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…
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JORDIE LANE – Tropical Depression
Maybe it’s because he’s a ‘Stralian? Tropical Depression is released on August 23rd. It’s the most fascinating album to cross my (metaphorical) turntable this year. Jordie Lane is from Melbourne – but is acclaimed for his Americana music; his website shows him looking daft with diving mask and snorkel – ...
PAUL JOHNSON’S CROPREDY FESTIVAL 2024 LITTLE POD CAST REVIEW
Hi all Well we all know its been a bit of a hard and dramatic year in our world this year with many sad passing's, huge news stories, such as UK general election USA elections with all their mad twists and turns.. and sadly a fair few festivals in these ...
ANDREW J. NEWALL – My Lucky Charm (own label AJN2024CD)
This is a true story. Andrew J. Newall is quite explicit about that. My Lucky Charm is the soundtrack of a musical drama based on the life of Andrew’s mother Catherine, a complex story which actually begins in Donegal in 1881. Fortunately the album includes a booklet which expands on ...
MARK HARRISON BAND – Fools & Clowns (Highway Records HR0008)
Mark Harrison: bluesman, bandleader, songwriter, singer and guitarist. He’s supported by regular sidesmen, multi-instrumentalist Charles Benfield and drummer Ben Welburn, with extra guitar and keyboards from Guy Bennett. So if you’ve never heard Mark before what can you expect from Fools & Clowns? A big power trio, perhaps? Some cool ...
ANDREW COMBS – Dream Pictures (Loose Music)
Andrew Combs's album Dream Pictures is a soulful folk record with a candle’s dance and melodies that sip from a drowsy glass of wine. This is slow-burning stuff – with deeply grooved thoughtful tunes that embrace a gorgeous introspective late-night wisdom. As Nashville-based Andrew says, “This record is about contentment” ...
TANGLEJACK – The Ragged Edge (own label)
John-Paul Davies and Duncan Leigh – the two friends who make up Swansea based duo TangleJack – have been perfecting their own sound, based on two-part harmonies and interweaving guitar lines, for ten years. Now, with their new album The Ragged Edge, they believe they’ve reached the pinnacle of their ...
KAREN JONAS: The Rise & Fall Of American Kitsch (Goldrush Records)
I am uncertain where Ms Jonas’s tongue sits for this one, but I’ll hazard and hope it is firmly in cheek, the whole of this release screaming bargain basement excess, in the best possible sense of that, a knowing glimpse into tack and tinsel. Of course, to deliver a set ...
STEVIE JONES AND THE WILDFIRES – Getting There
Getting There is the fourth album from Stevie Jones and the Wildfires. It’s due to be launched on August 16th at The Musician in Leicester. Sometimes albums slap you round the face when you first play them, others creep up on you and you suddenly hear something rather splendid that ...
LUCY PARKER – A Beautiful Place To Die (B Side Recording)
A new name from Wolverhampton (though currently at university in Surrey), taking inspiration from Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Lewis Capaldi, Parker’s debut album, A Beautiful Place To Die, part recorded at Abbey Road and variously featuring Gabriel Mumbray on guitars, drummer Archie Gouldsborough and bassists Rick Hampton and Elliott ...
WILLS & THE WILLING – Another Long Week (Smash & Grab Music SMASHGCDE2)
I’m not quite sure, listening to this, his fifth album, how The Times came to describe Ian Wills as a 21st century Ian Dury. Certainly they share a lyrical craftsmanship but musically Wills is very much of an Americana and country persuasion (he’s partly based in Arizona), something accentuated by ...
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Mo Ogg – The Bard Of Coleby (Folk Round ‘Ere SCM1043)
Maurice Charles (Mo) Ogg was a joiner, musician, song-writer and song collector in and around north Lincolnshire. He died tragically young at the age of 34 but by which time his fame had spread and Alistair Anderson wrote ‘Air For Maurice Ogg’ in his memory. Fellow Lincolnshire man Martin Simpson ...
R.R.WILLIAMS – Unremarkable Lives (Black Mesa Records BMR085)
The packaging is rather minimal but that’s about all there is about Unremarkable Lives to complain about. Unless, of course, you’re determined to force R.R.Williams into a pigeonhole. Williams is singer/songwriter from Tulsa, Oklahoma with a leaning towards the music of the working man – a sort of mid-western Bruce ...
