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The folking review team is a small, dedicated group of people with a passion and a commitment for the folk, acoustic and Americana music scene. They review the latest releases, each in their own inimitable style…
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ANNIE DRESSNER – I Thought It Would Be Easier (Dharma Records DHARMACD54)
We last encountered Annie Dressner via her 2020 album, Coffee At The Corner Bar. Now we have I Thought It Would Be Easier – great title by the way – her just released new record. Annie is a New Yorker who relocated to England several years ago and has become ...
PHOEBE REES – Bring In The Light: Si Kahn’s Songs Of Courage And Resistance (Strictly Country Records SCR-91)
For those who need bringing up to speed, Si Kahn is an American singer-songwriter, civil rights activist and founder of Grassroots Leadership while Rees is a multi-instrumentalist (primarily fiddler) and singer from Oswestry. Bring In The Light, her first full-length album, was recorded in the Netherlands with Dutch musicians on ...
RENAISSANCE – Tuscany (Esoteric ECLEC32870)
Originally founded in 1969 with the line-up comprising Keith Relf and Jim McCarty from The Yardbirds, along with John Hawken, Louis Cennamo and Relf's sister Jane, they were reborn with a new roster in 1972, going on to become the definitive progressive symphonic rock band, melding folk, rock and classical ...
NAVARO – Songs From The Darkwood (digital download)
Here at folking we’ve followed Navaro’s career since Beth Navaro’s 2007 solo album. I even ventured into the wilds of St Albans to hear them – a memorable gig featuring a guest appearance by the late and much lamented Gareth Turner. Steve Austin tells me that nowadays Navaro are playing ...
BEAU – The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur (Cherry Red BEAULC1)
Incredibly, on The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur, his 18th album for the label (released digitally), Trevor Midgley is in as sharp a satirical form as ever, this time, again armed with his 12-string, the tabloids, cancel culture and champagne socialism amongst those under his withering gaze. Cascading chords set ...
TOM JENKINS – Meadow Parts 1 & 2 (Xtra Mile Recording)
Tom Jenkins’ Meadow Parts 1 & 2 sing with the honest melodies of Tom’s own sheep farming experience, stone barn walls, a cold west Wales morning, an old oak tree graced with family ashes, and, of course, the warm loyalty of the family Border collie. Now, to clarify, there are ...
HEATHER LITTLE – By Now (Need To Know Music NTK2401HL)
While her songs have spawned hits for others, Miranda Lambert and Sunny Sweeney among them, the Texas-born musician has rarely ventured into her own spotlight, By Now being only her second full-length release, some eleven years after the first. Assembling a stellar line-up of backing musicians that include Duke Levine, ...
PHIL ODGERS & JOHN KETTLE – Far Rockaway (Vinyl Star Records VSRCD015)
Greenwich Village in the 1960s was a focus of art, literature and music but many names are now fading from memory; Fred Neill, Dave van Ronk, Eric Anderson and, perhaps most notably, Phil Ochs. Ochs was a major figure but died tragically young leaving a legacy of songs. Phil Odgers ...
THE ROLLING FOLK – East Of Elsewhere (Drop In The Drink)
This the first in a series of podcast reviews presented by Paul Johnson from his studio. He begins with the debut album from The Rolling Folk - East Of Elsewhere. Artists' website: https://therollingfolk.bandcamp.com/album/east-of-elsewhere ...
MATTIAS LIES – Rösten Från Det Karelska Näset/The Voice From The Karelian Isthmus
The Voice From The Karelian Isthmus is a collaboration across time between two Swedish Finns. This is the seventh album by Finnish singer-songwriter Mattias Lies, and he’s described it as a collection of blue, white, and yellow songs. Those are the colours of the flag of the Swedish Finns, and ...
MARTIN SIMPSON – Skydancers (Topic TXCD613)
A seemingly moveable feast, Hen Harrier Day (which draws awareness to the illegal hunting of these birds, named for their former habit of preying on free-ranging fowl) is part of Hen Harrier Action, a website which celebrates and protects the wildlife of our uplands, the title song, ‘Skydancers’, being commissioned ...
