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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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KATE RUSBY – When They All Looked Up (Pure PRCD80)
Her 23rd album and her first non-seasonal release in six years, When They All Looked Up mixes her settings of traditional songs as well as covers and original material. Opening, Ron Block on banjo and Sam Kelly contributing guest vocals, with ‘How The World Goes’ which is credited to her ...
BEAU – Palace Of Light (Cherry Red BEAUPOL1)
With near thirty albums to his name, it’s fair to say that as long as there’s self-important self-interested arseholes, social iniquities, political buffoons and popular discontent in the world, there’ll always be fuel and a place for another from Beau’s witty, sardonic, ironic and provocative pen. Musically, the tunes may ...
TRACK DOGS – Tracks Laid, Tracks Covered (Mondegreen MGR1125)
Based in Spain with two Irishmen (frontman Garrett Wall and bassist Dave Mooney), an Englishman (trumpeter Howard Brown) and an American (Robbie K. Jones on cajon and banjo) and named for workers on the New York subway system, the quartet came together in 2006 since which time they’ve released eight ...
DAVID COLLINS – Sundown (own label)
Once a semi-finalist in Young Folk Musician Of The Year, David Collins returns to music after a break with his debut album, Sundown. David is a singer-songwriter with a strong feel for traditional songs who combines the two strands on this album and whose own songs could easily be mistaken ...
KING’S GAMBIT – The Elder And The Lost Bet (own label GA250608)
King’s Gambit are a seven-piece band from Northampton who play, I think we are obliged to say, folk-rock. The songs are written by Chris Startup but laced with traditional tunes driven by Phil Searing’s fiddle. However, if you’re looking for something conventional in that genre you should look elsewhere. After ...
MILTON HIDE – Bungaroosh (Howdys Records)
The title of Jo Church and Jim Tipler’s new album, Bungaroosh, comes from a building trade term referring to the slapdash way in which walls that were put up cheaply and quickly in the Regency period, mainly in the Brighton and Hove area, filled with a variety of materials including ...
STEVE TILSTON – Last Call Tour – Exeter Folk Club, Friday 11th April 2025
An excellent evening that was enjoyed by all who had come to see highly acclaimed and award-winning singer/songwriter, and consummate guitarist Steve Tilston magically weaving his stories, songs, and humour (Steve blaming the one pint of Doom Bar from the barman). Flanked by double bass virtuoso Hugh Bradley and special ...
TERENCE BLACKER – Misfits’ Jamboree (own label TB006)
Terence Blacker has been, at various times, a writer, journalist and songwriter. More recently he has concentrated on his music and is about to release his sixth album Misfits' Jamboree. For a London based artist he's somebody I've not come across, which is a great shame because he writes songs ...
GIGSPANNER BIG BAND – Turnstone (own label GSCD009)
I have to make a confession. When Peter Knight unveiled the Big Band I was somewhat less than whelmed. I was so in thrall to the original trio and the way they did things that this development seemed like an aberration. But with their third album, Turnstone, they have absolutely ...
SHEILA K CAMERON – On Sanity’s Shore (Glalell – SKC1711CD)
Whatever you’ve been listening to this year, I doubt that you’ll have heard anything quite like On Sanity’s Shore. Sheila K. Cameron – or SKC – is a Glasgow based, Canadian folk and blues singer/songwriter, whose career has followed an unconventional path. After early attempts to establish a career as ...
THE TWANGTOWN PARAMOURS – The Wind Will Change Again (Inside Edge IER006)
The Wind Will Change Again is the latest release from The Twangtown Paramours. The duo are Mike T Lewis and MaryBeth Zamer and describe it as their first folk album in twelve years. I suspect the word ‘folk’ relates to the predominantly acoustic sound of the album as The Wind ...
THE WILDWOODS – Dear Meadowlark (own label)
Comprising husband and wife guitarist and songwriter Noah and Chloe Gose on violin and lead vocals alongside best friend bassist Andrew Vaggalis, Dear Meadowlark is their fifth collection of breezy folk and Americana, steeped in the Nebraskan landscapes that backdrop their lives. Their interweaving harmonies are showcased on album opener, ...