TANITA TIKARAM – The WEA/East West Albums 1988-1996 (Cherry Red OCRCD5box174)
Born in Germany to Indo-Fijian parents and raised in Hampshire, in 1988 Tikaram burst on to the music scene with her Top 3 debut album Ancient Heart. Produced by Rod Argent and Peter Van Hooke it went on to sell over 5 million records, yielding two Top 10 singles in ...
THE LONG RUNNERS – On The Run (WildGoose Records WGS447CD)
At the turn of the 20th century, in the fashionable salons of New York and Boston, fashionable things were happening. Meanwhile the working folks of the southern states were getting their rocks off to a different kind of music – an amalgam of everything that had gone before and would ...
SINGLES BAR 104 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
One third of Harp & A Monkey, SIMON JONES takes inspiration from the world of British TV and film horror, such as Hammer House of Horror, Tales of The Unexpected, Children Of The Stones and, of course, The Wicker Man (and its soundtrack by Paul Giovanni and Magnet), for Lust, ...
JOSHUA ARNOLD AND THERINE – A Wonderfull Discoverie Of Witches (own label)
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Arnold and vocalist Therine are an experimental folk duo from the north of England, their album, borrowing its title from clerk of the court Thomas Potts’ account of proceedings, telling the story of the events leading up to and during 1612's Pendle witch trials in the county ...
MORNINGBIRD – Echoes In The Meadow (own label)
MorningBird’s Echoes In The Meadow drinks from the unassuming northern Minnesota Lake Itasca trickle, which, once given momentum, pulses into the Mississippi River Americana mythical artery. Years ago, while on a necessary pilgrimage to these Big Muddy headwaters, I found myself smack dab in the middle of nowhere. There was ...
THE CELTIC HARPER – Carnivorine And Other Songs (own label)
I really like Carnivorine. It’s not in the least what I expected and that in itself is no bad thing. The Celtic Harper is actually Andrew Smith, based in Calderdale, and this is his debut album. Supporting musicians include Becky Taylor, Alana Middleton, Sami Javid and the enigmatic Gus – ...
KEEPING IT LIVE – Folklincs Humber Fest 2024
To start with the conclusion: Humber Fest is a rather splendid new festival, located in Barton on Humber and is the kind of thing that would be great to see repeated in many more places across the country. Let’s do the basics next: The festival is held predominantly in the ...
SILAS J. DIRGE – Swan Songs (own label)
For a journey into the darker elements of Americana music, Amsterdam might seem a surprising place to start. And yet it’s the Dutch capital from which this determinedly authentic voice of Gothic Americana hails. Silas J. Dirge is the pseudonym of singer and songwriter Jan Kooiker, and Swan Songs is ...
CHARLIE O’BRIEN – The Trackless Wild – Irish Song Of The Pampa (Trouble or Fortune Records)
Argentina is not, perhaps, a country you might readily associate with Irish balladry. So, its title referring to the South American low grasslands, Killarney ex-pat Charlie O’Brien has put together an album to revise that thinking. Extracting lyrics from a 19th century Argentine newspaper, El Monitor de la Campaña, printed ...
KEEPING IT LIVE – ELY FOLK FESTIVAL 2024
“Do you want a pass to Stevie Nicks, VIP area?” “Sounds good.” “July 12th.” “I can’t I’m already booked - Ely Folk Festival.” Ah well … I gather it was a good do. However, I feel in no way short changed. Here’s why. Ely Folk Festival has been running since ...
KINGS HEATHENS – Old Tall Stories (own label)
Respectively from Milton Keynes and Texas, busker David Fisher and barber Evan Ritchie are now based in the Birmingham suburb from which they take their duo name, bonding over a shared love of Celtic and transatlantic folk, shanties and ballads. And that’s what fuels their debut album, Old Tall Stories, ...
MARK NEAL – Cool Waters (Eh Records EHCD08)
Mark Neal is a singer/songwriter/musician/producer and all-round clever chap from the banks of the Clyde near Loch Lomond. He works in a duo with Eilidh Steel and with folk-rock band, Teannaich but his new solo album, Cool Waters, is exactly that with Mark writing, playing and singing every note, producing, ...