THE STRANGE ENCOUNTERS – All In The Mind (Ports of Call Music)
Or Kreutzmüller and Armstrong, that too probably enough to evoke blank looks, unless you live in Germany, that is, where the band/duo have been a fixture, give or take pandemics, since 2018. The name, Joe Armstrong, a singer and guitarist, may scratch an itch, having been a musical associate of ...
THE LEGENDARY TEN SECONDS – Folk Rocktronica (own label)
The brainchild of Ian Churchward, a Torquay-based musician whose fairly prolific output revolves around songs with a historical basis, encompassing ones about Devon and Cornwall, the Wars of the Roses and, in particular, Richard III, not to mention, for the niche market, Mer de Mort, commissioned by the Mortimer History ...
LOUISE BICHAN – The Lost Summer (Adhyâropa Records AR00058)
Orkney born, now resident in the USA, Louise Bichan releases her second album, The Lost Summer, some eight years after her debut. Louise is a fiddle player and is supported here by producer and string player Ethan Setiawan, guitarist Conor Hearn and Brendan Hearn on cello as well as a ...
DAVE LOWRY – Songs Of A Devon Man (WildGoose Studios WGS443CD)
Dave Lowry's Songs Of A Devon Man is a CD project that has taken several years to come to fruition, a delay partly due to Covid and the sad death of one of the people behind it. For more than five decades, Dave Lowry has built his reputation as a ...
JULIE ABBÉ – Out Of The Ashes (ANIS002)
Julie Abbé releases her second album, Out Of The Ashes on April 5th. Abbé is French by birth, she moved to England in her twenties to study vocal jazz, is now a Bristolian as embedded in English and Irish folk music as she is in French or American traditions. For ...
PIERS LEWIN & JOHN PATRICK ELLIOTT – Lost Songs Of Scilly (Carbon Moon Records)
Lost Songs Of Scilly is something of a misnomer because all the music here is newly minted. The reason is that, uniquely in the British Isles, Scilly has no indigenous musical tradition or, at least, not one that has survived. Of course, there may be the equivalent of the Dead ...
WILL PAGE – Still Standing (Union Music Label UML024)
Well, here’s a splendid solo debut album from the young singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/Noble Jacks frontman from Sussex. Still Standing has nothing to do with Elton John (fortunately) but does feature a collaboration with Steve Knightley and support from percussionist Cormac Byrne and bass-player Jack Hosgood. Will began his career as a fiddle-player, ...
GOOD HABITS –Quarter-Life (own label)
Good Habits’ new album, Quarter-Life, dances like a melodic scarecrow, amid a fresh field of ancient autumnal wheat. The first song, ‘All That She Wanted’, zigs and zags with Bonnie Schwarz’s joyous (double-tracked!) voice which is like the see to her cello’s saw. And there’s slight cajon percussion to accent ...
SINGLES BAR 100 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
From Kent hails singer/songwriter/guitarist/banjo player SAM BROTHERS and his new EP, The Folksinger. The title and the name of the opening song, ‘Seasons’ should flash warning signs but no. The EP title may be a bit cheesy but ‘Seasons’ dispels any doubts. It’s a very clever song about a girl ...
PETE MORTON – Fair Freedom (Further 004)
Pete Morton has just released Fair Freedom and is currently touring the album. I guess most readers of folking.com will have come across Pete Morton, so let’s mull over the new album in the context of just how (self-understatedly) good he is. ‘Troubadour’ – we borrow the word from the ...
DAWN LANDES – The Liberated Woman’s Songbook (own label)
Released in the wake of Women’s History Month, in tandem with producer Josh Kaufman, Landes has interpreted and expanded songs from The Liberated Woman’s Songbook, originally published in 1971, the year before Roe vs Wade, with a chronologically ordered selection of women’s activism numbers from 1830 to 1970, with messages ...
THE BREWER’S DAUGHTER – Made Undone (own label)
It’s been a while since I last heard from The Brewer’s Daughter, or Rhiannon Crutchley as her mum and dad call her. She’s back now with added pizzazz and a new album, Made Undone. In the interim she’s formed a musical partnership with guitarist/pianist Magnus Martin and acquired a little ...