FOLKLAW – Catch The Sun (Fiddle Of 8 Records FO8RO4CD)
Co-produced by long-time Gerry Colvin sideman Lyndon Webb, who also plays mandolin and guitars, Catch The Sun is a welcome return after a six-year gap for the Nottinghamshire-based folk-rock sextet led by fiddler founder Nick Gibbs, here variously featuring accordionist Paul Hutchinson with brass from Emma Vogwell (alto sax), Steve ...
FINDLAY NAPIER – Outsider (The Bothy Society TBS21)
Findlay Napier never stops working. Solo albums, guest appearances, collaborations and projects, including a particularly fine album. The Ledger (https://folking.com/findlay-napier-gillian-frame-with-mike-vass-the-ledger-cheery-008/) have filled the last decade. Now he returns with Outsider, a collection of accumulated songs. Outsider is also the first release by The Bothy Society to combine a CD and ...
ALICE ALLEN – Bass Culture (Live At Celtic Connections 2024) (Ardgowan Records ARO5CD)
There is a rare connection between the atmospherics of Scottish music and the majesty of orchestration, the two fitting together snugly and warmly, whether derived from the tradition or from artists steeped in that culture. Celtic Connections, the annual jamboree for all sounds Caledonian (and beyond), knows this, and exploits ...
LITTLE LORE – River Stories (own label)
Having released ‘I Can Breathe Underwater’ earlier this year, Portsmouth-born and Chiswick-based Tricia Duffy follows with River Stories, a collection of songs that touch more on folk than Americana influences (at times she suggest a female answer to Ronnie Lane in his early Slim Chance days) for six songs themed ...
JOSHUA ARNOLD AND THERINE – Folk Music of the British Isles: The Dark and Macabre, Vol. 1 (own label)
The follow-up to last year’s A Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, The Dark And Macabre Vol 1 finds the north west experimental folk duo digging deep into British traditional folk music themed around supernatural forces. It opens with ‘Intro (The Devil’s Dream)’, a droning soundscape of Gregorian funeral chants looped on ...
SINGLES BAR 112 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
TOM HOUSTON has a new digital EP, River Is Me, a set of six acoustic songs. It opens with the title track, a languid song at one with the natural world and partly inspired by a Maori proverb. It’s decorated with piano and cello although there is a lot more ...
ANDREW RUMSEY – Collodion (Gard du Nord Records GDNCD112)
When not tending the flock as the Bishop of Ramsbury, Rumsey has a parallel career in pastoral pysch-folk with a previous album and EP to his name as well as being part of the Tremulant project by Ghostwriter alongside Suzy Mangion and Michael Weston King. Taking its title from a ...
IAN A ANDERSON – Alien Water (Ghosts From The Basement)
Ian A Anderson: musician, record label boss, publisher, promoter, broadcaster, festival director and author. And, if I’m any judge, a man who knows where the bodies are buried. Alien Water isn’t an adventure in yellow journalism, however; it’s part autobiography, part memoir and part personal overview of the musical scene ...
CALUM WOOD – Patterns (Magic Park Records)
Referencing the Knoydart peninsula is a sure-fire way to grab this listeners attention, should any budding folkies need that to know, but it then takes a little more to hold it. Thankfully, Wood manages that too, with this uplifting release, that bobs and leaps between moods with an agility born ...
ANDREW FERGUSON AS SIASA – Different Kinds Of Folk (own label)
Playing everything except sax and drums, which, along with bass on one track, are handled by Graham Crawford, Different Kinds Of Folk is Edinburgh-based Ferguson’s finest and most accessible album to date, kicking off in fine form with the cascading jangling chimes of ‘Reel to Reel’ (coincidentally evoking but nothing ...
RACHAEL McSHANE & THE CARTOGRAPHERS – Uncharted (own label)
It’s been far too long since we’ve heard from Rachael McShane – seven years since her last album, in fact. Now she’s back with The Cartographers – Ian Stephenson and Julian Sutton – with a new album Uncharted, special guest Andy May on piano and a chorus of Janice Burns, ...