DAVID CARROLL AND FRIENDS – Bold Reynold Too (Talking Elephant TECD493)
Talking Elephant haven’t had to spend much on artwork for Bold Reynold Too. The first volume was a great success and I have no doubt its successor would do the same even if it were marketed in a brown paper bag. David’s friends include, as you can see, members of ...
THE NEW LEAVES – A Sketch Of Home (Corn Crake Records)
The New Leaves are a quartet from County Down. Decky McKay and Cian O’Hare sing and play guitar, Patrice McKevitt sings and plays bass with Paddy Goodfellow on drums and percussion. After a couple of successful singles, they have now released their debut album, A Sketch Of Home, a title ...
GANDALF MURPHY AND THE SLAMBOVIAN CIRCUS OF DREAMS – A Good Thief Tips His Hat (Talking Elephant TECD498)
Paul Johnson reviews the 25th Anniversary reissue of the first album by the wonderful Gandalf Murphy And The Slambovian Circus Of Dreams: A Good Thief Tips His Hat. Artists' website: https://slambovia.com/home Label website: https://www.talkingelephant.co.uk/ Most of the Slambovians' videos are rather ... er ... loose so here is one of ...
SINGLES BAR 103 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
Now just a solo project for Bristol’s Hannah Pawson, FRITILLARIES follow up their(her) 2022 eponymous debut album with the self-released EP Thank God I Have The Songs, addressing grief, uncertainty and dealing with chronic illness, opening with the simply strummed, strings-caressed pastoral vocally double-tracked five-minute ‘Harvest Moon’. Night and the ...
NICK PYNN – Visions/Revisions And Impressions (Brand Oscar Records)
The “Octopus of Sound” is a pretty fine handle to have as your by-line, the description(?!) bestowed upon him by comedian (and music lover), Stewart Lee. Rather than suggesting Pynn has a slimy feel about him, more it is to denote the veritable orchestra of instruments he has at his ...
CHEERY ODIN – Gan Yer Dinger (own label)
I love reviewing because I can take a punt on an album. I've never sent one back and there are occasions when I find a real gem. Gan Yer Dinger is one of those. Eighteen tracks celebrate the language and people of Hawick in a fine style. This is by ...
SAM REIDER & THE HUMAN HANDS – The Golem And Other Tales (own label)
So what is the link between Django Reinhardt, Planxty, Duke Ellington, Astor Piazzolla, Bernard Herrman and Raymond Scott? Well, apart from having to look the last one up, the answer is this wide-ranging combo. (Scott, btw, is the composer whose work was adapted for use in all those Looney Tunes ...
SIMON CARE AND GARETH TURNER – Two’s Up Two (Talking Elephant TECD478)
Way, way back in 1997 two bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young melodeon players got together to record an album, Two’s Up. Distinguished careers intervened and it wasn’t until 2022 that Simon Care and Gareth Turner got together to record a follow up. By this time Gareth was seriously ill but he ...
CHURCH STREET SHUFFLE – The Five Day Weekend (own label CCS001)
Church Street Shuffle are the fiddle and guitar duo of Neil Ewart and Ali MacQuarrie. Their name is derived from the street in Inverness which is the centre of the live music scene – a band could play three gigs in one evening with careful shuffling. The Five Day Weekend, ...
BLUE ROSE CODE – Bright Circumstance (Ronachan Songs)
Blue Rode Code (the band led by Scottish songwriter Ross Wilson) released the new album Bright Circumstance on June 7th. If Wilson/the band are new to you, their self-description is Caledonian Soul. At their best, the band draw admiring references to Van Morrison. There are tracks on Bright Circumstance which ...
BROOKS WILLIAMS & AARON CATLOW – Greens & Blues (Red Guitar Blue Music RGBM 2401)
I’m pretty sure that it’s impossible to keep Brooks Williams out of a studio much less separate him from his guitar. An inveterate collaborator, for Greens & Blues he renews his partnership with Aaron Catlow – this is their third album together. It’s a collection of songs old, new and ...
