Ye Olde folking storefront

Storefront for UK folk and Americana music website folking.com
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Welcome to the folking store…

We have set up a new storefront for brand new CD/Vinyl/Download releases that have recently been featured. The link for that is above or here.

Alternately, if you would like more detailed information, all articles below contain direct banner links to the relevant Amazon web page for the featured product (usually the CD, Vinyl or download for the press release or review).

Buying through Amazon helps us to recover a small part of our running costs, so please order anything you need as every little purchase helps us.

SASCHA OSBORN – Looking Out And After (THS002)

Looking Out And After is the debut album from Sascha Osborn and it’s rather lovely. Take a look at the cover photo – soft focus greenery and a photo of the artist which is as far from power dressing as you could get. It’s a perfect visual for this album ...
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BEANS ON TOAST – A Bird In The Hand (Beans On Toast Music BOT10CD)

Every year on the same date, December 1st, Beans On Toast (or Jay as his mum calls him) releases a new album and has done so for the last decade. A Bird In The Hand is his latest. Beans has a lot in common with Robb Johnson – and I ...
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THE WILLOWS – Through The Wild (Elk Elk014)

A sort of folk supergroup that sees singer Jade Rhiannon Ward and multi-instrumentalist husband Cliff joined by Ben Savage on Dobro, percussionist Evan Carson from Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys and, new to the line-up, Katriona Gilmore on fiddle and mandolin and double bass player John Parker, this belated ...
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MIKE SPONZA – Made In The Sixties (EPOPS Music EPPS 1804)

Mike Sponza is a bluesman with a sense of adventure, some impressive collaborators and a great feel for his work. Made in the Sixties was released in the UK on November 23rd and is bold, if not audacious, in what it does. The album has ten songs, one for each ...
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Hollie Haines’ second album is out now

The journey started back in the spring when London based alt-folk musician Hollie Haines kick started an eight-month release campaign leading up to her new album Letters To My Last Love. April saw the release of the first track ‘Except For You’, a floaty love song with sparkling cello and ...
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Beans On Toast celebrates a decade of recordings

Beans On Toast is back with a landmark 10th album (in 10 years): A Bird In The Hand, set for release, as ever, on 1st December. Sticking firmly to his tradition of releasing a new album on the same date each year, 2018 was always going to be a big ...
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TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH LOU – Fair Lady London (Maiden Voyage)

Fair Lady London sees a reunion of sorts with Trevor and Hannah-Lou's former Danny And The Champions Of The World bandmate Danny George Wilson in that they’re now signed to his and Del Day’s label, following the full studio heft of 2015’s Ethan Johns-produced Expatriot, the husband and wife duo ...
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DELTA LADIES – Hillbilly Trance (own label)

Hillbilly Trance was originally released as a limited edition earlier this year but, due to difficult circumstances, it was essentially unfinished. Now the “missing” tracks have been added and the whole album remixed for general release. I suppose that I was expecting a stomping hootenanny of an album but it’s ...
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John Mayall announces new album

On February 22nd 2019 Forty Below Records will release Nobody Told Me, the new studio album from The Godfather of British Blues, John Mayall, at the tender age of 84. As with his last handful of albums, Mayall again shares production duties with Forty Below Founder Eric Corne who also handles engineering and mixing ...
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HICKORY SIGNALS – Turn To Fray (GF*M GFM10)

In a week in which we lost two great stalwarts of the folk scene it’s comforting to hear a young duo making such fine music as this. Hickory Signals are husband and wife duo Adam Ronchetti and Laura Ward from Brighton, assisted by Tom Pryor, who produced Turn To Fray, ...
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BREABACH – Frenzy Of The Meeting (Breabach Records, BRE005CD)

Having toured the world, won awards and created an immensely successful album, Astar, zinging with creative fusion, what would Breabach do next? Judging by their latest album, Frenzy Of The Meeting, released in late October, the answer seems to be to find a revitalised inspiration in the traditional music of ...
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BETH WOOD – The Long Road (own label)

Hailing from Lubbock, The Long Road is Wood’s 11th album, and her maturity, experience and assured confidence are in evidence throughout this collection of short stories in song that conjures Americana thoughts of Nanci Griffith, the Indigo Girls and Dolly Parton as well as the sophisticated folk of a Dory Previn ...
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CIARAN O’KANE – Round & Round (own label)

