Reviews

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Welcome to the folking.com review section.

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…

All our reviewers give their spare time to bring you this resource and we always looking for new people to get involved who share a similar passion for the genre to help lighten the load. If that sounds like you, then please email us here for more information about joining the folking review team.

JOY DUNLOP – Caoir (Sradag Music SRM008)

The phrase multi-talented is sometimes over-used, but I’ve no doubt that it applies to Joy Dunlop. An award winning Gaelic singer and step dancer, Joy is also a Gaelic language advocate, educator, broadcaster and regular weather presenter on BBC Scotland. Her musical career itself has consisted of such a wide ...
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KATHRYN ROBERTS & SEAN LAKEMAN – Almost A Sunset (Iscream Music ISCD20)

It has been five years since Kathryn and Sean’s last album of new music. There was a retrospective album of recorded back catalogue a couple of years ago but everyone had to do something during lockdown. Almost A Sunset is their seventh album and it’s the real thing. I think ...
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OWEN MOORE – Songs From The Shamrock Bar (PJO Records)

Songs From The Shamrock Bar, subtitled A 10-Year Anthology, and timely available for St Patrick’s Day, this, as it says, gathers together around an hour’s worth of songs from the relaxingly warm-voiced Dublin-born multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter’s past decade, and, as per the title, with a decided Irish theme running through. Racing ...
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COLIN MACDUFF – The Past And The Sky (own label)

Colin Macduff’s The Past And The Sky is home-spun like a Tweed River Scottish fisherman’s thatched fishing creel, filled with folk music with the rich melodic colour of a reflective deep depth rainbow trout. Put simply: This is a lovely Scottish singer-songwriter record filled with acoustic care, hushed passion, a ...
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RURA – Dusk Moon (RURACD005)

Rura release Dusk Moon, their fourth studio album, on March 17th. I’ve previously described Rura’s music as “engaging the spirit”, the notes that come with the album describe it as an “intoxicating sound”. There’s a wealth of very good music and bands coming from Scotland at the moment – and ...
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BEN & DOM – His Head Lies Heavy (La La La Records)

That’ll be Ben See and Dominic Stichbury, both London-based choir leaders, singers and songwriters, the latter the founder of Chaps Choir, a 20-strong project that encourages male expression through singing. Together they’re a voice duo, Ben the high register, Dom the low, who largely sing unaccompanied – at times utilising ...
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BRIGID O’NEILL—The Truth & Other Stories (Goldrush Records)

Irish singer-songwriter Brigid O’ Neill, with her new album The Truth & Other Stories, lightly skips tossed stones like thoughtful opinions across the early evening dusk Irish Sea waves. And she has a voice that floats with atmospheric turbulent concern, yet it touches the warm Earth born coffee house folk ...
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KAREN JONAS – The Restless (own label)

Over the course of five albums, the Maryland-born singer has established herself as very much a country voice with old school leanings. This time round, however, she’s in far darker alt-country often bluesier mood on a collection of frequently doom-hung songs exploring vulnerability. The Restless opens in France with the ...
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BEN WALKER – Banish Air From Air (Folk Room Records FRR2301)

As with his 2019 solo debut, Echo, Walker has enlisted the help of an array of different vocalists to give voice to material that ranges from the traditional to three numbers marking his first foray into songwriting rather than only a composer famed for his fingerstyled guitar work. With backing ...
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FRANKIE ARCHER – Live at Aces & Eights, Tufnell Park, London – 19th February 2023

I first came across Frankie Archer at the Love Folk festival in Southport this year, playing a showcase session on the busk stage.  She came with a recommendation from Jim Moray, no less, who was headlining on the Friday but said he was coming back on Saturday just to see ...
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THE WILDWOODS – Foxfield Saint John (own label)

The Wildwoods are a duo that is really a trio: husband and wife Noah and Chloe Gose from Lincoln, Nebraska are joined by bassist Andrew Vaggalis on their third full length album, Foxfield Saint John. Lincoln is pretty much in the centre of the contiguous United States so it’s no ...
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IAN ROLAND – The Woodwide Web (Ditto)

