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KEEPING IT LIVE – Merry Hell in Melbourne December 2023
“I miss you like a world cup penalty” – what an image. Only one band could get away with that and make it melodic, vibrant and tender in a song with a thumping rhythm that makes you want to sing along. And I went to see them last weekend (though ...
SLOW TOWN CLOCK – Crossing Tides (own label)
Slow Town Clock is the nom de plume of Jamie Leven (no relation), originally from Glasgow but now resident in northern England. Crossing Tides is collection of songs begun almost ten years ago and inspired by a journey to the western isles. Jamie plays guitar and harmonica and is supported ...
ALL THE BEES – All The Bees (own label ATB001CD)
For her first album since 2019’s The Deafening Sounds Of Stars with HoboPop Kirsty McGee has joined forces with Gitika Partington, a singer-songwriter, composer and choral director with seven albums of her own for a musical apiary focused on nature themes and cycles of loss, death and rebirth. Sharing vocals ...
ROBB JOHNSON & THE XMAS IRREGULARS – Murder At The Grange (Irregular Records IRR127)
Murder At The Grange is a show I haven’t seen, although it was premiered last Christmas and will be on the road again very soon. This is the soundtrack album and I wondered how comprehensible it would be without the context of the stage presentation. Then I thought: Robb Johnson ...
TIM READMAN & ANDY COOKE – The 12 Hits Of Christmas (Big City)
You have to laugh sometimes. Well, I did when I read the somewhat tongue in cheek notes that came with The 12 Hits Of Christmas, a new album of festive songs by musician/producers Tim Readman from Vancouver and Andy Cooke from Portland ME. The story goes like this – bear ...
KATE RUSBY – Light Years (Pure PRCD50)
As she turns 50, Light Years marks Rusby’s seventh Christmas album, her 22nd in total, and again features a mix of (mostly) originals and her distinctive take on seasonal favourites, produced as ever by Damien O’Kane, who contributes vocals and guitars, and accompanied by her regular assemblage of musicians along ...
DAVID BENJAMIN BLOWER – Kindness Is Solid Stone Violence Is A Heavy Loan To Pay (own label download)
The Birmingham-based theological agitator and singer-songwriter, takes time off from his Messianic Folklore podcast to release a new album, Kindness Is Solid Stone Violence Is A Heavy Loan To Pay, that might be best musically described as a cross between Beans On Toast and Hurt era Johnny Cash, a heady ...
McHALE’S PERMANENT BREW – Lessons From The Darkest Storms… (109 Records)
Where does classic blues-rock intersect with traditional folk music? That’s the question I asked myself when I first listened to Lessons From The Darkest Storms…, the second album by McHale’s Permanent Brew. Superficially it doesn’t but you could take any of these songs and rearrange them in a more acoustic ...
LEWIS BARFOOT – Home (own label – LCB01CD)
Home is the second album from English-Irish singer, songwriter, and musician – as well as a former actor and NHS doctor – Lewis Barfoot. Born in England, Lewis is now based in East Cork, where she has set out to explore the history and legacy of her mother’s family. She ...
SINGLES BAR 96 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
THE DEADLY WINTERS began work on Ever Onwards four years ago but all sorts of problems beset them. The title of the EP proved apposite and they pressed on with the project, difficult when trying to keep a six-piece band together. Earlier this year they released ‘The Cuckoo’ which sits ...
ELIZA CARTHY & JON BODEN – Glad Christmas Comes (Hudson HUD045)
Another seasonal collection on traditionals old and new, familiar and obscure, joined by Yorkshire’s Backstage Brass ensemble with Emily Portman and Tim van Eyken on harmonies, and generally arranged for fiddle and concertina, Glad Christmas Comes is a splendid addition to the folk Christmas baubles to hang on the musical ...
JOHN KIRKPATRICK – Joy & Jubilation (Fledg’ling FLED 3112)
This album has been available for a while but I have an aversion to reviewing Christmas records before the clocks go back. I’ve held out for as long as I could. Joy And Jubilation is the latest in a long line of John Kirkpatrick’s themed albums – the theme being, ...
