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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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KYSON POINT – Underwater Sky (The Recording Booth TRBKPCD2501)
The watercolour cover of the debut duo album, Underwater Sky, by David and Kelly Booth (both having contributed to each other’s solo releases when she was Kelly Bayfield) solo shows the view from the banks of the River Deben in Woodbridge looking towards the Suffolk landmark from which they take ...
SERIOUS CHILD – What Lies Beneath (Four Left Feet)
As per the title, the fourth album by Alan Young under his musical alias digs below the surface of the everyday to find those stories that often go overlooked or unnoticed, those glimpses of humanity and all the quirkiness or mundanity that entails. Produced by Chris Pepper who contributes bass, ...
MICHAEL BANAHAN – Broken Heart (TC1398)
Michael Banahan, from Roscommon, is well known in Ireland as a solo singer of traditional music and a member of Rig The Jig but mostly as a promoter and manager. However, Broken Heart is a departure, being his debut album of original material. Michael plays guitar, bodhran and harmonica and ...
THE DREAMING SPIRES – Normal Town (Clubhouse)
The Oxfordshire quintet’s first in a decade, with The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society as a conceptual touchstone, Normal Town takes its title from a study that pronounced Didcot (brothers Robin and Joe Bennett grew up in nearby Steventon) the most normal (as in boring) town in England. As such, ...
SINGLES BAR 119 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
Written but never recorded by Elvis Costello, CHARLIE DORE finally sees ‘Mercury Wings’ take flight on her Still Curious EP, an arrangement that, with her trilling vocals, chugging rhythm and strings conjures thoughts of 40s ballrooms before Ruby Moor’s Dobro guitar and Quentin Collins’s trumpet take it into jazzy New ...
MARTYN JOSEPH – Troubled Horses (Pipe Records PRCD042)
There are, in my humble opinion, a handful of songwriters who stand head and shoulders above all others in this country. One of them is Martyn Joseph. Troubled Horses is his 28th studio album – an impressive back catalogue by anybody's standards – and you can add fifteen live collections, ...
EVE GOODMAN & SERA – Natur (own label)
Periodically, Welsh folk music stages an incursion across Offa's Dyke into England. It's always welcome here and this seems to have been a particularly fruitful year. Eve Goodman is relatively well known but SERA may need some introduction. She is multi-instrumentalist Sarah Louise Sarnacki Owen and when I say multi ...
IVAN CAMPO – Zwilight Tone (own label)
For copyright reasons Zwilight Tone isn't actually called The Twilight Zone although that is actually what it is – an album inspired by the band's favourite episodes of the classic series. The result is a folk/soft rock/prog/sci-fi concept album if you can get your head around that. You might need ...
FISHING 4 COMPLIMENTS – Lost In Good Intentions (own label)
Five years on, the Huddersfield quintet fronted by songwriter Eileen Wattam return with their second album, Lost In Good Intentions, one that sees them expanding on the debut’s folk-pop sound to embrace blues and 80s rock dynamics. Opening with a chugging bass riff and calls of yeah yeah before breaking ...
MEGSON – Live On Teesside (EDJ Records EDJ057)
To mark their 20th anniversary – where does the time go? - Stu and Debs Hanna return home to record a live album. The title, Live On Teesside, tells you all you need to know really. Go-to double bass man John Parker joins Megson on stage to lay down a ...
HOLLY CARTER – Leave Your Mark (own label)
Hailing from Bristol, an acclaimed fingerstyle guitarist (twice winner of AMAUK Instrumentalist of the Year) and one of the UK’s few professional female pedal steel players, drawing on folk and Americana influences Leave Your Mark is Carter’s debut album, one which, recorded live in the room and accompanied by guitarist ...
BG McDAID – Folk’ n Trouble (own label – KIN004)
Glasgow singer and songwriter BG McDaid has recently returned to Clydeside, after a period of living in Southern England, and his music career has also moved in a new direction. After making two acclaimed albums with acoustic group Kinfolk, he’s gone solo with a new album, Folk’ n Trouble. This ...