GERRY COLVIN – Past, Present & Crescent (Crocodile CA0057)
A mix of, as the title says, old, new and songs from the 2022 Crescent Theatre show by The Gerry Colvin Band (Jerome Davies, Trish Power, Lyndon Webb and Marion Fleetwood) and The Gerry Colvin Big Folk Orchestra, it’s a new one that gets the ball rolling with ‘Click Club ...
STEVE TILSTON – Last Call (Talking Elephant Records TECD504)
Last Call is the last album of critically acclaimed folk stalwart Steve Tilston, who has a shone in a career which has spanned over 50 years. Steve is joined on Last Call by long time good friends and music collaborators, creating an album which covers “social, political, a reflective autobiography, ...
KAREN MACLEOD – Low Road (own label)
Karen Macleod releases Low Road on March 20th. She describes this first solo album as, “a mix of both old Country Blues, American folk and country songs with some of my own thrown in for good measure.” Amidst a wide-ranging musical history, Macleod is now based in the Midlands, is ...
ROBB JOHNSON & THE IRREGULARS – Voila! Here We Are (Irregular Records IRR131)
The prolific Robb Johnson is back in slightly raucous full band mode with an album that sounds as though it was made just for fun. Or does it. The thing about Robb’s writing is that it can be very direct or quite oblique, leaving you to discover the thorns among ...
VARIOUS – Jingle Jangle Morning: The 1960s US Folk Rock Explosion (Cherry Red CR3JAMBX41)
One of the attractions of these compilations, especially for genre aficionados and collectors, is the chance of discovering rare and obscure releases long lost to time. And that’s certainly true of this three CD set which, as the title, says digs into an era given birth by The Byrds’ ‘Mr ...
JOE McMAHON – When Adam Was A Boy (own label JMM2025CD)
Joe McMahon is a Clydesider and from his PR photograph you’d think he was actually built there. When Adam Was A Boy is his second album, all original songs, nicely packaged and he’s supported by a core band of Angus Lyon, Anna Massie and Susy Wall with contributions from James ...
STEVE KNIGHTLEY – Positively Folk Street: Dylan, Carthy & me (Hands On Music HMCD55)
Spurred by Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, this fairly rapid and, playing guitar, harmonica and cuatro, wholly solo follow up to last year’s The Winter Yards sees Knightley revisiting two of his formative inspirations, discovering The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and then seeing Martin Carthy, namechecked on the album’s back cover, ...
SAM SLATCHER & THE RAILWAY POETS – Passengers & Pioneers (own label SSCD12025)
Oddly, the English folk-song tradition has very little to say about the railways, unlike the USA which embraced the permanent way in so many songs from ‘Casey Jones’ to ‘City Of New Orleans’. Passengers & Pioneers attempts to put that right but it’s not the album you might expect. It ...
REG MEUROSS – Fire & Dust: A Woody Guthrie Story (Hatsongs HAT026)
Commissioned by Pete Townshend (who served as producer and plays bass and keys on two tracks) and conceived well before the interest revived by A Complete Unknown, this, the result of four years of research, is Meuross’ third song cycle and digs into the life and music of the iconic ...
COLIN MACDUFF – Halfway to Summer (own label)
Halfway to Summer is the third album from Scottish singer songwriter Colin Macduff and will be released on March 7th. Macduff describes the album as “This new collection of songs is mainly about the joy (and challenge) of seeking to ‘be here now’ in the present, rather than focusing over ...
IAN M BAILEY – Lost In A Sound (Kool Kat Musik PURR 2313)
His latest writing collaboration with Daniel Wylie from Cosmic Rough Riders finds the Lancashire-based Bailey again soaking up the folk-rock and cosmic country psychedelia West Coast sounds of the late 60s, Alan Gregson dutifully supplying lap steel, dulcimer, clavinet and brass to complement Bailey’s 6 and 12-string guitars, piano and ...
DAN SEALEY – Beware Of Darkness (own label)
Bassist with Ocean Colour Scene and co-founder of the brilliant but seemingly short-lived Merrymouth, Dan Sealey has been writing, performing and recording as a solo artist for some time and is about to unleash his album, Beware Of Darkness. It’s almost impossible to pin a label on Dan’s music. Electro-acoustic, ...