Ciaran O’Kane describes his debut album, Round & Round, as “a collection of the songs I like to sing” which is the best reason for singing them and also a very Irish way of looking at things. Like his countrymen since time immemorial he has picked up music on his ...
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Townes Van Zandt – new live double CD

Townes Van Zandt was a remarkable singer/songwriter, much admired by contemporaries such as Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris and scores of others. His erratic career oscillated wildly from moments of brilliance and clear-eyed perceptiveness through to drug-addled, alcohol addicted despair. His was a talent that inspired real ...
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KÍLA – Pota Óir (Kíla Records, KRDVD003)

Kíla, a band with a mutable line-up around the core of the Ó Snodaigh family has been around since the late 80s, with a prodigious output of band and offshoot projects over that time. Last year, the band released a live album, Beo/Alive to include some of their less-performed tracks ...
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Strawbs celebrate 50 years

Monday 26th November: London, Under The Bridge Doors 7pm £26.40 (inc fee) http://underthebridge.co.uk/events/electric-strawbs/ Although forming in the mid 60s, coming out of the exciting British Folk Movement alongside Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Al Stewart and Roy Harper, this tour will mark the 50th Anniversary of their first major recording, being the ...
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MARK HARRISON – The Panoramic View (own label)

I really like Mark Harrison’s previous album, Turpentine, so I was delighted when he sent me The Panoramic View. Mark plays 12-string and National guitars and his core band is double bass and drums courtesy of Charles Benfield and Ben Welburn. His music is the blues but with the lightest ...
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MERRY HELL – Anthems To The Wind (Merry Hell Music MHMCD218)

Here’s a conundrum. When you see them playing the folk circuit, Merry Hell comprise Virginia Kettle and her borther-in-law Andrew on vocals, his brothers John on guitar and Bob on banjo, mandolin and bouzouki, bassist Nick Davies and fiddle player Neil McCartney. Officially, however, they’re now an eight-piece with Lee ...
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Martyn Joseph announces January release of new album

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph returns with new album Here Come The Young released January 25th 2019 via Pipe Records. Produced by Gerry Diver (Tom Robinson, Lisa Knapp, Sam Lee), Martyn was encouraged outside his comfort zone and the result is a career defining record. Martyn says of his new album, ...
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Larkin Poe announce their new album

Venom & Faith is the new album from Larkin Poe, to be released November 9, 2018. The Nashville-based sister duo follow the release with a headline European tour, starting in London at Islington Assembly Hall on November 21 and taking in dates in Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain. In a ...
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NICK ELLIS – Speaker’s Corner (Mellowtone)

His fourth album in three years, the Liverpool singer-songwriter’s music has been described as streetscape narrative-noir, which I guess is a fancy way of saying he specialises in dark storytelling, delivered primarily with just picked acoustic guitar, coloured here and there with Mark Percy’s percussion and Edgar Jones on double ...
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SETH LAKEMAN – The Well Worn Path (Cooking Vinyl COOKCD709)

Seth Lakeman’s new album has appeared with surprisingly little fanfare. The Well Worn Path was recorded at the beginning of the year during a break in the Robert Plant/Shape Shifters tour with old comrades and relations Ben Nicholls, Kathryn Roberts and brother Sean and new friends Kit Hawes, who brings ...
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JON WILKS – Midlife (own label)

When someone gathers together traditional folk songs from a particular region, it generally tends to be the case that these are from Up North, Down South or to the West Country. The Midlands tend to be less well-served, despite a rich seam there to be mined. Indeed, a search of ...
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Katie Melua releases her Ultimate Collection on vinyl

As Katie Melua embarks on her European tour, BMG announce the release of Ultimate Collection on vinyl. Compiled by Katie, this vinyl edition features 23 songs from Katie’s 7 studio albums from 2003’s Call Off The Search to 2016’s In Winter. Katie’s cover of ‘Fields Of Gold’ (the Children In ...
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Midlife is out today – songs from Birmingham and the Midlands

Midlife, an album of traditional, industrial and music hall songs collected in Birmingham and the Midlands, was released this morning. Researched, arranged and recorded by, Jon Wilks, a journalist and musician who was born and raised in Solihull, the album contains 11 tracks, some of which date back to the ...
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Siobhan Miller announces new album