NIALL McNAMEE – Glass And Mirrors (Wellboy)
An Irish actor of some note, recently having starred in romantic comedy One Night In Bath, homelessness drama Love Without Walls (for which he wrote the soundtrack) and due to be seen alongside Steve Coogan playing Irish world cup team goalkeeper Alan Kelly in Saipan, McNamee now makes his debut ...
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Stafell Sbâr Sain: Tŷ Gwerin (Sain Records SCD2867)
Sain is Wales' oldest record label. Founded in 1969, it specialises in Welsh language and music with a roster of artists including, at various times, Aled Jones, Ar Log, Calan and the wonderful Robin Huw Bowen. Stafell Sbâr Sain (Sain's Spare Room) is compilation of twelve tracks by the label's ...
CULVERAKE – Unto The Sky (Hebe Music)
A new a capella traditional folk trio comprising Seb Stone, Matt Quinn and Lizzy Hardingham, taking their name from the Sussex dialect for a pigeon and a field in Selmeston, Walden meaning pigeon oak, their debut album, Unto The Sky, consists of twelve traditional numbers both familiar and more obscure ...
MIKEY KENNEY – Tiny Little Light (Penny Fiddle Records PFR2502CD)
Tiny Little Light is Mikey Kenney's fourth studio album and if you've not heard him before you may be in for a big surprise. Mikey is a fiddle-singer (if that term is still in use) from Liverpool noted for his presentation of English and Irish fiddle music from the north-west ...
KATIE SPENCER – What Love Is (Lightning Records LR-002)
Katie Spencer is a prodigious talent, a gifted singer and songwriter with a much more than capable hand on her instrument of choice, the guitar. Indeed, her fluid facility on the same has had her compared to such fretboard champions as Michael Chapman and John Martyn. But it is the ...
SINGLES BAR 118 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
Playing guitar and digeridoo, THE PELICAN BABIES are Standish-based acoustic folk-blues duo Lea Nixon and Mark Connelly, their new self-released three-track EP being Judas Goats. With a scuffling rhythm, the title cut adopts the farmer’s goat that befriends sheep and cattle so they can lead them to slaughter as a ...
NINEBARROW – The Hour Of The Blackbird (Winding Track 9BTHOTB)
Bringing a spin to the familiar best of album, Dorset close harmony duo Jon Whitley and Jay LaBouchardiere, British folk’s answer to Simon & Garfunkel, have revisited and reworked thirteen songs from their previous albums in the company of the combined forty plus voices of acclaimed choral groups Hart Voices ...
BROWN BOOTS BOOGIE BAND – Dancing Boots (own label)
I know I am not alone in loving the music for dancing, despite not having a dancing bone in my body, the sedentary shake a leg being my current move of choice, especially in the car. As such my shelves heave unfeasibly with instrumental rhythmic mayhem, and Dancing Boots is a ...
KYLE CAREY – The Last Bough (Americelta Records ACR106)
Her music pretty much defined by the name of her record label (to which she returns after a brief sojourn on Riverboat), Vermont-based Carey calls her sound Gaelic Americana, mixing songs sung in both Scottish Gaelic (more properly Gàidhlig) and English. Produced by Kai Welch, who plays piano and accordion, ...
JANA VARGA – Chicory (own label)
Slovak-born and London-based, Varga’s debut full length album, Foreigner Face, was, as the title suggests, rooted in the emigrant experience. The follow-up, Chicory, while still addressing such aspects, is, drawing on Slovakian folklore, more about storytelling with themes of family, love and identity. Musically, it’s a more stripped back affair ...
METAGAMA ENSEMBLE – Metagama: An Atlantic Odyssey (Wee Studio Records WSMETA001)
Perhaps a little history first. SS Metagama was launched in 1914 and, like many other vessels, did duty as a troop ship. In 1923 she was one of three ships carrying emigrants from the Western Islands bound for Canada and Metagama: An Atlantic Odyssey details a voyage that departed from ...
HANNAH BRINE – Blue Sky Now
Hannah Brine released Blue Sky Now, her debut album, in late June. Brine moved up from London to Derbyshire a couple of years ago and, judging by her comments about the cathartic effect of country life and the joys of watching her plants grow is clearly enjoying the move. You ...