TWM MORYS & GWYNETH GLYN – Tocyn Unfford I Lawenydd (Recordiau Sain – SAINSCD2851)
For non-Welsh speakers, Tocyn Unfford I Lawenydd translates as ‘One Way Ticket to Happiness.’ As its name suggests, the title track is about a train journey, and journeys, are very much at the centre of this album. Through new and traditional songs, Twm Morys and Gwyneth Glyn explore such topics ...
MORGAN HARPER-JONES – Up To The Glass (Play It Again Sam)
Hailing from Rochdale and describing herself as a 70-year-old woman trapped in the body of a 25-year-old musician who loves knitting, afternoon-tea, baking and listening to old songs, Harper-Jones thanks the therapy she undertook to deal with the grief and mental health repercussions of losing her paternal great grandparents and ...
YANN FALQUET –Les secrets du ciel (own label)
Yann Falquet’s Les secrets du ciel is a French-Canadian Quebecois folk album that sings with melody, drama, and introspection. Just so you know, he is one-third of the great band Genticorum. But this album is a very different folky intimate venture from his band that echoed the lead voice with ...
GARY CAIN – Outside The Lines (Bluestown Music)
Outside The Lines is the third album from blues (well, mostly blues) virtuoso Gary Cain. Cain was born in Canada but is now based in Austin. He sings, writes songs – and boy does he play guitar (I may have adopted that line). Sometimes an album comes through to review ...
SUE DECKER – Keeping Time (own label)
From British Columbia, Decker’s been described as the love child of Ry Cooder and Lucinda Williams, from which you’ll gather her music embraces blues, soul and country with a healthy order of slide guitar. Joined by Nashville sessioneers Dave Jacques and Justin Armaral on bass and drums with producer Steve ...
RICHARD TRETHEWEY – Two Halves (own label RT002CD/LP)
Two Halves was originally conceived as a vinyl release, with one side inspired by the river estuaries of his native Cornwall and the other by the county’s industrial heritage as explored on his 2012 debut, Richard reunites with producer Phil Innes and enlists various fellow locals, among them Iain McKnight ...
COWBOIS RHOS BOTWNNOG – Mynd Ȃ’r Tŷ Am Dro (Sbigyn Ymborth SY037)
I first encountered Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog via their first album which I rather liked. That was back in the noughties but since then nothing came my way. I began to think that there was some truth in the stories that the Welsh border was closed to prevent cheese smuggling – ...
BILL DODDS – Closer (own label)
Following in the footsteps of Norman Paterson, Dodds, a retired railway driver and keen cyclist (he’s one of the few to have cycled round the globe) from Newcastle, is the latest late bloomer to release a debut album. Venturing into songwriting during the pandemic, he began attending online workshops and ...
DIANE BIRCH – Flying On Abraham (Topanga Creed Records)
Musician and singer-songwriter, Diane Birch is set to release her fifth project, Flying On Abraham next month. The collection marks Birch’s first new release in nearly a decade. Immediately apparent upon perusal of the tracklist for Flying On Abraham is an idiosyncratic approach on the part of Birch with regard ...
SAM LEE – songdreaming (Cooking Vinyl)
Sam Lee’s songdreaming deepens the coloured hues, with big cinema drama, into the old photos of countless Ten Man Mop British folk albums. Perhaps, this one is not for the purists. Now, while each song has a traditional folk deoxyribonucleic acid, the musical polymer in all the tunes gets stretched, ...
LAUFORD CRIPPS – Live At BGFM Nantyglo (Steam Pie Records SPCD 10205)
Wynford Jones, Laurence Eddy and Geoff Cripps began making music together in the 1970s, forming folk-rock band The Chartists and staying together until 1991. Geoff subsequently moved on to Allan Yn Y Fan, leaving them is 2018, although retirement was far from his mind. I was going to say “enough ...
ANDY SMYTHE – Poetry In Exile (Dreaming Element Records – DER09)
Andy Smythe has a new album out on March 1st, 2024, entitled Poetry In Exile and is a fantastic up-tempo Britpop journey of an album! A breath of fresh air to new music fashioned in the Rock/Pop and Folk/Indie genre. Andy’s four octave voice can take on any song, which ...
