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BOO HEWERDINE – BORN (Reveal REVEAL063CDX)
Recorded in January, just before his 55th birthday, this five-track EP, limited to just 1000 copies, is something of a family affair in that it features his dad’s old piano and two of the songs are co-writes with his son Ben, who also takes sole credit on the last track ...
BEAU – An Original Thought (Cherry Red BEAUAOT1)
Having gone totally off the radar after the release of his 1971 album, 12-string maestro Trevor Midgley finally resurfaced on Cherry Red in 2011 with a series of remasterings or re-recordings. The following year he released his first collection of new material in 41 years and now seems to be ...
MOULETTES – Preternatural (Craft Pop Records CRAFTPOP1CD)
I was fortunate enough to hear Moulettes preview some of Preternatural live last year and even more fortunate to grab a word or two with Ruth Skipper after the set. I confessed that, while I loved the band’s sound, I didn’t always know what they were about. With alarming candour ...
PAUL MOSLEY AND THE RED MEAT ORCHESTRA – The Butcher (Folkwit F0130)
“This is a ghost story…” proclaims the cover of the lyric booklet. It is also a love story, or perhaps two love stories; I haven’t quite figured that out. It is also somewhere between a concept album and a folk-opera – two fairly unfashionable notions these days. Paul Mosley has ...
BLAIR DUNLOP – Gilded (Gilded Wings GWR001)
The son of Ashley Hutchings, Dunlop’s follow-up to House Of Jacks contains a dozen self-penned songs, all recorded as live with a basic instrumentation of Jacob Stoney on keys, drummer Fred Claridge and bass player Tim Thomas, that find him pushing deeper into the more radio-friendly and catchily melodic frontiers ...
MATTHEW CRAMPTON – Human Cargo
Muddler Books – ISBN 978-0-9561361-2-1 – Softback 164 pp Human trafficking is never far from the news these days, whether it’s young women from eastern Europe being brought to the west and forced into prostitution; immigrants fleeced by people smugglers before being trapped by gang-masters or refugees attempting to cross ...
ROB LEAR – Motorcycle Heart (Self Released)
Okay, so opening track ‘Grace’ has early REM written all over it, but the biking Welsh singer-songwriter is no slave to influence. His second album, produced by the Grammy nominated Simon Tassano, ranges across the Americana spectrum, ‘Look Me Up’ a catchy chorus folksy sawayalong strum with a hint of ...
KATY ROSE BENNETT – Songs of the River Rea (Own Label KRB001)
Born in Oxfordshire, part of the prolific musical family that also includes brothers Joe and Robin of the magnificent The Dreaming Spires (Joe also a member of Co-Pilgrim), the former BBC Young Folk Award finalist artist hitherto known as KTB (and erstwhile founder member of Little Sister) has been penning ...
BROOKS WILLIAMS – My Turn Now (Red Guitar Blue Music RGBM-2016)
I first encountered Brooks Williams five or six years ago at a festival. He was sitting outside a pub playing in the sunshine because the venue was locked and nobody could find the key. It was a splendid session and that’s the sort of man Brooks is. The blues and ...
THE SLAMBOVIAN CIRCUS OF DREAMS – A Box Of Everything (Red River RRECD134)
With an extensive UK tour just a few weeks away The Slambovian Circus Of Dreams re-issue (or issue) their “greatest hits” collection in the UK. I got my copy direct from the USA two years ago, via Tink Lloyd’s own fair hand – they had sold out when I heard ...
WATER PAGEANT – Outlines (Glide GLD001)
Nick Tingay and Lizzy McBain are, it says here, an Oxford-based boy/girl electro-dream folk project, Tingay’s songs “often drawing on ideas from Enlightenment-era science as well as meteorological and agricultural themes.” At which point, you may well be about to skip the rest of the review and crank up something ...
RANT – Reverie (Make Believe Records MBR6CD)
If you’re going to make music with a band that consists of just fiddles and violas you have to pretty sure of your ground otherwise it’s going to get rather dull. Sure, Bethany Reid, Jenna Reid, Sarah-Jane Summers and Lauren McColl stretch the point by importing vocalists for two tracks ...
