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GEORGE SANSOME & MATT QUINN – Sheffield Park (Grimdon Records GRICD007)
It seems that English folkies are taking a leaf out of their Scottish counterparts’ book by swapping musical partners like a barn dance’s introductory mixer. For fans it means more and different music and we can all applaud that. The latest pairing matches Granny’s Attic’s George Sansome and Dovetail Trio’s ...
TRAPPER SCHOEPP – Siren Songs (Grand Phony)
Trapper Schoepp releases Siren Songs on April 21st. Schoepp said of it, “What’s most important to me is to be a link in the chain of folk singers before and after my time”. To mention a couple: the album was recorded at Cash Cabin, originally Johnny Cash’s sanctuary to recharge, ...
YOUNG MARTYRS – Time Is Not On Our Side (own label)
Flying the Bristol flag for UK Americana, comprising frontman Tom Corneill, lead guitarist Simon Whitehead with Lee Cole and Rich Beeby providing the rhythm section, Time Is Not On Our Side is Young Martyrs second album, opening with the chiming sounds of ‘Let Me Know’, the song addressed to a ...
JAMES KERRY – Source (own label JK2022CD)
In the ordinary way of things I’m not a great fan of the melodeon. It’s fine for dancing where it can maintain a steady rhythm as well as providing a melody. But too many players confuse it with a musical instrument and that’s where it all goes wrong for me ...
ANGUS McOG – Cirrus (Gare Du Nord Records)
With his new album, Cirrus, Angus McOg (aka Italian folk singer Antonio Tavoni) paints with a brush stroke melodic beauty that could, perhaps, soundtrack the Degas painting, Rehearsal Of The Ballet Backstage. There’s piano taut tension, an introspective thought, an artistic blood pulse, sleight hesitation, an impressionistic blur -- all ...
GERAINT WATKINS – Aide-memoire (Last Music Co LMCD233)
A name that will be very familiar to anyone who peruses album credits, Watkins has played piano, accordion and guitar for a wealth of famous names, serving as sideman to the likes of McCartney, Lowe, Daltrey, Knopfler, Morrison, Edmunds and Gallagher. What is perhaps less well-known is that he also ...
DAN WHITEHOUSE – Reflections On The Glass Age (own label WTK005)
Following his ground-breaking album, Dan Whitehouse is now going on the road with Reflections On The Glass Age, a stripped down acoustic version of The Glass Age. Away from the electronica of the original, Dan sticks to acoustic guitar and is supported by Gustaf Ljunggren on piano and Billie Maree ...
CARTER SAMPSON – Gold (Horton)
Joined by frequent collaborator, Kyle Reid who contributes pedal steel, guitar and synths among other instruments, Oklahoma-songbird Sampson again taps into her heartland country roots for an album that balances piercing balladeering poignancy with punchier rootsy rock. Pedal steel sounds the opening notes of the title track, ‘Gold’, a roots ...
O’HOOLEY & TIDOW – Cloudheads (No Masters NMCD57)
The past few years have been eventful ones for Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow with the ballyhoo surrounding Gentleman Jack and then the arrival of a curly-haired sprog who is just about entering the “interesting” stage, I reckon. In fact, young Flynn is responsible, although mostly indirectly, for much of ...
UNCLE BARD & THE DIRTY BASTARDS – These Are The Days (Live) (SFMCD565)
You heard the new album by Uncle Bard & The Dirty Bastards? Who!!!? Uncle Bard & The Dirty Bastards – it’s a belter. Punk Music, I take it with a name like that? If that’s their band name, I bet the album’s called, ‘Never Mind the Marriages’? A little less ...
NATALIE MACMASTER & DONNELL LEAHY – Canvas (Linus Entertainment 270787)
Two of the world's top Celtic fiddle players and known as Canada’s reigning stars of Celtic music– husband and wife team Donnell Leahy and Natalie MacMaster have recently released their third album together entitled Canvas. (Their cumulative album sales have topped one million and have sell out live performances across ...
HACK-POETS GUILD – Blackletter Garland (Oli Records TPLP1690CD)
Once in while a record comes along and leaves you speechless which is how I was when I first played Blackletter Garland. Let’s start with some facts. Hack-Poets Guild are Marry Waterson, Lisa Knapp and Nathaniel Mann supported by Barney Morse-Brown, Lawrence Hunt, Pete Flood, Meraud Fergerson and Gerry Diver ...
ROBBIE CUMMING – Choons Vol 1 & 2 (KWSBCM19CD)
Robbie Cumming. You might not instantly recognise the name, particularly in the context of music. However, even for someone watching as little TV as I do, Cumming is recognisable as the man who has created a wonderful BBC4 show Canal Boat Diaries, tales of the canal on the ‘Naughty Lass’ ...