MARTYN JOSEPH – Live At St. David’s Hall (Pipe PRCD038)
Live At St. David’s Hall is a low key release prior to the new studio album next year, recorded in Cardiff on February 7 this year at the sell-out 122nd and final, homecoming, show for his 1960 world tour. I don’t need to tell anyone who’s ever seen him that ...
BILL JACKSON – 1965 (Wayside Records)
Banjo, slide guitar, songs that conjure up wide horizons or tough frontier towns: 1965 is pure Americana. Except that Bill Jackson is Australian and although some of his songs are flights of fancy about the old west others stay closer to home. It’s a nice mixture. The songs are all ...
ABIGAIL LAPELL – Lullabies (Outside Music)
Well, here’s something a bit different. Based in Toronto, Lapell’s preceding three albums have all won her Canadian Folk Music Awards. Those were all original material, but here, produced by Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies and part inspired by a bout of insomnia during lockdowns and part by the arrival ...
PRIME MINISTER – 10 (digital release)
You’ll be relieved to know that Prime Minister is not Cruella Braverman’s latest project. It is, in fact, a collaboration between The Village (Phil Matthews) and Mark Pearson. 10, their debut release, is a set of, well, ten, self-penned songs. Phil is very much a narrative songwriter who packs a ...
KATIE WHITEHOUSE – Drawing Lines (Want To Know WTK007)
Based in Devon, running an award-winning music management, artist development, booking and promotion agency whose roster includes Reg Meuross, Charlie Dore and Harbottle & Jonas, although she’s written poems, songs and sung harmonies on others’ albums, until now Katie’s never stepped into her own spotlight. However, having just turned 6o, ...
SMOKE FAIRIES – Carried In Sound (Year Seven Records)
Smoke Fairies’ new album, Carried In Sound, sings with a narcotic lure of velvet history and wine-sipped conversation. There’s a mythical Siren song, a psych echo, a Medieval candle lit choral, an edgy solace, and a vital twist to ancient braided folk tunes lit in the always Home-Fired Anthems Of ...
A WINTER UNION – Sooner After Solstice: A Transatlantic Folk Christmas (Sungrazing Records SGR201)
Their first album in seven years, Katriona Gilmore, Jamie Roberts, Hannah Sanders, Ben Savage and Jade Rhiannon from The Willows (of which Gilmore and Savage are also members) reunite, with the added contributions from Ben Nicholls and Dan Day on double bass and drums, to bring Sooner After Solstice, a ...
GEORGIA SHACKLETON – Harry’s Seagull (own label)
Georgia has already made her mark with The Shackleton Trio and her debut solo album, Harry’s Seagull, continues her ongoing exploration of East Anglian songs and tunes. More about the title later but you will be familiar with the names credited as sources of these songs, from Phoebe Smith to ...
DANNY BRITT – All Over The Map (own label)
Based in Austin, Britt’s seventh album, All Over The Map, is succinctly summed up by its title, the genres contained within wandering between jazz, old time country, folk and Americana. It’s country saloon sensibility is set with the dusty voiced, piano waltzer opening track, ‘The Bar Stool’ where “there’s a ...
SHOW OF HANDS – Roots 2 (Hands On Music HMCD52)
As the title says, Roots 2 is the sequel to their first best of collection, one that marks their final tour as a trio with Miranda Sykes, and again trawls their impressive back catalogue for both studio and live recordings, and, while there’s nothing that isn’t already available on previous ...
RÉALTA – Thing Of The Earth (own label)
Belfast band Réalta’s new album, Thing Of The Earth, touches a vinyl stylus into the aged, grooved rings of an old boldly hewn oaken stump that still vibrates with the ever circular melodies of weathered wood caressed with the magic of a wonderful percussive pulse, big drops of bass authority, ...
HONEY AND THE BEAR – Away Beyond The Fret (own label)
Away Beyond The Fret, the third album from Suffolk-based duo Lucy and Jon Hart, continuing the trend set on the previous releases (Aker, Roke), the title comes from an East Anglian term for evening mist or fog drifting in from the sea while the songs, written during lockdown, are inspired ...