DUG – Have At It! (Claddagh Records 7849344 )
The album named from a family text message involving a photo of a will during Covid, DUG comprise New York based Scottish ex-pat Lorkin O’Reilly and California clawhammer banjo player Jonny Pickett, the pair meeting in Ireland during 2022 and now based in Dublin. As such, their music embraces Scottish, ...
ROBB JOHNSON – The Optimist Hotel (Irregular Records IRR132)
Some years ago I made the mistake of asking Robb Johnson how many songs he'd written. There is no doubt that Robb is a prolific writer and the last few years have been a real purple patch for him. But it isn't about quantity and every time I get a ...
ANNA LING – Light (own label)
Mythopoetic neo-choral alt-folk is how Devon based singer and songwriter Anna Ling describes her music. An intriguing description, and if you want to find out what it might sound like, listening to Anna’s debut album, Light, is a good way to start. This year, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing ...
RAGS ROSENBERG – Song Of The Bricoleur (Coyote Gulch Records)
Based in California, the weathered, husky-voiced 78-year-old Rosenberg (named Phillip, his musical soubriquet comes from WB Yeats’ “foul rag and bone shop of the heart”) is a poet/songwriter-storyteller in the Cohen tradition, weaving compelling narratives, magnetic melodies and articulate lyrics into songs that, coloured with pedal steel, brass, violin, piano, ...
JOHN McCUTCHEON – Long Journey Home (Appalsongs AS2025)
It’s a century since an iconic fiddle contest was held in Mountain City, a small Appalachian town in Tennessee, bringing together some of the era’s most prominent country musicians, competing for a $10 gold piece. McCutcheon was introduced to Mountain City as an 18-year-old via an old Folkways recordings, further ...
FAERIE FOLK – Faerie Folk (Tree Temple Music)
Faerie Folk are a band from Portland, Oregon who play Irish and Scandinavian music. They were formed by pianist and composer Troll Hart and are nominally a duo although four musicians appear in their videos. Troll is well-regarded in avant-garde and death metal circles so although their eponymous debut album ...
JOHNSON AND FINNEMORE- Find A Love That Brings You Home (Gulf Coast Records!)
Dan Finnemore is the longtime frontman with Birmingham outfit Swampmeat Family Band while Stewart Johnson is the lap steel legend who first came to notice with Ricky Cool & The Icebergs and whose career has since seen him play with many of country music’s great and the good as well ...
We made it – the Cropredy magic continues – our very own Paul Johnson reviews Cropredy Festival 2025
Hi all - so following my Cropredy 2025 preview that we posted here earlier this year... in which we spoke to Dave Pegg and Simon Nicol about the shrinking of the festival as we waited for the the big weekend to arrive. One would be forgiven if I was to ...
SINGLES BAR 117 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
Is it an EP? Is it a mini-album? Does it actually matter? We'll go with the former. So Oddy Locks is a six track EP by Yorkshire trio, LONAN, a mix of original compositions, traditional songs and covers. The band comprises Robin Timmis, Katy Ryder and Evan Rhodri Davies and ...
JOHN REED – A Proliferation Of Pointlessness (own label)
Originally conceived as an album bemoaning the difficulties of trying to get his music noticed, Reed expanded the scope of A Proliferation Of Pointlessness for a general commentary about the state of the world. Playing everything himself, it kicks off with the nimble fingerpicking of ‘Someone Else’s Ghost’, a number ...
FOLKEAST, Sotterley Estate, Suffolk
Happy in its new home on the Sotterley Estate near Beccles, FolkEast 2025 proved as all-singing, all-dancing and all-everything as it has always been, just more so. Sure there were teething problems, especially in the campsites, but where it mattered – on stage and in the fields – it was ...
WICKHAM FESTIVAL WEEKEND Thursday 31st July – 3rd August 2025 inc
After a steady drive from the Devon/Cornwall border in the Folkmobile, I arrived in Hampshire on the 28th July, A great line up over the four days with new and old friendships to savour. As I wasn’t camping and staying with my friend in Langstone near Havant, we were able ...