You’ll be familiar with the world wide web, but research has shown that, beneath every forest and wood, there is a complex underground web of roots, fungi and bacteria helping to connect trees and plants to one another – The Woodwide Web. Nearly 500 million years old, this subterranean social ...
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GILLEBRÌDE MacMILLAN – Sèimh (own label DEALAS003)

Gillebrìde MacMillan is a lecturer at Glasgow University specialising in the Gaelic language. He’s also a singer, a songwriter and a composer known for film and television music. He’s also a secret that the Scots seem to have kept from us benighted sassenachs for far too long. Sèimh (The State ...
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THE QUIGGS – Threads (Lowland Recordings LOWLAND 022)

The Quiggs are a Scottish folk duo: Stephen Quigg is a former member of The McCalmans who reversed the accepted tradition by bringing back his future wife Pernille from a tour of Scandinavia. If you are familiar with The McCalmans’ music you will immediately get the Quiggs. Threads, their fourth ...
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THE IAN WALKER BAND – We Come To Sing (Vangel Recordings VANCD16)

There’s something engagingly old-school about the Ian Walker Band’s album We Come To Sing, released on the 16th January 2023. Perhaps that’s not surprising, since Ian has been performing for many years, and his songs have been sung by artists as varied as Dick Gaughan, Roy Bailey, and the Yetties ...
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GRAHAM MACKENZIE – The Dawning (Blue Door Music)

As the gentle notes of Jim Molyneaux’s piano and Innes Watson’s almost funky acoustic guitar open the album you feel that The Dawning may be an album where folk music and jazz intertwine. Graham Mackenzie has form in this area, after all, but it seems that the two styles are ...
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UNTHANK: SMITH – Nowhere And Everywhere (Billingham Records)

On paper the notion of Paul Smith, guitarist frontman with alt-rock outfit Maximo Park and harmonium player and cellist Rachel Unthank making an album together would seem unlikely. However, it would seem he’s a closet folkie who was turned on to Jansch, Drake and Carthy as a teenager and it ...
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WILL POUND AND JENN BUTTERWORTH – Volume 1 – (LuluBug Records)

As Winter drags on, while the cost of living crises bites deeper and the news seems to be continually tragic, suggestions for anything that might lift the spirits are surely welcome. Well, here’s a suggestion from me – have a listen to Volume 1, the debut album (as a duo) ...
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KIRSTEN ADAMSON – Landing Place (own label)

With Dave Burns having recently released a solo EP now Adamson, the other half of The Marriage, delivers her second solo album, Landing Place, produced by Dean Owens, featuring Nashville’s Jen Gunderman on keys and Jon Mackenzie on guitar and with Burns, Owens and Jason McNiff as co-writers. She kicks ...
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ALAN FLETCHER – The Point (Ubersavvy Music)

Jason Donovan, Kylie Minogue and Natalia Imbruglia are the biggest stars, but astonishingly Australian soap Neighbours also launched the music careers of many other actors, among them Deltra Goodrem,  Holly Valance, Craig MacLachlan, Danni Minogue and Fletcher who, as Karl Kennedy, is one of the longest serving cast members.  He’s ...
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DAN WALSH – O’Neill’s Tunes (Rooksmere RRCD120)

Dan Walsh tells the story himself: how he fell in love with Irish music and wanted to learn the banjo. He acquired a 5-string banjo and practiced diligently to become the brilliant musician he is today. Then he discovered that Irish music is usually played on the 4-string tenor banjo ...
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MARY ELIZABETH REMINGTON – In Embudo (Loose Music)

Mary Elizabeth Remington’s In Embudo evokes Walt Whitman’s Song Of Myself. This is music of the earth where “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” There’s nothing famous here; but this is very democratic American music. It’s the music that elects great presidents. It’s the music that ...
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SAVOURNA STEVENSON & STEVE KETTLEY – Wine Of Life (Cooking Vinyl COOKCD870)

There are any number of instrumental duos around at the moment, particularly in Scotland where musical alliances are swapped as easily as dance partners at a ceilidh. It helps to keep things fresh of course and I’m sure you can tick off any number of combinations of instruments. Wine Of ...
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RUTH ANGELL – Hlywing (Talking Elephant TECD484)