SANDY DENNY – I’ve Always Kept A Unicorn (Island 536 735-0)
What can I say that hasn’t been said a thousand times before? There’s the problem. I have to confess that I’m sometimes uneasy about the way that Sandy Denny’s catalogue has been managed. There are just three tracks among the forty presented here that haven’t been released before and they ...
VILLIERS AND THE VILLAINS – Songs Of Love And Fate (own label TVATV0915)
Songs Of Love And Fate is the second album from Northern Irish singer and songwriter Tony Villiers and the title of his debut, Thin Wild Mercury, gives you a clue as to where he’s coming from. There are some great songs on this album. Tony wrote all the material and ...
ROSEANNA BALL – Time (Haven HAVENCD18)
When I first played Roseanna Ball’s debut solo album since Roholio was put into abeyance and heard the sound of a ukulele I thought that it might not be for me. Then I thought that it might be a mandolin and felt better. Roseanna has been getting good press for ...
VELVET & STONE – The Storm (VelvetStone LVID001)
A new female alt-folk trio from Devon, Lara Snowden and Holly Jo Gilbert-West sharing vocals and acoustic guitar with Kathryn Tremlett on violin and piano, make their recording bow with a six track EP of original material that most certainly whets the appetite for a full album in the hopefully ...
DANIEL MARTIN MOORE –Archives Vol. II – Old Stepstone (Ol Kentuck Recordings)
Hard on the heels of the UK release of his Golden Age album of original material, Kentuckian singer-songwriter Moore has assembled this collection of traditional songs. Recorded at home over the winter of 2012/2013, Moore notes that most of the material is rooted in the oral tradition of family parlour ...
JOSIE NUGENT – Modal Citizen (Josie Brian Music JNBS002)
Josie Nugent or, to be precise, Dr Josie Nugent MA is a graduate of Cambridge University, a music therapist and a violin player and composer and Modal Citizen is her debut album. It’s a clever title but also representative of her musical interests. I have to say that the album ...
PAUL HANDYSIDE – Tide, Timber & Grain (Malady Music MALCD005)
Paul Handyside is a thirty year veteran; a former member of Hurrah! and Bronze and a musical mate of Martin Stephenson. Tide, Timber & Grain is his third solo album of original songs. Originally from the north-east, Paul’s music now combines the melodic style of Scottish ballads with the instrumentation ...
SINGLES BAR
A round-up of recent EPs and singles RESIDENT ALIEN is an apt name for Russian-born songwriter/musician Daniel Herzog. Now based in London, Daniel released his first album in 2010 and now he is partnered by Chris Pepper and supported by Stephen Picard who co-wrote the final track, ‘Circle Without End’, ...
RED SKY JULY – The Truth And The Lie (Shadowbirds SHADOW7)
Featuring former Alisha’s Attic member Shelly Poole and her Texas guitarist husband Ally McErlaine alongside Charity Hair from The Alice Band), the trio released their eponymous debut back in 2011 following up with Shadowbirds three years later. For their third, they again set up shop in their Glasgow studio, where ...
SAM CARTER – How The City Sings (Captain Records CAP005)
Making good on his Best Newcomer gong in the 2010 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards , Carter went on to release his critically acclaimed No Testatment as well as collaborate with Jim Moray as False Lights on the Salvor album. The moment shows no sign of slacking with this, his ...
RICK FOOT – Rain Machine (Mockturtle MOCKCD005)
Rick Foot, erstwhile musical partner of Keith James and member of Jon Boden’s Remnant Kings, brings to four the number of double bass players – I’m not counting Chopper’s cello - to step out of the shadows where they are usually kept and go it alone with a solo album ...
THE SLOCAN RAMBLERS – Coffee Creek (own label)
The Slocan Ramblers are a Canadian quartet with a love for the music of the deep south and Coffee Creek is their second album – a mixture of original songs and tunes with classics and old favourites. The set begins with the title track, an instrumental duet between mandolin and ...
