WOMEN OF FOLK are four fine voices: Lizzie Hardingham, Linda Moylan, Louise Hatch and Rebecca Mileham. Their new EP is Live At The Water Rats, formerly The Pindar Of Wakefield, which also hosts shows by Green Note.
Their set comprises five well-known songs beginning with ‘Fare Thee Well’ a stunning vocal performance from Linda backed by a gentle rippling guitar accompaniment. That is followed by Joan Baez’s autobiographical ‘Diamonds & Rust’ led by Louise with Rebecca’s haunting violin for decoration. Baez’s version always seems rather polite but Louise doesn’t make that mistake. Rebecca takes the lead on ‘Chelsea Morning’ – a reading rather more robust than Fairport’s.
Lizzie leads ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes’ with jangling guitars including the non-woman Dan Montague supporting her. Finally, the ensemble pile in together for the single ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’, a soft and gentle take enriched by striking harmonies. This is, by any measure, a knockout.
https://womenoffolkmusic.com/
Hailing from Warwick, ALKEVAN line up as songwriters Alan Harvey, formerly of Tanglefoot UK, guitarist Kevin Moffat and bassist Richard Norris with Matilda Harvey on violin. Doing the rounds since 2012, Songs For Marie is, with two credits apiece, their new self-released EP, Moffat’s waltzing, growlingly sung strummed title track kicking it off with a childhood memory love letter to the titular never identified Marie, an older friend or care perhaps as he sings “The smell of sweet roses, no holes in my clothes/when are you coming to find me?/Walk me to school, show me the world- when are you going to teach me?”
Initially sung unaccompanied with solo and three part harmony. Harvey’s ‘The Mountain’ is a lovers’ reunion and life ahead together number with a lovely fiddle solo, while, opening with fiddle, the first from Norris is the bittersweet ‘Walk With Me’ (“Amazing times that we spent that are etched in my mind/Life keeps on moving I don’t want to leave you behind/I know that I must try but it’s so hard/When I don’t know why”) followed by his second, ‘The Mount’, a Celtic-shaded instrumental that starts out with melancholic fiddle before bodhran steps up the pace and rhythm. Slowing it down, penned by Harvey, ‘Bella’ is a gentle love song swayer with traditional styled lyrics about the protagonist spying a lass while out walking, offering to write her a song and the pair making music for the rest of their lives. The EP ends with Moffatt’s bluesily fingerpicked ‘Rough Waters’. another note of reflective nostalgia (“We sing the songs that our old grandmas sang/Songs of love and sadness old Australia/Sing them out loud, like the sailors would sing/Sittin’ on dock-side, where their lives might roll away”) and vocally overlapping ode to friendship and company (“And when you are well rested – you can be on your way/But if you want to stay here – you don’t need to leave today”). The vocals can feel a touch flat at times, but the overall listening experience is undeniably inviting.
www.alkevan.co.uk
Dickies Green Plaid Jacket, the new EP from ROGAN MEI, verges on country-pop (there’s some nice fiddle playing and some funky bass in there). Rogan is from Ontario and with typical Canadian generosity gives us seven tracks. The single, ‘Don’t Walk Away’, features the funky bass with electric guitar on top. The fiddle playing is particularly notable on the third track, ‘North’, an almost ghostly sound paired with fragile guitar which expands into a big finish – possibly the best track in the set. ‘Rushmore (So What)’ is up-tempo and impassioned.
Rogan found the titular jacket on his return from a firefighting season (that’s his day job): “It doesn’t fit me. It doesn’t suit me. It doesn’t even do its job particularly well. I realized the jacket had become a symbol for a lot of things in my life. People, memories, dreams, and versions of myself that no longer fit, but that I couldn’t seem to part with.” And with that you have the rationale of the record in a nutshell. ‘Don’t Look Back’ is close to rock with jangling guitar, solid drums and a classic lead break. Finally, ‘Lefroy’ could be about the mountain in Alberta but, more prosaically, it’s probably about the small town in Ontario, a memory from Rogan’s youth, no doubt. This EP makes for good listening except for the tendency to throw the kitchen sink at the songs when less would probably be more.
https://roganmei.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
MAURA DUNST is a fiddle player from Minneapolis noted for her work with The Foxgloves. For her solo project, Violin Songs, she set herself some rather restrictive rules: five cover versions performed on four violins and one voice (she cheats on the voice rule but only once).
