The Frog, The Mouse, The Ship, The Cabin Boy is a new 100 copies limited edition EP (FreakFolk) from the endearingly and uniquely breathily voiced (think Kate Bush meets Shirley Henderson) London-based Italian-Australian alt folk singer BITY BOOKER. It comprises her take on two traditional numbers, the first, also included on the Sing Yonder 2 collection, is ‘The Frog And The Mouse’ aka ‘Froggie Went A-Courtin’’, which, while generally seen as a children’s song, has a darker, bloodier side, opening with an animals’ wedding party and ending with moggie murder and funeral bells, the version here including the reference to Cheshire cheese introduced by dairy farmer Leslie Haworth in the 1950s. The other is the waltzing rhythm ‘The Weep Willow Tree’ a variant of and better known as Lowlands Low or, more rarely, ‘The Weeping Willow Tree’, about a cabin boy aboard the Weeping Willow who follows his captain’s orders to sink a Spanish galleon only to be thrown overboard by his captain when he demands his reward.
www.bitybooker.bandcamp.com
Taken from his upcoming album, Luv In The New World, JOE NOLAN releases a single. ‘Wake Up Sleepy Anna’. The album is the story of a fictional princess who, says Nolan, represents hope in a time of darkness. The arrangement is very rich and smooth and the song is very Bob Dylan.
www.joenolanmusic.com
Comprising Ruth Clinton from Landless and Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody, POOR CREATURE are a new Northern Irish trio specialising in re-interpreting songs from the past within a contemporary context. A taster for their debut album, ‘The Whole Town Knows’ (River Lea Records) is an old Ray Lynam and Philomena Begley number which they’ve transformed from being about cheating hearts to an environmental metaphor for the climate crisis and comes with a distinct echoes of The Cranberries.
www.riverlea.bandcamp.com/album/all-smiles-tonight
The wonderful Utah Phillips wrote ‘I Will Not Obey’ purely as a poem and released it in 1999. Now ERIN INGLISH has produced her own setting and arrangement, turning it into a song for today. It opens with “The new ruling party is holding the aces”. Sounds familiar but that is, literally, just the beginning. At its heart it predicts a revolution but warns us about book burning and “the new state police”. Essential listening.
www.erininglish.com
Not intending to release anything in the near future, when the song came along LUKE JACKSON found ‘Ask Twice’ (First Take) demanding to be heard. Stripped down and sensitively and simply fingerpicked, his voice full of cracked emotion, addressing mental health issues it comes from a deeply personal space regarding a friend and is about always double-checking if, when someone tells you they’re doing ok, you think they may just be putting on a brave front.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=97V0XHT18RQ
In advance of his new album, Dreamers Dawn, SAM KELLY releases the title track as a single. He is supported by Jamie Francis and The Lost Boys – that banjo sound is unmistakeable – and there is an absolutely gorgeous acoustic guitar break towards the end. The song itself is a celebration of music festivals; “to wage war on conformism and monochrome”. Definitely a song for the summer.
https://www.samkelly.com/
THE OLD CROW ROAD are a trio from the East coast of Yorkshire comprising vocalist Rachel Evans-Haigh, violinist Tracey Beardsmore and Rob Stott on guitars and mandolin. Forming last summer, they’ve just released their first single, their take on the traditional ‘When The Mountains Cry’ which is best described as sounding like The Band doing a cocktail of Hedy West’s ‘500 Miles’ and ‘Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie. Which should be recommendation enough for anyone.
www.theoldcrowroad.com
In advance of a new EP, Chester-based singer-songwriter CLARA DAY releases a single, ‘This Wretched Thing’. Clara mixes a love of mediaeval music and old horror films. She has been favourably compared to Vashti Bunyan but she also displays the story-telling style of ‘Wuthering Heights’. Simple and beautifully arranged the song’s haunting quality promises much.