AFRO CELT SOUND SYSTEM – The Source (ECC Records)
The Source is the first new album from Afro Celt Sound System for ten years as they celebrate their twentieth anniversary and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Not, perhaps, a record that sounds as indefinably spiritual as this. There are a huge number of musicians of this album in ...
JARED RABIN – Something Left To Say (own label)
Belatedly finding its way to the UK, Rabin’s debut album belies an extensive musical background that began at age five when his grandfather, the Concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, taught him to play fiddle, and subsequently saw him involved in a diverse range of projects, from orchestra to jazz ...
PAUL TASKER – Cold Weather Music (Yellowroom YLLWRM-008)
Paul Tasker is a Glaswegian multi-instrumentalist and guitar teacher who you may know from the bands Banish Misfortune and Doghouse Roses. Cold Weather Music is his first solo album. The opener, ‘Husker’s Theme’ begins with solo banjo with layers of instruments building up and receding until the banjo closes the ...
GRYPHON – Red Queen To Gryphon Three (Talking Elephant TECD313)
Those fine chaps at Talking Elephant continue their programme of classic re-issues with Red Queen To Gryphon Three, self-evidently the band’s third album. Hot on the success of Midnight Mushrumps, whose glorious title track is still a highlight of the band’s live set, they settled down in Oxfordshire to work ...
DAVE COUSINS – Moving Pictures (Witchwood WMCD 2057)
The bizarre accident that rendered Dave Cousins hors de combat for the latter half of last year created the opportunity for the release of Moving Pictures, a live album recorded in 2008. Fans will know that parts of the tour have already been documented on the album Duochrome but this ...
NIGEL MAZLYN JONES – Raft (Isle Of Light Records IOL CD 0238)
Raft is Nigel Mazlyn Jones’ eleventh album and it has been out for a while. In fairness, he hadn’t heard of us and, to be honest, I thought he’d probably retired. Nigel is a veteran of the 70s who has been, in his time, a zookeeper and an inshore lifeboatman ...
RACHEL NEWTON – Here’s My Heart Come Take It (Shadowside SHADOW02)
Rachel Newton’s third solo album, Here’s My Heart Come Take It, is a gorgeous, sophisticated work for which great credit must go to co-producer and engineer Mattie Foulds who also added percussion to the vocals, harps and keyboards of the initial recording sessions. The set opens with the title track; ...
AOIFE O’DONOVAN – In the Magic Hour (Yep Records B016LKYKVW)
Call me crazy, but I hear a bit of Patti Smith in Aiofe O’Donovan’s startlingly lovely new album In the Magic Hour. No, she’s not following in Smith’s punk-rock vocal-guitar shredding wake. But she does share Smith’s rare gift of waving deeply personal meditations in her lyrics a la Steve ...
BELLOWHEAD – The Farewell Tour (Navigator NAVIGATOR095X)
Bellowhead are really going out in style. The Farewell Tour comes in a lavishly packaged hard-back book containing two CDs recorded at various venues across the first half of the tour and a DVD filmed at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester. The audio recording is superb, clear and crisp ...
NINEBARROW – Releasing The Leaves (own label)
Releasing The Leaves is the second album from Jon Whitley and Jay LaBouchardiere, aka Ninebarrow. Jon and Jay are from Dorset and the landscape and history of the county inform and inspire their songs and music. The first track, for example, is inspired by a 13th century chapel near Worth ...
4SQUARE – Fuel (Transition Records TRANSCD12)
It’s always tempting when hearing a band for the first time to try to put them into a stylistic box but you’ll try that with 4Square at your peril. Fuel is actually their fourth album but their first as fully-fledged professionals and, although they may be well-known in the Manchester ...
AMY GODDARD – Secret Garden (own label AGSG42016)
Amy Goddard has been feeding me singles from Secret Garden for a couple of months now so I’m familiar with three of these songs, although it is true that they sound different in the context of a complete album. The record begins in Amy’s typical style: optimistic songs accompanied by ...
KELLY OLIVER – Bedlam (Folkstock FSR25)
Releasing her debut album, This Land, at the tail end of 2014, barely a year after making her first appearance on the folk circuit, the distinctively pure, trebly-voiced North Hertfordshire based singer-songwriter clearly doesn’t believe in letting the grass grow under her feet. She returns now with an even more ...