Born in Penicuik, Scotland, Siobhan Miller grew up in the folk scene singing at festivals she attended with her parents. Her soulful and stirring renewal of traditional song won her the 2018 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Traditional Track, and Scots Singer of the Year an unprecedented three ...
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Simon Todd announces new album

Half Empty/Half Full is the eagerly awaited new album from Simon Todd, produced by Boo Hewerdine, ably assisted by Chris Pepper. The album is a collection of songs based upon the concept of considering a wide variety of situations from alternative perceptions. When discussing song selection for this album, Boo ...
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CASHAVELLY MORRISON – Hunger (own label)

Born Melissa Diane Meredith Bickey in West Virginia, her stage name a combination of the maiden names of paternal grandmother and mother, respectively, and working in collaboration with husband, guitarist and co-writer Ryan MacLeod, Hunger is her second album and, again, tackles themes of racism, the abuse of power and female ...
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THE TRIALS OF CATO – Hide And Hair (own label)

The eponymous debut EP by The Trials Of Cato came out of nowhere and smacked everyone between the eyes. Live, they are full of energy and their first full-length album,  Hide And Hair, maintains their energy levels but also showcases just what great writers they are as well.  For anyone ...
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DAVID OLNEY – This Side Or The Other (Black Hen Music BHCD0089)

Based in Nashville since 1973, Olney has clocked up a fair few musical miles with 21 previous studio albums, released at a rate of one every one or two years since 1991. While his songs have been covered by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and Steve Earle, he’s ...
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BERT JANSCH – Just A Simple Soul (BMG BMGCAT227CD)

Bernard Butler spent more than a decade working with Bert Jansch and it fell to him to curate a definitive best of collection. It can’t have been easy. Like most singers of his generation he moved between labels and publishers while his copyrights changed hands as new repackages of his ...
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STEWART HENDERSON, YVONNE LYON and CAROL HENDERSON – Vesper Sky (own label SL045)

Well now, this is something different. Scottish singer-songwriter Yvonne Lyon has joined forces with Liverpool poet Stewart Henderson (who, as a songwriter, has provided the lyrics to several Martyn Joseph numbers, including ‘Working Mother’ and ‘Proud Valley Boy’) and his storyteller wife Carol for Vesper Sky, an album of songs ...
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ASHLEY HUTCHINGS – Paradise And Thorns (Talking Elephant TECD410)

Divided into two discs, Gloucester Docks Revisited and Other Tales Of Love, Paradise And Thorns finds “the single most important figure in English folk rock” (© Bob Dylan) revisiting his seminal autobiographically- based 1987 solo work (already the subject of a live version and revised re-issue) in the wake of ...
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GERRY O’CONNOR – Last Night’s Joy (Lugnasa LUGCD966)

Gerry O’Connor is a fiddle player from Dundalk, not to be confused with Gerry O’Connor, the banjo player, who also appears on Last Night’s Joy, Gerry’s second solo album, notably on ‘Stereo Connor’. Google™, of course, does confuse them which makes life hard for us poor reviewers. There is a ...
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GYPSYFINGERS – Stranger Things (own label)

Although they perform live as a quartet and the album features various musical collaborators, Gypsyfingers are essentially classically trained and dance music loving songwriter Victoria Coghlan on piano, French horn and acoustic guitar and her husband, Mike Oldfield’s producer son Luke, who plays bass, guitars, percussion and mellotron. This is ...
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THE FRANK BURKITT BAND – Raconteur (Frank Burkitt Music FWB004)

Having left Edinburgh, Scotland, for Wellington, New Zealand in 2014, The Frank Burkitt Band took shape over the coming months, honing a unique, rootsy sound which lies somewhere between country/ Americana and swing and jazz music. Raconteur is their latest offering, made up of ten original songs, direct from the ...
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VIVE LA ROSE – For She Who Hangs The Moon (Gestation Records, GEST01)

London-based Scot David Luximon-Herbert has been making music in various guises over many years, finally emerging as Vive La Rose in 2014 with the EP, Don’t Move, Don’t Speak. For Vive La Rose’s debut album, For She Who Hangs The Moon, he has crafted a lush, piano-driven Americana-washed soundscape about ...
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KARINE POLWART – Laws Of Motion (Hudson Records HUD014)

