TWO Cambridgeshire acts, Dropout Dan and B-Sydes, join forces on a tour that opens in York at the Black Swan Inn, Peasholme Green, on Saturday.

The date coincides with next Monday’s release of Dropout Dan’s new EP, Forever, Instead, two weeks after he issued the single Oh, Little Red.

Raised on the outskirts of Cambridge, Daniel O’Dell knew from an early age that music would become an important part of his life. After he transformed himself into Dropout Dan, his first EP, Do You Remember?, emerged in July 2011 with the help of a grand gesture from Big Cheese Magazine, which made it available as the cover mount on issue 136.

New EP Forever, Instead’s five acoustic tracks were recorded, mixed and mastered by long-time friend and producer Matty Moon at Half Ton Studios in Cambridge.

Tour companion B-Sydes, alias Benjamin Sydes, struck out on his own in 2009 after a musical life dipping in and out of bands. He specialises in “stripped-down folk ditties”, as heard on his self-released debut EP, Handshakes Turn to Headlocks, in 2010 and follow-up EP Wrecked Vessels.

His longest tour to date, running from this weekend to the end of March, will take him to places in the country he is yet to traverse before he heads back into the studio with his eye on a summer release.