SARAH–JANE SUMMERS & JUHANI SILVOLA – Sølvstrøk (Heilo HCD7384)
Sølvstrøk (Silverstroke) is an ambitious album. Sarah-Jane Summers and Juhani Silvola are already a widely acclaimed duo, but Sarah-Jane has long dreamed of ‘super sizing’ their music to an orchestral level. Seeing a performance by Oslo Chamber Orchestra led to Sarah-Jane and Juhani writing for and playing with them. From ...
THE YOUNG’UNS – Tiny Notes (Hudson Records HUD036CD)
It has been mentioned that The Young’Uns are outgrowing their name. After all, it’s twenty years since they discovered folk music in the back room of a pub in Stockton-on-Tees and, while they are not yet elder statesmen, they have amassed an impressive body of work and gained a certain ...
THE CURSE OF K K HAMMOND – Death Roll Blues (KKHCD001)
I like it when an album title tells you exactly what you're going to get. With a title like Death Roll Blues you know that it won't be clapping along and joining the sing-a-long choruses. Instead what you get is an incredible collection of modern blues inspired by old-time Delta ...
MELISSA RUTH – Bones (no label details)
Replete with Americana tinged instrumentation and lyrics coloured by vast historical context, singer, songwriter, and music educator Melissa Ruth’s latest effort, Bones, take listeners on an explorative journey through what Ruth herself describes as North-Country Western music. In spite of the singer’s own northern roots, the arrangements and songwriting throughout Bones ...
RACHEL BAIMAN – Common Nation Of Sorrow (Signature Sounds SIG-CD-2144)
As the title would suggest, coloured by her bluegrass roots, Baiman’s third album, Common Nation Of Sorrow, is often rooted in a commentary on contemporary America, the oppressed and dispossessed united in their sufferings and the burden of economic tyranny, though such themes very readily translate beyond her native shores ...
REG MEUROSS – Stolen From God (Hatsongs Records HAT025)
Stolen From God is an album that a lot of us have been looking forward to for a long while. Reg Meuross has taken up his narrative style again to bring us a song cycle telling the story of the transatlantic slave trade. In support, Reg has recruited Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, ...
CRUEL FOLK – Far To Fall (Cruelfolk002)
There is an England old and merry, sunny and glorious where Englande and olde have an ‘e’ on the end of them, where merrie has an ‘ie’ at the end of it. This is the Englande of our dreams. It’s sunlit, it’s blue skies. It may be winter but it’s ...
MICHAEL JOHNATHON – Garden Of Silence (PoetMan Records PMR70034)
Incredibly prolific, Johnathon has released a previous twenty-one albums, with one a year since 2012, published five books, a play, composed an opera, regularly performs with symphony orchestras, produces and writes a syndicated radio show and has created three volunteer organisations. Garden Of Silence, his latest, returns him to one ...
MULL HISTORICAL SOCIETY – Archaeology: Complete Recordings 2000-2004 (Demon Records)
Mull Historical Society’s four-disc Archaeology: Complete Recordings 2000—2004 proves that while “Daddy takes the T-bird away” every once in a while, there’s still quite a bit of “fun, fun, fun” to be found in the grooves of pop music that blends rock, folk, psych, crazy electric sounds, and really great ...
THE BLUE HIGHWAYS – Out On The Line (own label)
The Blue Highways release Out On The Line on March 31st. One of the lines in ‘Nobody Lives Here Any More’ (below) is “Rules are made to be broken”. So…to start where I’d usually finish: The Blue Highways are on tour at the end of March and April – and ...
ANDREW GABBARD – Cedar City Sweetheart (Colemine Records)
Andrew Gabbard’s Cedar City Sweetheart proves there’s always room for yet another melodic pedal guitar infused Rodeo Sweetheart record that oozes Neil Young, The Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, (bits of) Seatrain, Country Gazette, and countless other bands that drank from the downhome stilled magical brew the folky 70’s elixir. Sometimes, ...
ANDY HEDGES – Roll On, Cowboys (Andy Hedges)
Let me admit, I’m not exactly steeped in the cowboy songs idiom, though I certainly trawled through some collections by the Lomaxes et al. at the start of my own so-called-singing career. But when I saw the Andy Hedges album Roll On, Cowboys, due for release on March 26 2023, ...
MEGSON – What Are We Trying To Say? (EDJ Records EDJ033)
It’s four years since we last heard from Megson, which is too long but we all know what happened in the interim. What Are We Trying To Say? is their thirteenth album and, as before, they are supported by John Parker on double. All the rest: writing, playing, singing and ...
DAVID HARLEY – So Sound You Sleep (ISBN 979-8377897699)
Apart from saying, “As you’ll see from his website, David Harley is a Shropshire lad, now living in Cornwall, who has played guitar since the 1970’s” I won’t give any further introduction – check out David’s website or the folking.com review of Introduction to Nashville Tuning for Guitar: https://folking.com/david-harley-introduction-to-nashville-tuning-for-guitar-weald-alice-music/ David ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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) ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
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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