GABRIEL MORENO – Nights In The Belly Of Bohemia (Poetry Mondays)
Gibraltar born but London based singer-songwriter and poet Gabriel Moreno releases his sixth album Nights In The Belly Of Bohemia in early April. It's also accompanied by his twelfth book of poetry of the same name which is out now. Gabriel sees Bohemia as a state of mind, rather than ...
Gaz Brookfield: Silchester Village Hall Transformed – A Night of Raw Heart and Honest Grit.
Friday the 28th of Feb, 2025, Silchester Village Hall didn't just become a community space; it became a sanctuary of storytelling, a roaring singalong, and a testament to the power of two men and their guitars. The evening started with Shedric, and in his own words, "Musician singer/songwriter infused with ...
3HATTRIO – Come Morning (Blue Gate Records)
“We believe that if we are truly aware and open to the exact time we live, the exact place we are placed, then it is possible, through our art, to create something timeless. We invite listeners to know this was our intention and we welcome you along for the journey.” ...
LISA KNAPP AND GERRY DIVER – Hinterland (Ear To The Ground)
A mix of song and instrumentals and described as a soundscape that weaves together folk horror, remembrance, and the landscapes, both rural and urban, with themes drawn from the natural world and what lies beyond our understanding in nature and history, Hinterland is an at times progressive and experimental work ...
LIZ OVERS – Nightjar (own label – LO001CD)
Nightjar is a fascinating album. Sussex singer-songwriter Liz Overs’ debut solo album is mysterious, haunting, spiritual, poetic, imaginative, and a great listen. I wrote debut solo album, because Liz spent five years as the lead singer of Chalk Horse Music, as Liz Pearson. Many years before that, she was signed ...
RED SKY JULY – Misty Morning (own label)
Nine years on from The Truth And The Lie, the trio return with both a new line-up, Haley Glennie-Smith replacing Charity Hair alongside husband and wife Ally McErlaine and Shelly Poole, and a new sound that’s more rooted in traditional English folk, albeit with a smattering of Americana. Poole and ...
SINGLES BAR 111 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
GREENSHANKS is the nom-de-plume of Will Boyd-Wallis who works for The National Trust for Scotland in Strathspey. Stormbird is his debut EP; five songs with links to the sea but perhaps not in the way you might expect. Will is direct, robust singer and his writing is the same. The ...
FIONA SOE PAING – Sand, Silt, Flint (Colliderscope CSFSPCD202401)
A recent review apologised for being a month or so late to the party; this time, it is hard to even establish when the party was, other than hard copy only arrived recently, as in this year, to the F.com offices. Go to the associated Bandcamp page and Sand, Silt, ...
CHRIS BRAIN – New Light (BSR 006)
Yorkshire based singer-songwriter Chris Brain releases his third album New Light, having gained a lot of followers with his first two albums in 2022 and 2023. The album was recorded in two different places; a recording studio in Leeds and his allotment shed. He wanted to capture these sometimes competing ...
HAL CANNON – Cowboy Sutra (own label)
A solo album by the 3 Hat Trio’s banjo player, Cowboy Sutra is, save for one track, a collection of covers of old and traditional songs from three obscure old West cowboy singers, ‘Dick’ Devoll, Kenneth Ward Atwood and Charlie (Charley) Willis. To give a little background, Willis was an ...
RANDALL STEPHEN HALL – Wake The Blue Sleeper (own label RSH 008 CD2025)
Born in Belfast and now based in Co. Antrim, Hall is both a songwriter/poet and a children’s storybook author/illustrator, both of which feed into Wake The Blue Sleeper, his eighth album. The latter sensibility is captured on several tracks, the first being the opening ‘Banana Banana’, which originating as a ...
LEO DISANTO – To Fly So Low (own label)
Singer-songwriter Leo DiSanto has released his third studio album as a solo act, To Fly So Low. Described by the artist himself as being, “made up of songs about birds and trains; people and dogs; love and grief; time and eternity”, To Fly So Low embraces rustic, folksy instrumentation to ...
