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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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
DAVID CARROLL AND FRIENDS – Bold Reynold (Talking Elephant TECD483)
When you see “and friends” in a billing you tend to think of a group of worthy but unknown local musicians. On Bold Reynold, however, the friends include three Gryphons: Dave Oberle, Brian Gulland and Graeme Taylor; two Fairports: Chris Leslie and Dave Pegg plus Lucy Cooper and Tom Spencer ...
DAN HARTLAND & THE BRINK – Haywire (own label)
Since releasing Great Novels two years ago, Hartland has gained both a beard and a new band: bassist Marko Miletic, percussionist, producer and arranger Sean Lloyd and, from local electro pop outfit Grand Valise, providing synths, keys, guitars and backing vocals, Andy Miles and Becky Pickin introducing non-acoustic instrumentation for ...
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Sea Song Sessions (Topic TSCD612)
Sea Song Sessions is a self-explanatory title...except that it isn’t quite so simple. The project grew out of a commission to put together a maritime-themed show for Folkestone Festival. It features five well-known names: Jon Boden, Emily Portman, Seth Lakeman, Jack Rutter and the distinctive voice of Ben Nicholls of ...
ANNIE BALL, BRONWEN DAVIES-JONES, GARETH DAVIES-JONES and KATIE TERTELL – Howay The Lasses Vol 1 (own label)
A thematic companion piece to the new album by Rachel Walker and Aaron Jones, while they celebrate women in Scottish history, Howay The Lasses highlights and honours the contributions made to society by women from the collective’s native (or in the case of ex-pat American Tertell, adopted) North East. An ...
LADY MAISERY – Tender (own label LMCD05)
With all that happens in their individual careers it must be difficult for Hazel Askew, Hannah James and Rowan Rheingans to make time to work together as Lady Maisery. In fact, Tender comes six years after its predecessor and that’s a long time in the lives of young musicians. The ...
THE MAGPIE ARC – Glamour In The Grey (Collective/Perspective CP4FORCD)
A cross-border quintet comprising Nancy Kerr, Martin Simpson, Findlay Napier, Alex Hunter and Tom Wright evoking folk rock from the late 1960s and early 1970s, given an at times progrock feel with electronic soundscapes, Glamour In The Grey is their much anticipated full-length debut, and a stridently impressive beast it ...
KEEPING IT LIVE: KIEFER SUTHERLAND and FINES LINES at Hull Asylum
Kiefer Sutherland’s tour reached Hull Asylum last Thursday. You may know of Sutherland as a famous actor who has gone into music, so let’s clear one thing immediately, Sutherland’s music is no vanity project. He deserves be on this kind of stage as a songwriter, a player and a performer ...
ROBIN JAMES HURT – And We For One Another (own label)
Robin James Hurt’s And We For One Another is an Irish folk (and beyond!) album of traditional songs, a few covers, and self-penned instrumentals that echoes the idiosyncratic singer-songwriter sound of the very progressive folk scene in the early 70’s. The great John Martyn, with his penchant for lovely songs ...
PAUL M COX – Sunset Over Stillwater (White Elephant Records WER 029)
It’s fascinating how an artist who has been around for a while heaves to on your horizon even though you’ve been oblivious to their existence. As I recall, Paul M Cox emailed us to ask if we’d like to hear his new album, Sunset Over Stillwater. Naturally we eagerly accepted ...
ELIZA CARTHY & THE RESTITUTION – Queen Of The Whirl (Hem Hem Records)
Following in Kate Rusby’s footsteps, Carthy has celebrated her 30 years in the business with Queen Of The Whirl, an album of new recordings, featuring her live band (Saul Rose, David Delarre, Phil Alexander, Ben Seal, Willy Molleson), from songs across her illustrious career, initially released as four EPs and ...
EWAN MACFARLANE – Milk (Royale Stag Records)
Ewan MacFarlane’s Milk is a brilliant soul-roots rock album which showcases EM’s honeyed asteroid vocals and clever songwriting. This record is a long-playing love letter to his wife Jo, and is brimful with (Thank you, John Martyn!) ample “grace and danger”. The title track, ‘Milk’, begins with a gritty guitar ...
ELIZA DELF – Into The Wilderness (Peace In The Head EJDC001)
A Norwich-based folk-noir singer-songwriter inspired by the subversive folk tales of Angela Carter and whose vocal range has drawn comparisons to Kate Bush, Into The Wilderness, produced by Jon Loomes, is Delf’s debut album, the songs featuring the usual drums, guitar and bass but also more orchestral colours from brass, ...