SUSY WALL – Black Lights (own label)
Funded by Arts Council England and produced by Chris Pepper, Wall’s second album is a homage to her adopted Black Country home and a celebration of its people and places. Wall on piano, she’s accompanied by Gustaf Ljunggren on bass clarinet, clarinet and flute and go to double bassist John ...
VARIOUS – When Will They Ever Learn: A Story Of U.S. Folk Music- 1963-1969 (Cherry Red/Strawberry CR4JAMBX47)
Following on from Jingle Jangle Morning: The 1960s US Folk Rock Explosion, When Will They Ever Learn is an even more extensive 4-CD collection of 100 classic and obscure recordings from the era, a time when folk artists were fully flexing their protest and social comment wings with the advent ...
LIZ WALL – The Knight (own label)
Accompanied by co-producer Adam Ellis on bass, electric guitar, percussion and ukulele bass, the Ashby De La Zouch-based singer-songwriter makes her debut with The Knight, an album that draws on historical and personal themes with highly articulate lyrics and emotionally engaging, high-pitched vocals but suffers from a tendency to be ...
SONS OF SEVILLA – Street Light Moon (Ubiquity)
I have a thing about bands I've never heard of and know little, if anything, about. It's one of the joys of reviewing and I've found some really interesting artists along the way. To that list I'll now add Sons Of Sevilla with their new album Street Light Moon, which ...
JOHN DEW – Na Caismeachdan (own label)
Sometimes music can become too specialised for its own good and that could be said of composer/piper/whistle player John Dew. His third studio album, Na Caismeachdan, is a collection of marches, all but one original compositions. The title, as I finally learned, simply means “The Marches”. John is supported by ...
MINOR GOLD – Way To The Sun (MGM)
Music for lazing in the sun, appropriately recorded in California, joined by drummer Austin Beede with producer Dan Horne on bass and pedal steel Canadian/Australian duo Tracy McNeil and Dan Parsons follow up their 2023 debut with an album very much steeped in songs of looking to find the light ...
THE SWAPS – Fast Train (Stingo Records)
Based in Leamington Spa where The Swaps host a monthly blues club at Temperance, Fast Train is the trio’s debut studio album following the release of last year’s Live At Upton (an EP and with a different five-piece line-up were released in 2012 and 2023) and comes on the back ...
SARAH-JANE SUMMERS & JUHANI SILVOLA – How To Raise The Wind (Eighth Nerve 8nerve015)
More Hibernian/Scandinavian fusion from two of the finest exponents of the genre. How To Raise The Wind contains seven original compositions, atmospheric pieces, all. The title comes from an old story told by fishermen in north-west Scotland, involving knots tied in in strand of wool and that’s explained in the ...
KINGS HEATHENS – Of Wind And Tide (own label)
Following on from last year’s debut album, Old Tall Stories, Birmingham (Kings Heath actually) duo Evan C Ritchie and David Fisher, return with Of Wind And Tide, another collection of self-penned shanty and traditional folk, many numbers inspired by their trips to Cornwall. The more nasally-voiced Fisher leads off, Ritchie ...
KEEPING IT LIVE: Ely Folk Festival 2025
Ely Folk Festival is, above all, great fun. I went for the second year running. For the second year running I chose it in preference to a guest ticket to the more famous names at Hyde Park. For the second year running, I wasn’t disappointed. There are three stages at ...
THE PLEASURES – Enemy Of My Enemy (Über Savvy Music/MGM)
The Pleasures are “Aussie musical playmates” Catherine Britt and Lachlan Bryan, supported by Brad Bergen and Damian Cafarella on drums and bass respectively. Enemy Of My Enemy, to be released on August 15 2025, is their second album since the band was formed in 2022. Catherine Britt, as well as ...
THE KAHUNAS – Go! (own label)
In the way a fiddle tends to flag folk music to the casual observer, Exmoor based the Kahunas are a folk band in much the same way as are the Levellers or Ferocious Dog. Or, given the stripped back nature of the duo, maybe more in the vein of festival ...