The opening track is Cheryl Crow’s ‘Strong Enough’ and Maura’s strident vocals and sparce fiddle don’t depart too much from the original although it does sound not unlike an English fiddle song which is remarkable enough. Pizzicato violin introduces Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’ and then Maura overlays other parts drenching the song with strings while keeping it funky.
A cover of ‘Work Song’ is never the Runrig track. This is the song by Hozier and is a funky take with lots of space and handclap percussion. Maura doubles up her vocal on the chorus here. Brandi Carlisle’s ‘The Eye’ is the most minimal track – pizzicato violin doing as little as possible behind Maura’s voice. Her voice could support any of these songs a cappella or, indeed, fronting a powerful rock band as well as The Foxgloves’ country sound. Finally, we have probably the best known track, REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’, another mighty vocal performance.
https://www.mauradunst.com/
The Pinebox EP is the debut solo release by Dublin singer/songwriter DARREN FLYNN who combines Americana with a distinctive Irishness and some pretty neat guitar and banjo playing. There are only two tracks here so labelling it an EP might seem like a stretch although Darren’s (mostly) light voice and (mostly) spare accompaniments suggest that he understands that less is frequently more.
The lead track, ‘Pinebox’, is a biting summary of war so not a happy song – “they’ll put you in a pinebox and post you home” – but remarkably compelling for all that. Darren contrasts it with the bluesy ‘I Ain’t Gonna Worry About It’ which has something of the feel of a 30s string band and is definitely more cheerful.
https://www.facebook.com/Darrenaflynnmusic/?locale=en_GB
South London singer/songwriter JAMES O’HURLEY has just released a live acoustic EP, A Beggars Belief. James mixes up the styles so the opening ‘Devil Don’t Knock’ is built around a blues structure and makes for a powerful introduction to the set. In complete contrast is the single, ‘Roulette’, a big piano driven ballad. A salutary tale, as he says “the house will always win”. Track three is ‘Grace’ which is carried on what sounds like an electric piano – it has a brightness and clarity that you don’t get with a regular instrument. The set closes with ‘Helpless Hopeless’, an apocalyptic song although it isn’t clear whether this is a personal or a universal apocalypse. James may be a new name to many of us but he’s worth paying attention to.
https://www.topfloormusic.co.uk/
Holy is the debut EP by Irish singer/songwriter, DAVE LOFTS. Dave has a powerful voice and on the opening title track he really shakes the speaker cabinets. In fact, that applies to all six tracks on the record. Although not sounding particularly Irish, Dave feels Irish with the spirituality that pervades his music even when the subject is firmly secular as with ‘Drunk’. Dave brings his life story, including his time in the IDF, to his music which gives it an authenticity – even the fictional-sounding, ‘Mary’. Holy isn’t exactly easy listening but it is so compelling that you can’t ignore it.
www.davelofts.com
The lyrics capturing the rhythm and pressure of the race, ‘Cyclone’ (WTK), is a standalone non-album single from DAN WHITEHOUSE with Dave O’Brien to Marshall Walter “Major” Taylo. An American sprint champion, born in 1878, he set more than 20 world records despite enduring relentless racism and segregation both on and off the track making history as the second Black world champion in any sport and the first African-American to achieve a world championship in cycling. In his notes, Whitehouse wrote the song inspired by Taylor’s self-belief after learning that, at just 18, he was only Black competitor among 28 riders who participated in the Six Day Race at Madison Square Garden, completing 1732 miles on the 0.1 mile track and sleeping only one hour for every seven, all while being pushed and pulled by the other riders and taunted and jeered by the crowd.
www.dan-whitehouse.com
HECTOR GANNET from North Shields is both a he (Aaron Duff) and a they, in the sense of being a band. The strident folk-rock of the single, ‘The Mother Tongue’ suggests the latter. The cleverly constructed song was written in the midst of grief and is rich with brass and Aaron’s distinctive organ sound. It comes from their forthcoming album, The Great Shakedown, which has got to be worth a spin.