INNOCENT HARE – The Windings Of Their Wandering Song (Leporidae 001)
It was back in 1991 that Vikki Clayton released Midsummer Cushion, an album of settings of poems by John Clare. Oddly, Clare never really found favour with the folk community despite his living what can only be described as a colourful life, dying in an asylum in 1864. However, what ...
JENN BUTTERWORTH – Her By Design (One In Ten Records 110CD001)
Jenn Butterworth describes her debut album as “a feminist statement”. Her By Design certainly opens with a statement; a powerful version of Sandy Denny’s ‘All Our Days’. Sandy’s original version is different but only in degree, being rather more solemn and heavily orchestrated, but I think she would approve of ...
DAN RAZA – Wayfarer (Valve Records)
Following on from the critically acclaimed success of London based Dan Raza’s first two albums, he is back with his latest album Wayfarer, which is to be released on 14th February 2025. I heard a track off this album, before it was on my radar that Dan was about to ...
GWILYM BOWEN RHYS – Aden (Recordiau Erwydd ER006)
Gwilym Bowen Rhys is the rising star of Welsh folk music. Actually, that should really be the risen star given that Aden is his fifth album. Gwilym is a multi-instrumentalist/ singer/songwriter from Bethel and, although he doesn’t need much help he is supported by a fine cast of Welsh musicians: ...
FRANCES MORTON – Sliocht (own label FM2024CD)
One of the issues around late December releases is that they can sometimes get lost in the hurly-burly over Christmas, with deadlines expanding to include Best of Years and then contracting for holiday closures. Turn the year, and to have 2024 releases vying with those brander new, feels tantamount to ...
UK WEST COAST FOLK FESTIVAL – January 9-11th: Blackpool
Having arrived at the magnificent Blackpool Winter Gardens to the sight of queues stretching around the block, it came as both a disappointment and a sign of the times to find that the throng had assembled, not for the UK West Coast Folk Festival, but for Britain’s Got Talent. My ...
JACKDAW – Ghost In The Big House (Cutthroat 3757-03)
JackDaw released Ghost In The Big House in 2023, little fanfare, little push – not unlike their release of the splendid No Cactus in 2019. Reasonably, you may ask yourself why I’m only just reviewing the album. In essence, there were so many positive comments over the past year that this ...
AINSLEY HAMILL – Fable (own label AVH003)
Unfamiliar name, with a quick scan of the contents of Fable suggesting nothing overly novel to be encountered, this was an immediate misstep. Female singers and the Gaelic songbook usually suggest one thing: clear and pure tones, bedded down with fiddles, flute and whistle, maybe a harp. I don’t know why, ...
WILL FINN & ROSIE CALVERT – Fallow Alchemy (own label)
That’s fallow in the sense of resting as in the classic crop rotation system, so Fallow Alchemy is an album about the science of kicking back and taking life easy. Well, mostly. Taking your leisure can involve a lot of work. Will and Rosie are a husband and wife duo ...
DARIA KULESH- MotherLand (own label)
MotherLand, her fourth studio album and her first since 2019, finds Daria, celebrating ten years on the UK folk scene, drawing on a myriad of life changing events in the intervening years, specifically becoming a mother and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, symptomatic of an increasingly unstable world. As such, ...
PHILIP RAMBOW – I’m An Artist (Fretsore Records)
I’m an Artist is released on January 31st, his first new album in five years. Rambow was born in Canada, came to London in the 1970’s, thrived in the pub-rock scene, backed Brian Eno, co-wrote Kirsty McColl’s ‘There’s A Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis’. What is ...
PEDAIR – Dadeni (Sain Records SCD 2866)
I can’t quite understand why I get all the Welsh language albums – I was born in Hertfordshire (although that wasn’t my fault). Not that I mind, of course, Welsh is such a beautiful language to listen to. Dadeni (Renaissance) is the second album by Pedair, four singers and instrumentalists: ...
NAOMI GEE WRIGHT – Meteor Trail (Oti-O Records – Oti-O 009)
Naomi Gee Wright’s Meteor Trail is one of those albums that defies easy classification. It’s folk, jazz, classical, world music, and blends all of these into a sound very much its own. That isn’t surprising when we consider that cellist Naomi has operated across genres, working with luminaries from the ...
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