THE CARRIVICK SISTERS – Illustrated Short Stories (own label CARRICKSCD10)
It’s been nine years since Devon twin sisters duo Charlotte and Laura released their last studio album. And, with its mix of American bluegrass and English folk influences and featuring only the siblings, Illustrated Short Stories is a fine reminder of what we’ve been missing in the interim. Released with ...
BROOKS WILLIAMS & DAN WALSH – Fortune By Design (own label BWDW-01)
As they vie for the position of the man who’ll play with anybody (a title previously held by John Kirkpatrick) there has been surprise that Brooks Williams and Dan Walsh haven’t gone head to before now. After all, acoustic guitar and clawhammer banjo are natural bedfellows and the chaps sing ...
LUKE DANIELS – The Cobhers (Gael GAELCD022)
Luke Daniels is a restless spirit. Each time I see or hear him, he’s doing something almost diametrically opposite to his previous project, and we’re never quite sure where the next dalliance will take him. I remember the embarrassment of his struggle with the clockwork polyphon machine that refused to ...
RAGGED UNION – Round Feet, Chrome Smile (Shining Castle Music)
Ragged Union released their new album Round Feet, Chrome Smile recently. It has nine tracks, mostly written by Geoff Union. The band are from Boulder County, Colorado, formed about ten years ago. I need to make this point pedantically for UK readers to highlight that it would otherwise be easy ...
JANICE BURNS & JON DORAN – No More The Green Hills (own label JBJD002)
She from Glasgow, he from Gloucestershire and both now based in Newcastle, former finalists for the 2019 Young Folk Award, the duo now make their album debut, No More The Green Hills, bringing her mandolin, piano, tenor guitar, piano and his bouzouki, acoustic, and fiddle, the pair both playing harmonium, ...
SINGLES BAR 83 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
TALMORNEY is 50ish Forest of Dean folk artist Matthew Macer-Wright who, inspired by the likes of The Unthanks, Vaughan Williams, June Tabor, Tori Amos and Natalie Merchant, has been drawn to compose new music to a collection of anonymous seventeenth century ballads (adapted from David Stell's pamphlet ‘Ballads and Music ...
CATFISH KEITH – Still I Long To Roam (FTRCD020)
Still I Long To Roam is Catfish Keith’s new album, his 21st album in a long and acclaimed career. He’s still winning awards – in 2022, he’s won the Blues Blast Music Awards for Best Acoustic Blues Album (for Land Of The Sky) and Best Acoustic Guitar. He still deserves ...
BREABACH – Fàs (Breabach Records BRE007CD)
Breabach’s Fàs is a miorbhuileach (aka wonderful!) Scottish folk album that avoids the commercial big shops on Princes Street. Rather, it strolls down the backstreets of Edinburgh, enjoys a Belhaven pint (or two!), contemplates a walk onto heights of Arthur’s Seat, and then conjures the beauty of the Firth of ...
SAMUEL JAMES TAYLOR – Wild Tales And Broken Hearts (own label)
Samuel James Taylor released Wild Tales And Broken Hearts on October 21st. You can’t help but look favourably on an album by a man who a) adds Samuel so he doesn’t appear cocky in the folk world b) has been in the music business for twenty years getting support from ...
WORDS OF A FIDDLER’S DAUGHTER – The Tears Of Jenny Greenteeth (Under The Eaves UTE 006)
Where to start? “This is a tale from a time younger than ours, where love and forgiveness triumphantly overcome fear, sadness and greed”, says Jessie Summerhayes in her sleeve notes. It would be easy to say that The Tears Of Jenny Greenteeth is typical of Words Of A Fiddler’s Daughter ...
JAMES KEELAGHAN – Second-Hand (Borealis Records BCD276)
James Keelaghan’s Second-Hand is yet another collection of brilliant songs that, somehow, ventures into a folk music fourth dimension where hope, tragedy, psychological insight, literary metaphor, and intense beauty are compressed into a continuous magical melody. For the initiate: Canadian James Keelaghan is a Juno Award winner. Not only that, ...
PAULINE VALLANCE – The World’s A Gift (own label PV002)
A singer/songwriter and clarsach (Gaelic harp) player from Ayrshire, The World’s A Gift, her third album, produced by and featuring James Grant, explores the theme of legacy, sparked by the loss of both parents within a year of each other and having to go through the stuff left behind. That ...