SINGLES BAR
A round-up of recent EPs and singles His first new material since 2012 album Seven Songs, HENRY SPARKS releases the aptly titled Latest Waxing, an EP of five acoustic tracks sung in his distinctive swallowed vocals style. Incorporating lines from Blake’s poem, the tumbling ‘While We Were Building Jerusalem’, accompanied ...
GREG RUSSELL & CIARAN ALGAR – The Silent Majority (Fellside FECD275)
I have to say that this album represents everything that folk music should be about. There is tradition, there is musical invention and evolution of the tradition and there is the sort of protest on which the revival was based. The opener is ‘Prologue’, ethereal, other-worldly sounds that morph into ...
EDDI READER – The Best Of Eddi Reader (Reveal REVEAL059CDX)
The Best Of Eddi Reader is quite a tall order given the span of time and styles it must encompass – from bright late-80s pop through the soulful solo albums and the Robert Burns collection to her role as an elder statesperson of Scottish music who can take any direction ...
CATHRYN CRAIG AND BRIAN WILLOUGHBY – In America (Cabritunes CAB008)
It’s difficult to write about In America, the latest album by Virginia-born singer Cathryn Craig and the British guitarist Brian Willoughby without sounding like a fan girl to the nth degree. Many a night I’ve been in that state somewhere between awake and asleep with Craig’s rhapsodic vocals accompanied by ...
LOTUS WIGHT – Lotus Wight’s Ode To The Banjo (own label LW001)
Lotus Wight is one third of Sheesham & Lotus & ‘Son, banjo player and inventor of the contrabass harmoniphonium – that’s the fearsome device he’s sporting on the cover. Unlike some of trio’s work this is essentially a serious album and the ode of the title is a poem outlining ...
RIVERS OF ENGLAND – Astrophysics Saved My Life (Folkwit Records F0132)
The first time I listened to Astrophysics Saved My Life I didn’t get it. The second time through I couldn’t understand my problem and the third time … well, I was with it. Rivers Of England are a philosophical scientific folk-rock band led by songwriter Rob Spalding. They enjoy a ...
MAZ O’CONNOR – The Longing Kind (Restless Head RHCD 101)
Her third album in four years, this is also the Barrow-in-Furness singer-songwriter’s first to comprise solely of self-penned, non-traditional material. It’s also a concept album of sorts in that, exploring the tensions and conflicts of a young woman living in London, it’s ordered like a three-act play, opening with songs ...
NORRIE MCCULLOCH – These Mountain Blues (Black Dust BDR1601)
Sounding like Martyn Joseph with a Glaswegian accent (notably on jaunty opener ‘Calico Days’ and the more reflective piano ballad ‘Hard To Be The Man You Are Not’), the Scottish singer-songwriter took to the road from Austin to Nashville, including a visit to the grave of Townes van Zandt (recounted ...
JACK AND THE’ – Melody Cycle (Folkwit Records FO129)
Jack and The' is the brainchild of composer/ singer/ multi-instrumentalist Julien Longchamp and Melody Cycle has been a long time coming. It’s a bit of a monster featuring fifteen musicians in addition to the six-piece core band – and you have to love a brass group called Quintet Tarantino. This album ...
WEST OF EDEN – Look To The West (West of Music WOM CD9)
I don’t know which impresses me more, the Swedish sextet’s music or the fact they inhabit their chosen genres so authentically you’d believe they were native born. Led vocally by Martin and Jenny Schaub and featuring accordion, fiddle and guitars, their 2012 Safe Crossing album was a collection of salty ...
ROBERT LANE – Ends And Starts (own label)
Robert Lane is a singer/songwriter/guitarist from Birmingham. He’s been paying his dues for a while, rubbing shoulders with some big names and now he has released his second album. Ends And Starts is short, just seven tracks, and has the feeling of a Robert Lane sampler as he sets out ...