THE ROSIE HOOD BAND – A Seed Of Gold (Little Red Recordings LRRCD01)
Following on from her well-received 2017 album debut, joined by Robyn Wallace on melodeon, and Nicola Beazley and Rosie Butler-Hall on fiddles, A Seed Of Gold again features a mix of the traditional, self-penned and covers, drawing inspiration from Hood’s native Wiltshire for its slowly gathering drone intro opening track, ...
HOLLY & THE REIVERS – Three Galleys (own label HATR2508)
Holly & The Reivers are a trio from the borderlands around Newcastle. Holly Clarke, Merle Harbron and Bertie Armstrong all enjoy solo careers but came together six years ago. Each has a different style which meld together in the band and Three Galleys is immersed in the darker side of ...
BRYONY GRIFFITH & ALICE JONES – Wesselbobs (Selwyn Music SYNMCD0010)
Getting into the seasonal mood early on, combining fiddle, harmonium, tenor guitar and body percussion, produced by Joe Rusby the duo, generally on alternative lead vocals, offer up a wintery collection of traditional Yorkshire tunes, Wesselbobs referring to a West Yorkshire pastime of the late 1800s whereby decorated, evergreen boughs, ...
KATIE MACFARLANE – An Nighean Sheunta (Viewbank Records VBRCD001)
I’ve said it before but there is something mystical about Gaelic song. I don’t really care what the words mean but the sound is magical. From female vocalists we’ve come to expect haunting delicate vocal, often with light floaty accompaniments. On her debut album, An Nighean Sheunta (The Enchanted Girl), ...
TONY WINN – Blue Speck (Freefall FF016D)
Blue Speck, the eighth album by the Suffolk-based singer-songwriter takes a decided environmental course on the opening ‘All We Have’, a spoken track with Helen Mulley on backing vocals about “This pile of microbe infested soil/This tangled mat of vegetation/where insects busy their tiny lives to sustain a host of ...
GUDRUN WALTHER & ANDY CUTTING – Conversations (Artes Records – ARCD 6040)
Some things in life take a long time and Conversations, the debut album from Anglo-German duo Gudrun Walther and Andy Cutting, has taken 28 years to come to fruition. It was in 1995 that they formed an intention to work together after playing a session, but problems with timings and ...
NINA ÅKERBLOM NIELSEN – Nobody Knows This Little Rose (Kakafon Records)
In recent years, there has been quite a swell of artists setting to music the work of celebrated poets. Among these, those of Emily Dickinson have loomed large, both as individual numbers or full albums. The latest, Nobody Knows This Little Rose, comes from the Swedish songstress and composer who, ...
JEFFREY MARTIN – Thank God We Left The Garden (Fluff and Gravy Records via Loose)
Jeffrey Martin’s Thank God We Left The Garden is an acoustic guitar and voice bare bones recording (all the way from Portland, Oregon) that ventures, with ample melody, into a lonely scripture verse that prays with a “lucky recipe of time and place.” Wisdom dances in the late-night fire flames ...
SINGLES BAR 95 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
Hypnagogia is an extraordinary new EP by HANNAH ROSE PLATT and one glance at the cover should tell you all you need to know. It’s a Halloween special. The first track, ‘Bedtime’, is a creepy poem performed in a quietly matter-of-fact way by David Morrisey and definitely not a story ...
BILL BOOTH – River Town
Imagination is a glorious thing. Have you ever stopped the car or got off a train in a small town and wondered about the lives of the people in the houses, pubs and factories around you? I’m obviously not the only who has done this – Bill Booth’s new album ...
MICHAEL McMILLAN – Heaven Sent Ranch (own label)
Craftsmen. You know when you watch someone working – carpenter, digger driver, artist, musician et al – and you expect a certain level of skill. Then you watch someone who works with apparent ease and you think, “Ooh, you’re good”. For a few you think, “Ah, no, you’re really good” ...
ELLIE WALKER & THE FOLLY – Sink Or Swim (own label)
Having spent several years out focusing on her career as a music therapist, the Cambridgeshire singer-songwriter finally returns, with her 3Ms band of Mike Chalmers, Max Wherlock and Mark Boxall, to release, Sink Or Swim, her debut album, a cocktail of melodic folksy pop to which she brings her piano ...