Ruth Angell is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter who has performed with people such as Ashley Hutchings and Rufus Wainwright.  Not before time she's released her début solo album, Hlywing, and it's a delight.  Nine of the ten tracks are written by Ruth, with the final one being Joni Mitchell's ...
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EMILY MAGUIRE – A Light To Follow (Shaktu Records, SHK)

For her seventh studio album, A Light To Follow, Emily Maguire shimmers brightly in the strong Australian sun. As she advocates, “go and seek out the sunshine” (‘Sunshine’). Take heed; this woman knows the value of the light, because she has confronted the darkness. Recorded on her and husband/producer Christian ...
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SINGLES BAR 86 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles

TIMOTHY JOHNSTON is a PhD student with a remarkable group of folk friends including Fay Hield, Patrick Rimes of Calan, Rob Harbron and Shirley Smart who support him here. Green Grow The Rushes is a collection of Anglo-Welsh traditional songs which pushes the definition by starting with ‘Scarborough Fair’ and ...
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NOLEN SELLWOOD – Otherwise (New Folk Records)

A Minneapolis teenager inspired to get into folk after listening to Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, Sellwood’s debut, Otherwise, opens with ‘This Time’, simply strummed acoustic giving way to drums and electric which sustain the lengthy playout, his voice suggesting a softer, less intense Luke Jackson on a reflective love song ...
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PAUL COWLEY – Stroll Out West (Lou B Music LBM007 2023)

It’s been a while since I heard a Paul Cowley album, so it was a real pleasure to receive a copy of Stroll Out West, his new album due for release in February 2023. Paul Cowley is my kind of blues player: respecting his sources but not a slavish copyist, ...
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HARBOTTLE & JONAS – Saving The Good Stuff Vol 1 (Brook View Records BVR003)

In 2019, the Devon duo took to live streaming, performing, under a title inspired by a Richard Thompson song, a series of covers, one a week, either traditional numbers or songs by artists they admired. Then along came lockdown and they upped it to two songs a week. Since the ...
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INGER NORDVIK – Hibernation (own label)

Inger Nordvik is a classically trained musician who, like so many others, isn't tied to just what she was taught. Whilst studying classical singing at the Barratt Due Institute in Oslo she also developed an interest in folk, pop and jazz.  With pinpoint timing she released her début album Time ...
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THE WOOLVERSTONES – Grey Eyed Dandy (Available to stream through Bandcamp)

Woolverstone is a village on Suffolk’s Shotley Peninsula. It’s a small place, but I was able to find out about it – it’s various listed buildings and a marina on the River Orwell – without much searching. The same can’t be said about the band who share its name and ...
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JOHN BLEK – Until The Rivers Run Dry (We Are Rats Recordings)

John Blek’s Until The Rivers Run Dry is a lovely folk album with deep melodies and emotive strings that conjure the late 60’s baroque beauty of the bands like (the great!) Appaloosa, Marmalade (of ‘Reflections Of My Life’ fame!), and The Left Banke’s immortal ‘Walk Away Renee’. By the way, ...
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JOHN McCUSKER – The Best Of (Under One Sky UOSR010)

On January 20th Under One Sky Records release John McCusker – The Best Of to mark his 30 years in the music industry.  Alongside the CD a book will be released, John McCusker: The Collection, showcasing 100 of his compositions. The album is a double CD with space for 30 ...
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ESBE – Blow The Wind Southerly (New Cat Music)

A London-based graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, Esbe follows in the footsteps of Katy Rose Bennett with Blow The Wind Southerly, a wholly a cappella classical folk album featuring her voice treated to layered harmonies, multi-tracked as choral groupings or used as a sampled instrument. Not just vocally ...
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ARCHIE CHURCHILL-MOSS – PH(R)ASE (Slow Worm Records SWR003)

PH(R)ASE might be Archie Churchill-Moss’s first solo album, but there is a good chance you’ll have heard him play before. After all, Archie is regarded as one of Britain’s finest accordion players, and has worked with Eliza Carthy, Cara Dillon, Sam Kelly, Jim Moray and more.  Now five years of ...
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JUNI HABEL – Carvings (Basin Rock)