EDWARD II – Presents Manchester’s Improving Daily (Cadiz Music E2MID1819)
Starting life as a series of pop up gigs by the city’s acclaimed folk/roots reggae outfit and other artists constructed round the Manchester Ballads, a collection of thirty five broadside ballads dating from the industrial revolution which, collected by two local folk music enthusiast historians, was published, with backing from ...
PAULA RYAN – Let Me Fly (own label)
Paula Ryan doesn’t actually defy convention but she resists it quite firmly. It begins with her instruments - she plays guitar, but who doesn’t? Bouzouki, bodhran, djembe and darabuka, too, saxophone, whistle and marimba, which is the first instrument we hear. Then there are the songs; English and Irish, wryly ...
APPLEWOOD ROAD – Applewood Road (Gearbox GB1531)
Those for whom the highlight of the Oh Brother soundtrack was the coming together of Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch will undoubtedly have been disappointed that no further recordings by the trio followed. This album is for them. Meeting for the first time in the autumn of 2014, within ...
CARLY DOW – Ingrained (own label CDOW-001)
A press release that cites Gillian Welch, Neko Case and Amelia Curran is going to immediately attract my attention. I’ve been disappointed in similar circumstances to find no trace of the supposed influences, but that’s not the case with this debut album from the Manitoba born songstress. Welch is the ...
SHEESHAM & LOTUS & ‘SON – 78rpm (Sepiaphone Records SPR006)
If you like your Americana to sound old and authentic you’re gonna love this. The Ontario trio recorded these twenty-one songs during their most recent visit to Britain and now, I’m afraid, we have to deal with the technical stuff. The record was recorded in single takes on a 1938 ...
SINGLES BAR
A round-up of recent EPs and singles ‘Grateful’ is the first single from the album …And Lo! The Bird Is On The Wing from Scottish singer-songwriter BLUE ROSE CODE also known as Ross Wilson. The lead track is a languid jazz-inflected piece and that’s followed by the more up-tempo ‘Midnight’s ...
JEZ HELLARD & THE DJUKELLA ORCHESTRA – Heavy Wood (Djukella Records JDHCD002)
It seems a long time since Jez Hellard’s last album, Blood & Honey, and it is, in fact, almost four years although it has benefited from a reissue since then. I like that album but I have to say that Heavy Wood is truly magnificent. Jez describes it as a ...
HAMISH NAPIER – The River (Strathspey Records SRCD001)
The River in question is the Spey, beloved of fishermen and whisky drinkers the world over. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Hamish Napier was brought up on its banks and has, quite naturally, chosen it as the subject of his debut solo album. You might expect something pretty and pastoral from this ...
IAIN MACFARLANE – Gallop To Callop (Old Laundry Productions OLP005)
Iain MacFarlane is a former member of Blazin’ Fiddles and he’s recruited a few old friends to play on Gallop To Callop, his debut solo album. There’s Ewen Henderson, formerly of Battlefield Band, former Altan melodeon player Dermot Byrne, Breabach’s Megan Henderson, Ewan Robertson and James Lindsay, pianist/flautist Hamish Napier ...
JEB BARRY – Milltown (DollyRocker DR2015-1)
Barry grew up and still lives in a mill town in the Berkshire hills of rural Massachusetts, so he knows of what he sings when, on ‘Milltown #2’, he talks about how, in his daddy’s day you could find honest pay before the 80s came and everything changed, destroying hope ...
MALCOLM HOLCOMBE – Another Black Hole (Gypsy Eyes Music)
Having released The RCA Sessions retrospective re-recordings last year, Holcombe makes a swift return with a 10 song set of brand new material, recorded in Nashville with regular collaborators Jared Tyler (dobro, baritone guitar, banjo, mandolin), Dave Roe (bass), Ken Coomer (drums), swamp legend Tony Joe White (electric guitar), drumitar ...
BOREAS – Ahoy Hoy (Isle Music ISLE04CD)
Ahoy Hoy is the debut album from Boreas, the latest expression of Scandi-Scottish music fusion. Britt Pernille Frøholm and Irene Tillung represent the Scandinavian side while Lori Watson and Rachel Newton wave the saltire for the Caledonian contingent. An all-female, mostly string line-up – including Hardanger fiddle and electroharp – ...
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