and life in the village. Hearing my mother singing gave me the inspiration to persevere.

"It was not long before I began to take an interest in other musical sounds, especially those of the 'marovany', a 24 string traditional Malagasy instrument, which is box shaped and played like the West African kora. I eventually started to fuse the traditional rhythms and music of Betroka with many of the sounds that had appealed to my senses. I have spent years soaked in the sounds of the bush, the birds, whistling of the shepherds in the hills and it this amazing pallet that I draw on when I play, and it is to this place that I return whenever I perform."

According to Amira, music has always been a journey of the spirit. Amira's roots are in Italy and the Sudan, and her songs are a gorgeous shimmering reflection of this multicultural legacy.

The northern parts of Sudan, where Arabic and Nubian cultures meet, have a very particular and ancient musical tradition. Amira draws the music of her ancestors forward, and reinterprets it in the light of her more contemporary influences: jazz, soul, funk and ska.

In Amira's own words: "I seek to reconcile these different worlds through music and bridge in someway gaps of communication, knowing that I am but one human experience in a vast array of collective experiences that make up our universe."

We can't think of any other singer who manages to combine sounds both ancient and modern so effortlessly and so soulfully, with joy and sorrow so deftly interlaced. We couldn't believe our luck when we were introduced to Amira. Nor shall you, when you hear Amira sing in the Red Lion's garden. There's no doubt in our minds that Amira's fame will spread far beyond Stratton Audley.

Jali Fily Cissokho is a virtuoso kora player and ancestral praise singer. His family's home is in Ziguinchor, in the lush region of Casamance, Southern Senegal. As a Mandinkan griot, Fily is part of a social group of approximately 4 million people, which stretches across an area covering Senegal, Mali and the Gambia.

The griots are professional hereditary musicians who once advised and entertained the emperors and kings of Mali. These oral historians have handed down the knowledge, culture and history of the Mandé people for over 4,000 years. Griot means blood (djeli), the essence of life that runs through both the individual body and society as a whole. Griots are thought to be all-seeing and all-knowing in the eyes of traditional West African communities. When you ask Fily how he came to play his music he replies simply: "It's in my blood."

Fily was born into the famous Cissokho family of griots. His father Jali Kemo Cissokho taught him to play the kora, a 21 string African harp, from the age of six, and his musical education was later taken up by his older brother Solo Cissokho. His mother, singer Bintou Konte Cissokho, gave him the historical stories and songs, and soon Fily was performing at local ceremonies. At the age of 13 he formed his own group, Coute Diomboulou, and later appeared as a solo artist throughout southern Senegal. His compositions and skilful mixing of the rhythms of south and north Senegal eventually took him to the capital. In Dakar Fily sang and played the kora in more commercial settings with other groups, superbly blending traditional skills with modern sounds.

Fily was first invited to Europe in 2002 to tour with Jalikunda, the family group founded by his brother Solo, which won a BBC Radio 3 World Music Award in 2004. His UK appearances have included the WOMAD, Glastonbury and Larmer Tree Festivals, as well as performances on David Attenborough's BBC TV Documentary 'Elephants', and more recently for A R Rahman, composer of the score for 'Slumdog Millionaire'. He has been championed by African music luminaries such as Toumani Diabate, Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour, and has released two fine albums, with a third in the pipeline.

Fily is an integral part of the Livestock experience, having stolen the show every year since 2007. This summer he returns to the Red Lion with the Coute Diomboulou band, and their own irresistible brand of Afro-Soul. For more information on Fily, and to say hello to him and his lovely wife Christine, visit their super duper new website.

A singularly strange and beautiful musical eruption took place in the cities of the Peruvian Amazon when oil was struck in the late 1960s. Migrant workers who fuelled the boom brought with them a multitude of sounds and rhythms, and out of nowhere appeared the intoxicating musical brew that is Chicha.

Historically, Chicha is the corn liquor of the Incas, and the recipe for its musical offspring is every bit as exotic: take the tropical beat of Colombian cumbia, add psychedelic squalls of surf-rock guitars, and blend in the haunting indigenous melodies of the high Andes. Garnish with wah-wah pedals and synthesizers, and serve with some Cuban guajira. Much like Chicha the drink, Chicha the music is something you simply can't imagine until you've experienced it.