A Waldorf – or Steiner - teacher as well as a singer-songwriter, Habel lives in rural Southern Norway, sharing an old school house with her husband, brother, grandmother and a friend, where she records her songs. Carvings is her second album, one she says she wanted to write about family ...
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RACHEL WALKER & AARON JONES – Despite The Wind And Rain (ROSCD103)

Despite The Wind And Rain is the debut album, as a duo, for musician Aaron Jones and the Gaelic singer Rachel Walker. The album has ten tracks, each celebrating under-recognised women in Scottish history. Rachel also worked with poet, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir to write the Gaelic songs on the ...
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SU-A LEE – Dialogues (Sky Child Records SCR001CD)

There are a number of cellists plying at least part of their trade in folk music. Some have their name on the front covers of albums, others are more often hidden away in the back. Su-A Lee is one of the latter but she has appeared on more albums in ...
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MIKE VASS – Decemberwell Decade (UR007CD)

Musician, composer, producer - where do you start to describe the work of Mike Vass? How about the first line on his webpage, “Mike Vass is one of the most creative forces on the Scottish music scene” – both concise and accurate and I won’t attempt to beat it. Vass ...
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MARK GWYNNE JONES – Voices From The Peak (Talking Elephant TECD473)

I wasn’t born in the Peak District but I was bought up there and lived there for the best part of twenty years so the landscape holds a special meaning for me. These days I can’t recognise the towns I knew. As Andy White remarked about Belfast, I have the ...
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RITZ & WESSON – Wisdom Of The Heart (Backstage Music)

Before you ask “who are Ritz & Wesson?” I’ll explain. Nigel Wesson was a resident at Bunjies Folk Cellar back in the day which is where he met Bryan Ritz. As is often the case, real life got in the way and they drifted apart reuniting, quite by chance, in ...
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FIRELIGHT TRIO – Firelight Trio (Proper EDFLT01)

There are so many new instrumental albums coming out these days that, if you want to stand out, you have to be different. There is no mileage in banging out a few dance sets interspersed with a couple of slow airs. Firelight Trio are certainly different. They comprise Gavin Marwick ...
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NOËL DASHWOOD – Noël Dashwood (own label)

Noël Dashwood is, of course, one third of Alden Patterson and Dashwood, a trio that has been making waves in recent years. His first, eponymous, solo album affords him the opportunity to demonstrate his talents, notably on Dobro and lap steel as well as a composer and song-writer. He’s joined ...
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ASH GRAY AND THE BURNERS – Live ’55 (LuvRock Records)

Sheffield’s Ash Gray And The Burners’ Live ’55, with its country-psych sound coloured with steel pedal’s “unlimited glissandi and deep vibrati (Thank you, Wikipedia!), will appeal to lovers of the 70’s country-rock vibe of those New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Poco, Mason Proffit, and the Goose Creek Symphony, which ...
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DAVID HARLEY – Introduction To Nashville Tuning For Guitar (Wheal Alice Music)

This book is great. I make the point at the start for a number of reasons To highlight that it’s a book not a CD - though the title would also be a splendid one for an album because it is, I’ve really enjoyed reading it and because I wanted ...
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SINGLES BAR 85 – A round-up of recent EPs, singles and Christmas cheer

Eve is a new digital EP released with Christmas and New Year in mind by DARIA KULESH. The opening track ‘Cossack Lullaby’ sounds very Christmassy with chimes (possibly synths) by Jason Emberton with Stu Hanna’s violin and Tristan Seume’s guitar. The celebration at the centre of the record is actually ...
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CHRIS CLEVERLEY – Broadcast The Secret Verse (Opiate Records 003)

I’ve been an enthusiastic follower of Chris Cleverley’s music since his debut album back in 2015. Musically speaking, Chris isn’t a man who stands still and his development has been startling which brings us to Broadcast The Secret Verse and my particular problem. I listened to it once or twice ...
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PLU -Tri (Sbrigyn Ymborth SY034)

Plu’s new album was released earlier this year so I must first apologise for not getting around to it until now. Tri is the fourth album by Caernarfonshire siblings, Elan, Marged and Gwilym Rhys who are joined here by musicians Carwyn Williams, Dafydd Owain and Edwin Humphreys. No, I don’t ...
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NATIVE HARROW – Old Kind Of Magic (Loose Music)

