Merlyn Driver is a singer songwriter and nature-focused musician, whose sound draws on folk, as well as other global and contemporary influences.
Born in Orkney, an archipelago in the north of Scotland and raised on a smallholding without electricity, Merlyn spent much of his time outdoors and only started attending the local school in his teens. His critically acclaimed multi-artist album project, Simmerdim: Curlew Sounds (2022), released in partnership with the RSPB, received national UK radio play from BBC Radio 6, 3, and 2; and reviews from the likes of MOJO, Songlines Magazine (5 stars), and The Guardian.
Merlyn’s debut solo album, It Was Also Sometimes Daylight, will be released in October 2025.
Guests on the album include Owen Spafford (fiddle); Nathan Riki Thomson (double bass); Francesca Ter-Berg (cello); and various creatures including curlews, greenshank, blackbirds, wood sandpipers, barnacle geese, and multiple species of frogs and toads.
Alongside his own musical projects, Merlyn is a cultural producer, writer, and educator. In 2019, after organising the SOAS Concert Series (London) for three years, he established Making Tracks - an annual project that brings together musicians from the UK and around the world (mostly by train) to undertake artist development and incubate new intercultural and interspecies collaborations. Since 2024 he has been helping to develop a new Sounds Archive and leading on science communication for EarthSonic, a project that tells the story of climate change through music. Merlyn also teaches regularly for institutions including Sibelius Academy (Helsinki), and writes for Songlines Magazine and other publications.