Fast forward forty years to London town. A diverse and dynamic group of musicians who had all caught the Chicha bug start playing together under the direction of Gareth Finnegan. They bring numerous musical styles and sensibilities to the mix, imbuing timeless Amazonian vibes with punk rock attitude. After two years together, the sound and live performance of Los Chinches is a technicolour burst of energy driven by a fierce frontline of percussion.

Los Chinches have rocked venues across London, including the Barbican, the Green Note, Cargo and Passing Clouds. They've also appeared at some of the UK's most prestigious festivals, including Lovebox, The Secret Garden Party and Bestival. And now they're bringing their very own Jungle Shambala with added Juju to Livestock. We can hardly wait!

When the 20th century was young, a new kind of blues was born in the cities of the USA's southern states. Street bands made up of musicians from vaudeville and medicine shows mixed up jazz, blues, and ragtime with whatever they heard on the wireless and in the juke joints. The jugbands were magpies, recycling tunes from wherever they found them. German polkas, Irish airs and slave songs all found a home in the jugband repertoire.

Instruments being costly and often hard to come by, the musicians worked with what they had. Whisky jugs, washboards and kazoos took the place of basses, drums and horns, and alongside guitars, banjos and fiddles they combined to make a glorious, good-time mess of music.

Some hundred years later in North London The Holloway Jugband came together. Their style reacquaints jugband music with its Irish ancestry, filtering 1920's and 30's jugband classics through Irish trad, country, punk and rock & roll. Since 2007 the Holloway Jugband has been building an enthusiastic following at pubs, clubs and festivals across the land, including a roof-raising performance at Livestock 2008. We are very proud to welcome them back.

The 309s take their name from the last song written by Johnny Cash. Since forming in 2007 they've become specialists in classic American pop music, from old stompalong fiddle tunes to western swing and rockabilly.

Imagine Hank Williams, Bob Wills, and the young Johnny Cash all joining forces at a West Yorkshire barndance, and playing a repertoire mixing up all the prime materials of rock and roll. Add some snappy dressing, slick choreography and a bit of onstage banter and you have The 309s.

The Knights of Mentis are an ancient and venerable chivalric order whose origins continue to perplex even the most scholarly of scholars. It is generally agreed that they first appeared somewhere between Memphis and Atlantis at an uncertain point in the thirteenth century. Still more uncertain is the precise moment at which the Knights exchanged their clodpoles, pikes and swords for banjos and mandolins. Their divinely-appointed purpose is to comfort the disturbed, even as they disturb the comfortable, by use of old-time string band music. Pilgrims who worship at the altars of Gillian Welch and Old Crow Medicine Show will surely be succoured by the Knights of Mentis at Livestock.

Back in the dying days of the twentieth century Rob Powell was a student in Dublin. In his spare time he crafted beautiful, bucolic songs inspired by nature, romance and fantasy. His gentle singing voice, his sense of old-fashioned chivalry, and his intricately finger-picked acoustic guitar set him apart from what was passing for popular music at the time.

Rob became an underground sensation, so he formed a group and took a typically self-effacing stage name. Bowell and The Movements were born, and they flourished for a year or two before graduation and new opportunities took each of the band to new places. Rob moved to London, and then to America, and those of us who had seen him play in Dublin were left to wonder what might have been.

A rumour spread earlier this year that Rob had picked up his guitar again and had played a few gigs in New York. We wasted no time getting in touch to coax him into coming to Livestock, and we are delighted to announce that not only are Bowell and The Movements reforming for the festival, but also that this will be the first time they have played together in more than ten years. Anything could happen...

Lorraine hooked up with the cowboys last year especially for a gig at Livestock. They had such a ball, and went down such a treat, that they've stayed together ever since. Their MySpace page will tell you that the name came about because they were in a hurry, and because 'two builders and a psychotherapist' didn't have quite the same ring to it. Whatever about that, it hasn't stopped the three of them playing regular gigs around venues in Kent or securing slots at the Northern Roots Festival Club, and as support to the mighty Groanbox.

The Cowboys are Paul Fitzgerald on dobro, banjo and harmonica and Glenn Lamberton on bass and acoustic guitar, while Lorraine sings and plays rhythm guitar. Someone recently remarked that Lorraine could sing a hymn and make it sound filthy, but apparently that's just because of a misspent youth of booze, fags and blues.

Their overall sound is influenced by the Glasgow Blues style of Frankie Miller and Alex Harvey, country blues from the Reverend Gary Davies and Mississipi John Hurt, and the luminous songwriting of the new first ladies of country, Mary Gauthier and Gillian Welch.