THE SCHMOOZENBERGS – Mouse (Schmusic Records, SCHCD02)
Mouse is the third album in a career spanning over a decade for Bristol-based The Schmoozenbergs, and their first new release since 2019’s Awaken. Starting life as a duo in 2012, the band settled into their current four-piece line-up in 2017, when they also released their self-titled first album. Awaken ...
GRACE PETRIE – Build Something Better (The Robot Needs Home Collective TRNHC013)
I do like Grace Petrie best when she’s sticking it to the man. Or, to put it rather more delicately, pointing up the inequalities and iniquities of our contemporary society. Build Something Better does just that. Produced by Frank Turner, it defines the punk-folk genre while allowing Grace’s guitar and ...
SINGLES BAR 99 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
Having digitally self-released four on ‘Part One’ last year, LITTLE LORE now offers up the remainder of the Seven Stories (three digitally on ‘Part Two’ or all seven on CD), first up being ‘The Jackal’, all desert night moody with skittering percussion and haunted keyboards that, originally written for an ...
PETE COOPER AND RICHARD BOLTON – Burning Bright (Wild Goose Records – WGS445CD)
I do like an album on which the tracks all have interesting stories behind them, and Burning Bright by Pete Cooper and Richard Bolton, is just such an album. This is the fourth album that fiddle legend Pete and multi-instrumentalist Richard have made, during a quarter of a century working ...
MAY ERLEWINE – The Real Thing (10 Good Songs 007)
Working on the premise that people power can bring changes on a global scale, belatedly getting a European release almost a year after America, the Michigan singer-songwriter’s 22nd full-length album (either solo or in collaboration) navigates moments between people and seeking truth. Joined by Packy Lundholm on guitars, Phil Cook ...
BUSTER SLEDGE – Nice Time On Earth Today (HCD7406)
Buster Sledge (great name) released Nice Time On Earth Today at the beginning of February. It’s their fourth album, but their first official release in the UK. It’s not often that you get an album that leaves you simultaneously with a smile on your face at the same time as ...
ALEX CUMMING – Homecoming (own label)
A traditional singer, accordionist, pianist and dance caller from Somerset now based in Vermont, while he’s recorded as part of Celtic trio Bellwether, a cappella quartet The Teacups and as a duo with Nicola Beazley, Homecoming is his solo debut, albeit with a helping hand from such musicians as fiddler ...
FRONTIER RUCKUS – On The Northline (Loose Music)
Frontier Ruckus’ new album, On The Northline, sings with its Midwest Americana Great Lakes big waved melodies. The very first song, ‘Swore I Had A Friend’ is wind-blown, without a lighthouse heart in turbulent waters, but nicely dramatic with trumpet flourishes, the swirling sounds of Zach Nichols and his singing ...
AMIGO THE DEVIL – Yours Until The War Is Over (Liars Club/Regime Music Group)
Baptised in the same waters as Tom Waits and Nick Cave, if you’ve not encountered him before this is the musical nom de plume of Danny Kiranos, a tonsorially hirsute Florida-born singer songwriter of Greek/Spanish parentage and an affinity for cinematic folk-noir. Yours Until The War Is Over, his third ...
KEITH JAMES – Word Paintings (Hurdy Gurdy)
Keith James – poet, songwriter, singer, composer and arranger and a fine guitarist. It is perhaps unfair that these achievements have been somewhat overshadowed by his work as an interpreter of other writers – Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, Federico Garcia Lorca pre-eminent among them. He’s very good at it, of ...
MAT GREEN & ANDY TURNER – Time For A Stottycake (WildGoose Records WGS444CD)
Mat Green and Andy Turner are, among their other accomplishments, founder members of the popular band Magpie Lane. Mat has also marked fifty years playing fiddle for the morris, notably Bampton Morris Men and Andy plays Anglo concertina and sings and is a former morris dancer. That may give you ...
MA POLAINE’S GREAT DECLINE – Molecules (OHM Records – MPGD07)
Americana is a single word that encompasses so much. It’s not really a genre, but a collection of genres, covering the various traditions and influences that make up American roots music. On that basis, it’s fair to describe Somerset duo Ma Polaine’s Great Decline as true Americana. They might not ...