https://www.facebook.com/ClaraDayOfficial/
German songstress and woodwind player Karen Pfeiffer is doing double duty to mark VE Day, as one third of Michell, Pfeiffer and Kulesh she’s not only featured on the trio’s ‘My Love’s In Germany’ single, lifted from the Flowers EP but also on ‘The Mine’ in her partner duo PAUL WALKER & KAREN PFEIFFER. Written in 1983 by iconic German songsmith Hannes Wader and translated into English for the first time, it tells the story of a soldier who happens to step on a landmine during or after some unnamed war and, telling his comrades to get out of harm’s way is left to make a fateful decision (“If I stay rooted to the spot then all might still be well/But if I shift my foot an inch, then I’ll be blown to hell”). Framed by Pfeiffer speaking parts of the original German lyrics, it continues with Walker singing the verses in English as his situation becomes a metaphor for something much bigger “that out there, standing on a mine, are millions, just like me…I’m still standing on a mine, but now I’m not alone”. www.paulwalkerkarenpfeiffer1.bandcamp.com/track/the-mine
Speaking of which, MICHELL, PFEIFFER AND KULESH’s single, ‘My Love’s In Germany’, released to mark the anniversary of VE Day, is a cracker. Karen Pfeiffer takes the lead vocal part and plays what looks like a musical drainpipe but is actually a Mollenhauer Comfort tenor recorder, Odette Michell plays guitar and Daria Kulesh plays bodhran. They are supported by Katrina Davies’ fiddle and their vocal harmonies are complemented by a big instrumental sound when they let fly.
https://www.odettemichell.com/mpk
A song about discovering the person you love has been unfaithful, Leeds Americana blues singer EMILIA QUINN catches the pain and rawness of the betrayal in the self-released slow burn soulful sway ‘Call Me By Her Name’ but also the wanting to have one more night together before they leave for good as, a companion to Hannah Aldridge’s ‘Lie Like You Love Me’, she sings “I would do anything to be more like here” and John Doyle’s electric guitar launches into a searing solo.
https://www.emiliaquinnmusic.com
From her just-released new album When They All Looked Up KATE RUSBY releases a second single, ‘Today Again’. A lush arrangement supports a characteristic Rusby vocal exuding optimism with a warning to enjoy the moment because it won’t come again.
www.katerusby.com
A swift follow up to last year’s collaboration with Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart, MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER returns with ‘Bitter Ender’, the lead single from her first and heavily autobiographical solo studio album in five years, a strummed, steady rhythm number about clinging to a relationship and magical thinking long after you’ve run out of rope and it’s all gone up in smoke as she sings “I’ve always gone down with the ship/I’ve never known when it’s time to quit/As defiant as well as defender/I’m a bitter ender”.
www.marychapincarpenter.com
The sound of the wind across the moor introduces ‘Making Memories On The Pennine Way’, a new single by BEN AVISON, a sincere recollection of the pathway by a man who has been forced away by economic necessity. The song is pretty and simply arranged but with the addition of a contrasting voice, his father, Jon Avison, reciting some of the lyrics and celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the path.
https://www.benavison.co.uk/
Unashamedly channelling their inner MacColl and MacGowan, SKINNY LISTER trail their upcoming Songs From The Yonder (Xtra Mile) album with the title track which, set to a swaying Celtic shanty arrangement has Dan and Lorna trading and sharing vocals on a number about longing and returning from distant travels to where your heart is, putting petty disagreements behind you and embracing the things that connect us.
www.skinnylister.com
If you’re into line dancing (is it still a thing?) you’ll love ‘Honky Tonk In Iowa’, the new single by KATY & THE HONKY TONKS. It has all the tropes: a solid beat, a yee-hah lead vocal and some Duane Eddy guitar and is taken from their debut album, Ain’t No Shame. Guess what, they’re from Iowa.
https://www.katieandthehonkytonks.net/
After singing the praises on TV presenter Henry Cole, accompanying himself on uke, CHEERY ODIN returns with the amusing ‘I Never Got Tae Hear The Story’, about the “things ee wudnae want teh ken gan oan ahint thae doors” after-hours in the local pub The Monkey (in actuality The Ewe and Lamb) where, called on for a song, he thought he’d have a go at a sort of Hawick dialect rap but how, drink taking a hold of her, he never got to hear the end of the tale by the woman who “wanted teh hing the dirty linen oot teh dry the dirty washing”.
www.cheeryodin.bandcamp.com
A former contestant on Norway’s version of The Voice, ODIN BRENNHAUG self-releases ‘Name’ which, co-penned by Mississippi’s Taylor Craven and producer Bjoern Nilsen (from Nilsen’s Southern Harmony, is a dusty drawled laid back acoustic guitar, piano and harmonica tinted Americana ballad about the importance of your legacy, family, reputation and your word. An assured debut with an emotional edge, this is another solid example of how Scandinavia can take on Nashville at its own game.
https://www.facebook.com/people/Odin-Brennhaug/100004887077073/?_rdr
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