MICHAEL WAUGH – Beauty & Truth (Compass Bros Music)
Australian Michael Waugh’s Beauty & Truth is a strong-voiced melodic folk album (produced by Shane Nicholson!) graced with a dramatic live buzz of electric guitar, drums, and bass – with the brave intent to “really grab at the truth and look at”. The first song, ‘We Are Here’, is a ...
THE CIDERHOUSE REBELLION – And Even The Sheep Shall Dance (Under The Eaves Records UTE 010)
To say that Adam Summerhayes and Murray Grainger are busy bees would be a vast understatement of their reality, spreading themselves across any number of performing platforms and issuing product seemingly willy nilly. Willy nilly? Well, the day And Even The Sheep Shall Dance is released, both as a CD ...
JESSIE SUMMERHAYES & THE CIDERHOUSE REBELLION – Tales of Colonsay (UTE011)
Poet Jesssie Summerhayes has one again teamed up with the great improvisers The Ciderhouse Rebellion (Adam Summerhayes fiddle and Murray Grainger accordion) to bring out an album in 2 CDs that is something special. Tales Of Colonsay is their second work, after Ironstone Tales, to concentrate on a discrete landscape. It ...
MOLLY DONNERY AND THE CIDERHOUSE REBELLION – A Little Bit Slanted (Under the Eaves – UTE 009)
You might have noticed that the masters of folk improvisation, The Ciderhouse Rebellion, are embarked on a series of collaborations with leading singers on the folk scene, called Cider With... At the time of writing, the duo are on tour with Kirsty Merryn, as Cider with Kirsty. A Little Bit ...
JON BUDWORTH – In Sight Of Home (FF002CD)
Jon Budworth has just released In Sight Of Home. ‘Just’ because it’s out right now and ‘only just’ because the idea for the album came in 2019 when watching a documentary on the Iolaire Disaster – the ship sank ‘in sight of home’ in Stornoway Harbour on New Year’s Day ...
FLO PERLIN – Clay (own label)
The third album by the London-based singer-songwriter and sometime Nest Collective member, Clay serves as a metaphor for the human capacity to adapt and adjust to different challenges, as we mould and change shapes, growing and adapting to new forms. It opens with the whisperingly sung, clattering drum rhythm and ...
NAOMI BEDFORD & PAUL SIMMONDS – Strange News Has Come To Town
Paul Johnson presents another podcast review this time with a bonus interview with the artists. And here is the promised interview: Artists' website: https://naomibedford.com/ ...
M.G. BOULTER – Days Of Shaking (Hudson)
Having offered a musical wander around the sights and characters of his Southend on Sea home town with both Clifftown and A Shadow Falls Over New Brighton, Boulter now offers more gently melancholic but more metaphysical musings on contemporary suburbia and the mundane day to day realities with Days Of ...
ROBB JOHNSON – Pennypot Lane (Irregular Records IRR129)
You might think that this doesn’t look like a typical Robb Johnson CD cover – but the design is all his. Pennypot Lane is a newly recorded collection of Robb’s songs that other people like, or haven’t appeared on vinyl (yes, there is a vinyl edition) or that he plays ...
SINGLES BAR 102 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
BRIAR & BRAMBLE is a new duo comprising Mike Turnbull, who has graced these pages several times before, and Kate Hewson. Their debut EP, Rum Tales, contains five of Mike’s songs rooted, as always, in the landscape and legends of the Lake District. The opening track, ‘Flashing Lane’, is inspired ...
HUNGRYTOWN – Circus For Sale (Big Stir Records)
Hungrytown’s new album, Circus For Sale, perhaps, requires some audio equivalent to a pair of those 3-D glasses to reveal the deep dimensions within their hybrid sound of Americana-Celtic-psych-very British 70’s folk music, which steps on delicate, melodic, and ancient stones brushed with vibrant coloured currents distilled into wonderful folk ...
MICHELL, PFEIFFER & KULESH – Flowers (own label)
The first full-length album by the multi-national triumvirate of Odette Michell (English), Karen Pfeiffer (German) and Dara Kulesh (Russian), several of these tracks have been available as digital singles or on a gigs-only EP, but are now brought together under one roof as Flowers. They’re mostly traditional, some better known ...
THE SANDY DENNY PROJECT – SDP Volume 2 (SKU 364215376135191)
A tad behind the curve for this one, all apologies sought, given the significance and content of both the recording and, more importantly, the individual inspiration behind it. A somewhat low key release, a fortnight or so ago, at Cromer’s Folk on the Pier, means many may have been as ...