SERIOUS SAM BARRETT – A Drop Of The Morning Dew (Crow Lane Records CL001)
Serious Sam Barrett is a songwriter and an interpreter of traditional songs and he does both with great aplomb. This set of eighteen songs, A Drop Of The Morning Dew was recorded live at one of the north’s leading folk clubs, the famous Bacca Pipes in Keighley, just Sam, his voice ...
AND ALSO THE TREES – Mother-Of-Pearl Moon (own label)
Formed in small Worcestershire village in 1979 by Simon and Justin Jones, inspired by the nascent post-punk movement and influenced by the landscape and history of the rural environment, Mother-Of-Pearl Moon, the line up now comprising the brothers alongside drummer Paul Hill, Colin Ozanne on keyboards and clarinet and bassist ...
BROOKS WILLIAMS – Diamond Days (Red Guitar Blue Music RGBM-2402)
Brooks Williams is one of the great collaborators of the modern scene but for Diamond Days he goes back to basics – just one man, his voice and his guitar. I suspect that this may be his best work – everything about it is just perfect. Most of the songs ...
JACK CADE – Bewilderland (COLL057)
Bewilderland is the latest album of Jack Cade’s prolific streak over the past few years. Maybe it’s because I’m a Northerner, but Cade doesn’t seem to be as well-known as I feel his unique sound should be. He’s been described most frequently as Americana, but that’s not a genre that ...
LINDA WATKINS – Butterfly In A Box (own label TAL0005)
I slipped Butterfly In A Box into the player for the first time and wondered why I hadn’t heard of Linda Watkins before. This is her fifth album after all and we’re supposed to have our finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist (or something like that) so you must ...
TRUE FOXES – Howl (own label)
Amie Parsons and Chloe Payne have become ubiquitous on music stations in the South West (and the rest of the UK, apparently) since the release of their EP Sunny in 2022, while building up an extraordinary number of appearances at festivals and in concert, in the company of some impressive ...
THE LONGEST JOHNS – Voyage (own label)
The appetite for shanties remains unabated, Voyage being the ninth album from the Bristolian crew and again with a mix of traditional and original material, the latter opening proceedings with ‘The Llandoger’ which, beginning with a simple mandolin strum before it all kicks in, is a celebration of the supposedly ...
THE SALTS – Live In London Town (own label)
The Salts are one of my few local(ish) bands, one that is rising in stature and popularity by the day. Brian Doran leads the band and plays flute among other instruments which is unusual for a shanty crew but he actually restricts himself to the more traditional whistle. Lee Collinson ...
KATHERINE PRIDDY – The Pendulum Swing (Cooking Vinyl COOKCD910)
Having garnered both lavish critical praise and commercial success for her 2021 debut, The Eternal Rocks Beneath, the Birmingham singer-songwriter returns with what might have been the difficult second album given that she’d lived with many of the songs on the first since childhood. But, rooted in themes of nostalgia, ...
MARTIN CARTHY – Martin Carthy (Topic Records TTSLP005)
Like most folk-ish guitarists of my generation (and succeeding generations, directly or indirectly), I owe a great deal to Martin Carthy, not only a fine singer but one of a generation of gifted musicians who lifted the perception of folk guitar from the strumming of (some) amateur skiffle bands to ...
SCOTT SEAN WHITE – Even Better On The Bad Days (own label)
Based in the wonderfully named town of Poetry, Texas, when I reviewed White’s 2021 debut I said it was a good bet for the album of the year lists. Well, history repeats itself now with this fine and at times deeply personal follow-up, Even Better On The Bad Days, which ...
TIGER MOTH – Ostracon (Ghosts From The Basement GFTB 7060)
Ostracon is a record for compleat lepidopterists and archaeologists. The first is obvious, the second because an ostracon is a potsherd on which writing has been scratched. The significance of the title may or may not become apparent. For those who were not there or those who were but still ...
STEREO NAKED – Upside Down (own label)
Launched at their sold out show at Celtic Connections, the title (wittily written so on the sleeve) of the quartet’s follow up to 2022’s Unseen Course refers to how acoustic bassist Pierce Black has swapped New Zealand to join banjoist Julia Zech (the duo being the core line up and ...
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