THE FUGITIVES – No Help Coming (Fallen Tree Records FTRC1035)
Fronted by Brendan McLeod and Adrian Glynn, with Carly Frey on violin and banjo player Chris Suen, in many ways the folksy quartet are Vancouver’s answer to Darlingside. No Help Coming is their sixth album and one that takes climate emergency as its core concern. It opens a capella with ...
SKINNY LISTER – Shanty Punk (Xtra Mile Recordings)
Rogue folk band Skinny Lister’s new album, Shanty Punk, could well be a “best of" compilation, as this album amps up the band’s usual joyous toast to the melody of a favourite pub with the elixir of a local pint in hand. And, as the (sadly) forgotten art-rock band City ...
FUNKE & THE TWO TONE BABY – Reacclimate (own label)
Guitar and harmonica melded with loops and samples, Reacclimate, the fourth studio album by Dan Turnbull, his first since before the pandemic struck, captures the pent up energy of those lockdown years, a sentiment deftly summed up in the opening strum and thump track ‘I’ve Slept Enough’ where, a Kent ...
LEON ROSSELSON – Chronicling The Times (Fuse Records)
Leon Rosselson has been Chronicling The Times for more than sixty years now and I’d love to hear his thoughts on the current world situation. In the meantime he has put together a selection of his favourite recordings featuring such supporters as Martin Carthy, Roy Bailey, Oysterband, Miranda Sykes and ...
JACK RUTTER – This Is Something Constant (own label RUTTCD027)
Yorkshire’s Jack Rutter’s new album, This Is Something Constant (the first in four years!), is a brilliant collection of traditional songs graced with ancient grinned wisdom. And Jack’s quintessential Topic/Fellside voice is a gift that inhabits these burning human melodies and exists in the same orbit as Dick Gaughan, Chris ...
LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES – Delicate Lies (Khaki Angel Records – KARCD03)
Louis de Bernières is clearly a man of many talents. Although best known as a multi-award winning novelist, his musical reputation has also grown in recent years. Delicate Lies – his beguilingly poetic second solo album – provides ample evidence (if it’s needed) that his music is not a mere ...
STEVE PLEDGER – Bob & Sue’s Carport, Ashburton, South Devon Friday (6th October 2023)
I arrived early at this very eagerly anticipated gig that Steve’s lovely friends – Bob and Sue had kindly put on at the side of their house in a beautiful rustic carport/mancave/ranch! Complete with lights (wouldn’t want their electric bill), comfy seats all around and a royal box – about ...
BLAZIN’ FIDDLES – XXV (Blazin’ Records BFCD2023)
Blazin’ Fiddles celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary. There are several ways to do this: put together a definitive retrospective, release a monster live album or just make a very, very good studio album. That’s what six of Scotland’s finest have done with XXV. If you have seen Blazin’ Fiddles live you’ll ...
DUNCAN REED – The Road Part II (digital download and CD)
Duncan Reed has only just come into my radar, and I am so pleased he has. His latest album released on October 6th 2023 – The Road Part II is the second in a two volume set, the first being more acoustic to this one as rockier in parts. Duncan ...
LUDWIG WRIGHT – Turn Of Tides (Left Lane Records TOTO-2023)
Cheerfulness, Optimism, Joviality – take your pick. Ludwig Wright is a British-German singer-songwriter who has just released Turn Of Tides, to give the album its full title Turn Of Tides Or Where The Waves Come From. The mood of both music and lyrics is delightfully cheery and positive across the ...
CHRIS BRAIN – Steady Away (Big Sun BSR002)
With the Leeds troubadour’s smoky wisp vocal and watery acoustic guitar, it’s pretty inevitable that the Nick Drake pastoral folk comparisons will be rolled out. But take time to listen carefully and closely to this introspective gem, Steady Away, a swift follow-up to last year’s debut, and what you’ll hear ...
THE BREATH – Land Of My Other (Real World Records)
The Breath’s new album, Land Of My Other, is a gorgeous folk album which captures the runic texture of “whispering grass” sharing ancient secrets under grey clouds burdened with foreboding gravestone rain drops. Yeah, at times, Irish born Rioghnach Connolly’s vocals can echo the beauty of (the great!) Sandy Denny, ...