EMILY BARKER – Fragile As Humans (Everyone Sang)
Recorded at 16th century Wool Hall in Beckington, Somerset, during a brief sojourn in the UK before she and husband Luke Drinkwater moved back to Australia, produced by Luke Potashnick, Fragile As Humans is Barker’s first album (if you discount Room 822, the 2022 hotel room lockdown covers set) in ...
TOM KITCHING – Where There’s Brass
There are few musicians who can also write entertaining prose, let alone sustain it for the length of a book. Tom Kitching is one such. Where There’s Brass is the companion piece to the CD of the same name; or perhaps the CD is the companion piece to the book ...
HARBOTTLE & JONAS – Wild Goose (Brook View Records BVR004)
Their seventh studio album (alongside two EPs, a live set and a collaboration with Reg Meuross), over the course of eight songs David and Freya embrace theme of family, nature, and societal shifts as they journey through the mystical and the mythical, he on various guitars, cittern, banjo and glockenspiel, ...
MIRACLE MILE – East Of Ely (MeMe Records CD/LP MM21)
A decade on since the last album, but sounding like they’ve been playing together forever, Trevor Jones and Marcus Cliffe have revived their shared connection for East Of Ely, a ninth excursion, basking in the warm glow of bitter-sweet melancholia, musing on memories, friendship, the passing of the years and ...
RAINTOWN – Acoustic Heart (BMB002CD)
Don’t be too late. Raintown released Acoustic Heart on April 26th. I came across it a week or two later and have spent a week or two listening to it to double check what I first thought about a duo that were new to me. They describe the album as, ...
JASON McNIFF – Everything’s A Song (TR2031)
Jason McNiff, Yorkshire born but now based on the south coast, is an artist who certainly does his bit to support live music and other musicians. He hosts a weekly acoustic session in Hastings as well as playing gigs around the country. If that wasn't enough to keep him busy ...
MOJNA – Väntenätter (Heilo HCD7410)
Scandinavian trio Thomas Eriksson, Helga Myhr and Anna Malmström have worked together for three years but Väntenätter (Nights Of Waiting) is their first album under their group name, Mojna. Eriksson composes and plays guitar, Myhr plays Hardanger fiddle and Malmström plays clarinet and bass clarinet. This may seem like an ...
PAINTED SKY – From The Blue (Gilded Lily Records)
Painted Sky’s From The Blue is a lovely album of British folk music from the siblings George and Holly Brandon, which juxtaposes soft acoustic strummed harmonious songs, “gypsy jazz”, a “Morris jig”, and a joyous banjo pluck or two against a Thomas Hardy Casterbridge eerie signpost superstition, all amid a ...
GEORGE BOOMSMA – The Promise Of Spring
This recently released album from George Boomsma – The Promise Of Spring - is an absolutely delightful album which seems to be living permanently in my car sound system! At first listen I was hooked. George uses his talents of singer/songwriter/musicianship to the full with his beautifully written songs about ...
JENNY COLQUITT – Staring At The Moon (own label)
Staring At The Moon, her second full-length album, co-produced and performed with David Gorst, sees Colquitt building on her considerable strengths as both writer and musician, ranging across pop, folk and rock with total assurance. It opens in contemplative form, tentative piano providing the intro to ‘Bravest of the Brave’, ...
FEROCIOUS DOG – Kleptocracy (Graphite records GRAPHFAR61)
Government by theft, then? At least, that’s my take on it, a criticism, I imagine, rather than an aspiration, Red Ken and his bondage trouser philanthropists no strangers to a bit of agit-prop. And mighty fine fare it is, too, their energetic folk-punk now claiming studio album number five. In ...
ANGELINE, COHEN AND JON – Grace Will Lead Me Home (Invisible Folk)
That’ll be Morrison, Braithwaite-Kilcoyne and Bickley, then, partnering up for a concept album its themes bookended by the 250th anniversary of ‘Amazing Grace’ in 2023 and 2025’s 300th birthday of its writer, John Newton. One of the world’s best known hymns, recordings of which range from Judy Collins, The Byrds ...
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