Native Harrow’s new album, Old Kind Of Magic has the beautiful depth of a gossamer web, and it has the musical width of Emily Dickinson’s poetic insight that, “Much Madness is divinest Sense”. This album glances back at the free range of 70’s folk with psych touches, a love of ...
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EMILY PORTMAN & ROB HARBRON – Time Was Away (Rob Records ROBREC CD04)

I can’t help thinking of them as bright young things but then I remember when it was that I first heard The Devil’s Interval. So, Emily Portman and Rob Harbron are now seasoned professionals and Time Was Away is their first album as a duo with just Pete Judge’s flugel ...
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SINGLES BAR 84 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles

Having released the title track and ‘Rough Edges’ earlier as singles, JOSHUA BURNSIDE now follows up with the full Late Afternoon In The Meadow (1887) (Attic Things), EP, the title taken from Camille Pissarro’s 1887 impressionist painting. In addition to those two numbers, featuring distant spoken cassette samples of one ...
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ROBERT LANE – Homeworking (own label)

Robert Lane’s Homeworking is yet another example of the Spirit of Humanity finding someone willing to sing its songs. My friend, Kilda Defnut, said of this record, “Fans of my beloved Big Star and Badfinger will love this music”. I simply say, “Maybe I’m Amazed”, because this is a brilliant ...
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ADEEM THE ARTIST – White Trash Revelry (Four Quarters Records)

Born Adem Bingham, and sometimes known as Adeem Maria, Adeem the Artist is a blue-collar, pansexual, non-binary North Carolina-born twangy-voiced singer-songwriter now based in Eastern Tennessee whose influences include the comedian Andy Kaufman alongside the likes of John Prine and Blind Boy Fuller, their songs often addressing what it means ...
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TREVOR BEALES – Fireside Stories (Hebden Bridge circa 1971 – 1974) (Basin Rock)

Back in the 70s, in the then dreary West Yorkshire valley town of Hebden Bridge, Beales was one of the UK’s many aspirant loner folk Nick Drakes and Bert Jansches playing the pubs in their local towns. Unlike so many, however, inspired by the discovery of artists such as Django ...
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FINN COLLINSON – The Threshold (Old School Music OSMCD012)

Finn Collinson’s The Threshold is an album that wears its heart on its sleeve. The title describes where Finn feels his music is currently positioned: on thresholds waiting to be let in. Not an easy concept, but the inspirations are split between London - where Finn lived and studied for ...
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THE ALBION CHRISTMAS BAND – All Are Safely Gathered In (Talking Elephant TECD481)

And so the Christmas releases begin. And what better way to start than with the first seasonal recording in six years from the ACB, lining up as Simon Nicol, Kellie While, Simon Care and Ashley Hutchings along with Blair Dunlop, Holly Brandon and Ruth Angell adding their own tinsel. A ...
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TERENCE BLACKER – Meanwhile… (own label TB005)

Terence Blacker – singer, songwriter, author, columnist – releases Meanwhile..., his fifth album, on December 2nd. Let’s digress to a comment by from Bethany Cagnol, the Chair of the French branch of the TESOL teachers’ association. In 2010, she said, “In France, lyrics are crucial – often more important than ...
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RACHEL TAYLOR-BEALES – Out Of This Frame (Hushland HUSHCH08)

Rachel Taylor-Beales lost her voice, which is pretty devastating for a singer. With her writing and painting to help her she fought back and the result is Out Of This Frame – that’s her self-portrait on the cover. I think she looks a bit like Jamie Leigh Curtis! I should ...
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THE TRIALS OF CATO – Gog Magog (own label)

The Trials Of Cato slipped into Britain from Lebanon with a stunningly good EP and followed that up with a much-praised debut album. Then the world went pants and live music was shelved but I did manage to hear them on stage before Will Addison left and Polly Bolton joined ...
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BILLY STRINGS – Me/And/Dad (Rounder)

Just turned 30 and recently named  Entertainer of the Year at the 2022 Bluegrass Awards for the second consecutive year, Strings fulfils a long-standing ambition by teaming with his stepfather Terry Barber who raised him from when he was two and introduced him to bluegrass. Joined by bassist Mike Bub, ...
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