CORACLE – Murmuration (Tam Records)
As Murmuration is Coracle’s first album, I didn’t know what to expect from it. All I knew was what the accompanying publicity told me, and that suggested it was going to be a bit different. To start, Coracle consists of three very different musicians who came together remotely during lockdown, ...
STEELEYE SPAN – Live At The Rainbow Theatre 1974 (Chrysalis CRVX1485)
You may have noticed that, earlier this year, Chrysalis released the definitive collection of Steeleye Span’s albums from 1972 to 1983, regarded by many as their heyday. As bonuses, the box included three live albums and the second of these is Live At The Rainbow Theatre 1974. This is the ...
CHRIS WHILE AND JULIE MATTHEWS – Women Of The World (FatCat FATCD047)
The longest surviving UK female duo (and also with their own solo careers), as the title suggests their latest album, the songs of Women Of The World, initially switching between the two, is a celebration of women power and of those who have inspired them across the years, just as ...
DAN WHITEHOUSE – Voices From The Cones (WTK 002)
Dan Whitehouse continues his glass sequence with Voices From The Cones, a song cycle based on stories from the glass-making industry of Stourbridge. The song cycle became a live show and this double-CD set presents both forms: the songs and the complete show with John Edgar’s narration. I do believe ...
THE MAGPIES – Undertow (Gilded Lily GLWCD 18)
Since the release of their debut album two years ago, Polly Bolton has flown the nest to be replaced by clawhammer banjo player Kate Griffin alongside founder members Bella Gaffney) guitar, double bass) and Holly Brandon (fiddle), making her presence felt both as performer and songwriter. Indeed Undertow opens with ...
SUE HARDING – Darkling (own label)
Sue Harding lives in Somerset and has been writing, playing and singing for quite a while now in several guises including Angel Ridge and Harding McCabe. Darkling is her second solo album, written during lockdown and supported by producer Josh Clark with cello by Beth Porter on two tracks. I ...
STEVE PLEDGER – What Tomorrow Knows album launch (Durham Town Hall, 6th October 2022)
Steve Pledger is the perfect example of modern protest singer, enriching his songs with clarity of thought, sublime guitar skills and the ability to hold the attention of the listener. His is not music for the background. His inspirations include Billy Bragg, Martyn Joseph and Bruce Cockburn and, as such, ...
DAPHNE PARKER POWELL – The Starter Wife (Pleasure Loves Company)
One of the year’s most intriguing titles, The Starter Wife, Louisiana-based Powell’s sixth album comes in the wake of a painful divorce and arrives awash with themes of grief, betrayal, co-dependency, abandonment, and personal worth as she addresses the process of dismantling the darkness that engulfed her and refusing to ...
ANGELINE MORRISON – The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs Of The Black Experience (Topic TSCT611)
Released to mark Black History Month, produced by Eliza Carthy, who also arranged the strings and plays violin, with Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne on anglo concertina and melodeon, the Cornwall-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist calls The Sorrow Songs ‘re-storying’. Which is to say it seeks to reclaim the stories of people in the ...
SAM SWEENEY – Escape That (Hudson Records HUD032CD)
Some artists raise expectations. They inspire confidence that anything with their name on it, is going to be good. For me, Sam Sweeney is such an artist, and I’m happy to report that Escape That didn’t disappoint. Not that I’m saying that this is a predictable album, because it feels ...
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Plúirín Na mBan – A Woman’s Love (Cló Iar-Chonnachta CICD091)
Think back thirty years and you may remember A Woman’s Heart, the album and the song that launched Eleanor McEvoy’s career. Plúirín Na mBan - A Woman’s Love is not a sequel, although there was one, and is an entirely different concept. Originally released in 1993 with tracks dating back ...
THE WATERSONS - Frost And Fire (Topic Records)
Like all stems, branches, and ancient roots search for all the circulus melodies of fallen Eden, the Watersons’ Frost And Fire songs are about the cycle of death and rebirth that have been “frosted” and “fired” in both pagan magic and christen ritual. And thank you, Lal, Mike, Norma and ...
POLLY PAULUSMA–The Pivot On Which The World Turns (Wild Sound)
Polly Paulusma’s new album, The Pivot On Which The World Turns, is a lovely labyrinth with enough melodic twists and feminine turns to make any inhabiting Minotaur grin and, despite his rather shady past, offer up a clever tune of his own design. This album has that kind of power ...