STEVE JINSKI – Muscle Memory (Lucky Smile Records LKSM2CS03)
From Liverpool of Polish extraction, originally one half of Jinski with Dave Kennedy, they made their debut with ‘Eventually’ in 1989, going on to release a further two albums. The duo now on an extended hiatus, Stephen Wegrzynski has launched a solo career as Steve Jinski, making his album debut ...
RYAN YOUNG – Just A Second (own label RYM02CD)
Ryan Young’s Just A Second is his second album and much delayed (his debut came six years ago) because of a problem in his left hand which prevented him from playing. Having recovered, he reports that he had to learn to play all over again – a real blow. The ...
MISCELLANY OF FOLK – Atlantic Sounds (Doon Productions)
A Canadian-Irish trio comprising Benny McCarthy on button accordion, Billy Sutton variously on fiddle, mandolin, mandola, bodhran, bass and percussion and Eddie Costello on guitar and lead vocals, individually they’ve carved a sizeable reputation over the decades but, joining forces in 2022, Atlantic Sounds is their downloadable debut album together, a ...
JERRY JOSEPH – Baby You’re The Man Who Would Be King (Cosmo Sex School CSS202301)
Written during 2020 lockdown and recorded back in 2021, Joseph’s follow up to the Patterson Hood-produced The Beautiful Madness finally sees light of day, this time Eric Ambel behind the desk for an album that sets the guitars to ring and chime, digs into Springsteen and Dylan folk rock (and ...
SINGLES BAR 94 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
Following on from their debut EP, Animals which featured songs about Dian Fosse, a colony of bees painted gold by a tropical forest tribe as a superstitious ritual, and Big Mary, the incredible true story of how, in the late 19th century, a huge circus elephant was lynched by a ...
BLUENOSE B – Hoping For Purgatory (own label SMCD001/23)
The musical alias of Liverpool’s Stephen Dawson, this teams him with longtime Merry Hell friends John and Virginia Kettle as well as the band’s former fiddler, Neil McCartney, for Hoping For Purgatory a collection of infectious, melodic and punchy folk-rock that kicks off with the circling, ringing guitar notes of ...
PISKEY LED – Piskey Led (own label)
To avoid any confusion, Piskey Led are a Welsh band playing Celtic music with a predilection for Cornwall. The quartet consists of guitarist James Bower and three multi-instrumentals, Joshua Goodey who takes care of the low notes, Katie Lower and Chris Mercer and this is their debut album. Piskey led ...
BEN STUBBS – Light Of My Life (own label)
Originally from the Isle Of Wight, while he released a download only acoustic project on Bandcamp in 2014, Light Of My Life is Ben’s debut album, a collection of songs since he returned to songwriting in 2019 that affords reflections on escaping, loss, ageing and coming to terms with the ...
GREGG HILL – Bayou St. John (Skippy Records)
Gregg Hill’s Bayou St. John, recorded in New Orleans, is music that soundtracks a vision of (to quote the great John Fogerty!) “Barefoot girls dancin’ in the moonlight”. This record courses through the musical Mississippi River Big Muddy bloodstream and flows in the wake of sources like Bobby Charles, Jesse ...
GILMORE & ROBERTS – Documenting Snapshots (GR! Records GRR009)
Five years, a pandemic and two children on from A Problem Of Our Kind, the title of their sixth album succinctly captures its reflective tone and themes of change. Katriona on fiddle, viola and mandolin and Jamie on everything else save for bass which is handled by Tommy Fuller, Documenting ...
GAZ BROOKFIELD – Morning Walking Club (own label)
Gaz Brookfield’s new album, Morning Walking Club, entered the folk album chart at number 1 last month which is quite an achievement. This is his ninth studio album (plus seven live albums). He was voted singer-songwriter of the year by Acoustic Magazine in 2010 and sold out major venues and ...
MARTIN SIMPSON & THOMM JUTZ – Nothing But Green Willow: The Songs of Mary Sands and Jane Gentry (Topic TSCD614)
In the summer of 1916, Cecil Sharp and his assistant Maud Karpeles visited Madison County in the North Carolina Appalachians where they lodged at the Sunnybank Inn in Hot Springs owned by Jane Gentry,and, prior to that, Mary Sands who lived in nearby Allanstand. The two women sang their visitors ...
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