Karine Polwart's latest CD – Laws Of Motion, released on 19th October 2018 – is her seventh release. It is co-produced by Karine with Inge Thomson (who, along with Karine's brother Steven Polwart, seems to have provided most of the additional instrumentation for the album) and Stuart Hamilton, and it's ...
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DAN FRECHETTE & LAUREL THOMSEN – Driving By Candlelight (own label)

A duo variously based in California’s Santa Cruz mountains (her) and Winnipeg (him), Driving By Candlelight is their fourth collection of self-penned Americana, she on violin and viola and he on pretty much anything else with strings, with Jimmy Norris on drums and Stan Poplin, whose CV includes stints with Dave ...
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Cara Dillon announces winter tour dates

Cara Dillon, possessed of one of the most celebrated folk voices to have come out of Ireland, will be touring her Christmas show Upon A Winter’s Night for a third year running this December. The overwhelming success of previous tours has cemented this magical and memorable festive experience as a ...
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VISION THING – When We Were Astronauts And Other Stories (own label)

The follow-up to last year’s Trysting Tree EP (the tracks of which all appear here), the sleeve echoing the title of David Niven’s autobiography, The Moon’s A Balloon, this is the album from the north-west quartet which, hopefully, will provide lift-off to getting the far wider acclaim they deserve. Vocally ...
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Shred Kelly – new album

Shred Kelly will be releasing their most ambitious project yet in their fourth album, Archipelago, on October 19th 2018 via DevilDuck Records, followed immediately by a tour in the UK. The new record was produced by Howard Redekopp (The New Pornographers, Tegan and Sara), and Josh Rob Gwilliam (Cowpuncher, Michael Bernard Fitzgerald), ...
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BELLE PLAINE – Malice, Mercy, Grief And Wrath (own label)

Sharing her name with the Minnesota city that translates as ‘beautiful prairie’. raised in a remote Saskatchewan town of just 45 people, it’s understandable that Plaine’s horizons look beyond such confines of such an existence, her new album, Malice, Mercy, Grief And Wrath, full of questioning, of the past, present ...
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MICHELLE LEWIS – All That’s Left (own label)

Based in L.A., Lewis explores the softer edges of folk-pop Americana, her songs suffused with sadness and melancholy, dealing with loss and longing, delivered in her tender, plaintive tones. All That’s Left, her third album, is described as a transformative journey from regret to compassion, her words and music gently ...
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Marianne Faithfull announces new solo album

Negative Capability is the 21st album by Marianne Faithfull and the most emotionally powerful of her 54-year recording career. Facing down arthritis and bolstered by collaborators including Warren Ellis, Nick Cave, Rob Ellis, Ed Harcourt and Mark Lanegan, Negative Capability is charged with brutal honesty and autobiographical reflection as she ...
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TOM PETTY AND BOB DYLAN – New York 1986 (Rox Vox RV2CD2128)

In the mid-80s and in the midst of his own musical wasteland, Bob Dylan went down a number of different angles in a bid to rejuvenate his career. While some of these efforts were more successful than others, one of the more favourable endeavours from this time was his work ...
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KITTY MACFARLANE – Namer Of Clouds (Navigator Records, NAVIGATOR104)

Given the praise heaped on Kitty Macfarlane’s 2016 EP, Tide & Time, expectations are understandably high for her first full-length album release, Namer Of Clouds. Macfarlane’s light soprano, paired with an equally light-fingered plucky guitar, nonetheless contains a filament of controlled determination. Softness and steel are never far apart, even ...
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GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV – Evening Machines (Dualtone Records)

Evening Machines was released on October 5th, Isakov’s fifth album. Isakov is a full time farmer in Colorado, who tends to his music career in the winter (he has his studio in a barn on his farm). He has been described as an indie-folk artist. This feels like a full ...
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PETE SEEGER BIG BILL BROONZY – Cahn Auditorium, Northwestern University (Echoes ECHO2CD2077)

Another recording from the vaults is Pete Seeger and Big Bill Broonzy from the Cahn Auditorium at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, 1956 – a time in which McCarthyism was rife and the blacklist meant that performances in college and university campuses were Seeger’s main outlet. The performance is unscripted ...
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LONGSTAY – Calling Me Home (Goldrush Records, GOLDCD017)

Calling Me Home is the debut album from Longstay, a precocious Perth quintet, still with an average age of only 17 - and with four years’ experience already behind them. These super-confident players are firmly rooted in Country and Americana, with more than a hint of the ‘70s thrown in ...
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