JIM BORROWS – Carry Me Back To My Old Front Door (own label JB202401)
Jim Borrows has played piano for his own entertainment for many years but only now has he released his debut album. Having friends like James Wood, Dave Pegg and Ric Sanders to call on may have helped him on his way. Carry Me Back To My Old Front Door is, ...
WHYTE NOISE – What We Love To Do (own label)
Whyte Noise are a father and son duo, Gordon and Ciaran Whyte from Paisley and their debut album, What We Love To Do, is sort of autobiographical and just oozes Scottishness. The opening track and lead single is ’Long For Glencoe’, an up-tempo tribute to the attractions of the region ...
IAN F. BALL – Better Late Than Never (own label)
Based in Oldham, the dusty-voiced Ball has been knocking around the folk circuit for some 50 years, not to mention taking to the main stage of Carnegie Hall in 2008 and having one of his tunes covered Belshazzar’s Feast. He released an album as part of Flash Company back in ...
THE NEW FOREST FOLK FESTIVAL – What a delightful weekend! Paul Johnson reviews the festival and interviews the stars.
Our very own master of all things audio...Paul Johnson talks to....Phil Beer - Honey and the bear - Guido Rincon - The Young'uns.....and the legend - Ralph Mc Tell whilst at this years 13th New Forest Folk Festival. Hi Paul Johnson here .. and I must say I've had a ...
DARKNESS TO LIGHT – THE RECORDINGS 2004 TO 2006 – Judy Dyble (Cherry Red Records)
Judy Dyble is something of a folk legend because of her early time in Fairport Convention. She was born in 1949 and by 1969 she had been in three bands, the first of which was in her school days, the second of which was Fairport, and the third of which ...
GRACE STEWART-SKINNER – Auchies Spikkin’ Auchie (own label GSS001)
Speaking of trends, which I was, here is further evidence of another, most prevalent in Scotland but also by other artists living on the margins of the country. I refer to making aural paintings of their home towns or the areas where they live. Grace Stewart-Skinner is a clarsach player ...
JOHN WARD – Songs Like An Old Friend (own label IONCD13)
Based in East Anglia, both singer-songwriter and author, Songs Like An Old Friend is Ward’s 10th album, one which is predominantly acoustic and embraces such issues as emigration, homesickness, fishermen and contemporary politics. Backed by trio regulars wife Lynn on accordion and recorder and Les Woodley on mandolin and double ...
ÀIRDAN – Cosmic (own label)
I think I’m detecting a trend here. A few years ago Scottish instrumental music was all massed pipes and thundering drums, or so it seemed. Now it’s subtler, more melodic – not that it lacks passion or excitement, it’s just different. Àirdan comprises Paul Sinclair, a fiddler from Fyfe, squeezebox ...
DROPKICK MURPHYS – For The People (Dummy Luck Records DLM005CD)
Sporting a black rose on the cover, symbolising change, renewal, rebirth, courage, confidence and power, For The People, their thirteenth studio album finds the Massachusetts Celtic punk in furious and fiery protest form while still finding room for some personal nostalgia, kicking off with guitars ringing and drums thundering on ...
FATE THE JUGGLER – Godless Blues (own label)
Fate The Juggler first came to our attention back in 2016 and have been popping around ever since. It started for us with their EP, Colour Of Change, and a live album although their debut album was The Ghost Of Beauty Lost in 2010. The line-up has changed somewhat with ...
GEORGE BOOMSMA – The Promise Of Spring ‘Live’ (Faber Alt)
The Promise Of Spring Live is a first anniversary version of George Boomsma’s critically acclaimed The Promise Of Spring acoustic album, although this latest edition is a recorded live version. A raw edge album recorded at two prestigious venues – The Regal in Tenbury Wells and Camden Town’s Green Note ...
KEMP HARRIS – The America Chronicles (Kemp Harris Music)
Black and gay, life in America for Harris was never going to be easy. Under the current administration, it’s even more difficult. Which is pretty much the starting point for the third from the now 72-year-old North Carolina-born singer-songwriter who’s also an actor, activist, author and an award-winning educator. Recorded ...
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