THE PITMAN POETS – Bare Knuckle (own label)
As The Pitman Poets embark on their second farewell tour (probably not worth asking) they release a new album, Bare Knuckle. For the uninitiated, the Poets are Billy Mitchell, Bob Fox, Benny Graham and Jez Lowe; three string players and an accordionist with Mitchell adding harmonica. All four, as you’ve ...
THE VILLAGE – The Bells Of St. Wystan’s (own label)
Phil Matthews a.k.a. The Village is a man rooted in the land and legends of his home region – the rural East Midlands. Superficially, The Bells Of St. Wystan’s would seem to be more of the same but Phil is no Tolkien wannabe nor a “hello sky, hello trees” type ...
THOMAS BULL – A Fast Running Train Whistles Down (own label)
Sometimes a record appears out of the blue that has the potential to be very important. Thomas Bull has recorded seven Woody Guthrie songs; not reworked them exactly but freshened them up for the 21st century in other ways. A Fast Running Train Whistles Down is a chapter title from ...
BARRY NISBET – The Springbank Voyage (Rattle Rig RRIG221)
In 1908, five Shetlanders joined the crew of Clyde-built 4-mast sailing barque, the Springbank, headed via the dread Cape Horn to Mexico. For Barry Nisbet, this boyhood tale (storyteller Lawrence Tulloch is generously sampled) has more personal connections. For Shetlander Nisbet has also sailed these same Pacific seas. It’s what ...
SINGLES BAR 82 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles
Featuring producer Pete Ord on guitar and bass, Kath Ord and violin and viola, pianist Jen Ord and Archie Moss on melodeon, 2019 Young Folk Awards winner queer folk singer-songwriter and interpreter, MADDIE MORRIS makes her studio recording debut with Upstream (Haystack HAYCD105), opening with ‘Down By The Greenwood Side’, ...
SPROATLY SMITH – River Wye Suite (own label)
Sproatly Smith’s River Wye Suite, despite Heraclitus’s contention that “No man ever steps in the same river twice”, certainly drinks from the same sourced waters into which John Lennon suggested we should “Turn off your Mind/Relax and float downstream”. Indeed, “Tomorrow Never” (ever) “Knows”. This is dreamy and sometimes dark ...
DROPKICK MURPHYS – This Machine Still Kills Fascists (Dummy Luck Music)
The title, of course, refers to the slogan Woody Guthrie sported on his guitar and, following the path of Bragg and Wilco, This Machine Still Kills Fascists, an all acoustic recording, comprises unpublished lyrics collected by frontman Ken Casey from the archives and set to music to form ten songs ...
STEVE PLEDGER – What Tomorrow Knows (Noisy Dog Records NDCD03)
Every so often, an album comes along and hits you like a tsunami! This has happened to me this week when I have had the honour of doing the first review of Steve Pledgers long awaited new album – What Tomorrow Knows. It was a download (but did not detract ...
CROCK OF BONES – Celtic Crossbones (own label)
Crock of Bones are a North London band and, with a growing and increasingly acclaimed set of live performances behind them, have recently released Celtic Crossbones, their first full-length CD. Until I heard the CD, the band were unknown to me, but this is one of the times when you ...
JENNIFER CROOK – The Broken Road Back Home (Transatlantic Roots)
Based in Bath, conceived during the pandemic, former Radio 2 Young Tradition finalist and harpist, The Broken Road Back Home is the pure-voiced Crook’s fifth album, her first in five years, although some of the songs have been awaiting an appropriate home for a decade, recorded live in the studio, ...
RANAGRI – Tradition II (own label)
Ranagri are an Anglo-Irish folk band who stretch the boundaries of what folk music is, so it may be surprising that Tradition II is the follow-up to previous album Tradition. This ten track album takes traditional songs, some more well known than others, but puts the Ranagri stamp onto every ...
GEOFF MULDAUR – His Last Letter: The Amsterdam Project (Moon River Music)
While his ex-wife Maria may be better known, primarily on account of her 1973 hit ‘Midnight At The Oasis’, and more prolific in terms of albums, Geoff Muldaur has arguably had the more successful if low profile career, as songwriter and composer, ranging through folk, blues and jazz (he recorded ...
KEEPING IT LIVE – Banterfest 2022 – Mike Wistow reports
Banterfest 2022 – or ‘The First Annual Banterfest’ as it may well come to be known – was held in Welbourn, Lincolnshire, from September 16th – 18th. It’s reckoned that about 40 people saw the Sex Pistols in Manchester Free Trade Hall in June 1976 ….. but thousands of punks ...
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