https://hectorgannet.com/
Born and raised in Jamaica, in Vermont not the Caribbean, CHRIS CLARK writes songs informed by back roads, small towns, old mistakes, chance meetings and the restless pull of the road. One such is his infectious steady walking rhythm, guitar twanging, harmonica blowing, nasally sung new single ‘I Suppose (Listen Here!)’ a duet with Hungrytown’s Rebecca Hall telling of a lonesome nobody drifting into Nowhere, USA to reconnect with an old flame (“you’ve been waiting in a faded, dated blue dress/I’ve been meaning to give you a call/And I’m trying to get back to South Dakota/It’s a wonder you’re still there at all”) and maybe outrun the past.
https://chrisclarkband.net
Leonard Cohen lives, at least in the person of Dublin-based singer/songwriter ADRIAN CROWLEY and his new single, ‘Quinn The Adventurer’. It’s the story of James Quinn (not his real name) who left Belfast in 1920 for a life of adventure. He worked as a film extra and was sentenced to a spell in Alcatraz before jumping bail and heading for south America. It’s a wonderfully laconic song accompanied by Crowley on guitar and mellotron,
https://www.adriancrowley.com/
A founding member of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, MIKE CAMPBELL & THE DIRTY KNOBS (a tech slang for a broken amp dial rather than some phallic reference) crank up the 12-string Rickenbacker to channel vintage The Byrds with ‘No Regrets’ (Soundly Music/Thirty Tigers), a tale about a character treated with scorn and, the wrong place at the wrong time, run out of their home town for a crime they never committed.
www.thedirtyknobs.com
There are two key words absent from ‘Make America’, the new single by CHARLOTTE MORRIS and I’m pleased to say that their absence pisses Google off something rotten. It’s a clever song performed without histrionics but it repays repeated listening as you tease out the lyrics and borrowed snatches of melody; “can I make America care again?” is just one example.
https://www.charlottemorrismusic.com/
Inspired by Denise Kiernan’s book of the same name, ELIZABETH COOK trails her new album with the Shooter Jennings-produced ‘Girls Of Atomic City’ (Thirty Tigers), a ringing guitars, drums thumping, Americana folk-rock tribute to the unsung women who worked on the Manhattan Project (many seen in the accompanying video), an empowering feminist cultural shift where they got to leave home for the first time and make their own money.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSY_FnIS7us
PEDAIR are back at work again recording a new album. As a taster comes a double single, ‘Neges Yn Y Tywod’ (Message In The Sand) and ‘Y Bachgen Glân’ (The Fair Lad). The former begins with shimmering harp and remains in a gentle mood with gorgeous harmonies. The latter is more up-tempo – a traditional tune with words based on Welsh myth written by Gwyneth Glyn. Apparently, it may be rather erotic!
https://www.pedair.cymru/en/cartref
For her contribution to this year’s 21st Century Folk for BBC Radio 2, KATHERINE PRIDDY has written ‘The Long Way Home’ (Cooking Vinyl) a nimbly fingerpicked, featheringly sung folksy song with puttering drums about Hannah Lancaster who was an elite cyclist and her sister’s carer before sustaining a brain injury in a crash. Now recovered, she’s training to be a fire-fighter and Priddy says the song is her attempt to capture the young woman behind everything, discovering herself on her path to recovery.
www.katherinepriddy.com
From the same project, John Parker on double bass, cast in a similar musical mood as ‘The Long Shot’, MEGSON self-release ‘Jackie Grealish’, a tribute to and sung in the voice of 61-year-old Jackie Freeman who, at 19 was scouted by the England ladies coach and asked to join the squad. However, without the bus fare to the training camp she had to turn it down. Forty years later she put her boots back on and now, midfielder for Redcar Town Ladies FC, is the oldest top level female footballer in the UK because, as they sing “If something lifts you up/When you’re feeling rough/You never give it up”.
www.megson.bandcamp.com/track/jackie-grealish
When Bob Dylan finally retires ROBYN HITCHCOCK will be waiting in the wings. ‘Yesterday’s Rain’ is the fourth single taken from his new album, The Confuser, and it’s pure Bob: powerful drums, racing electric guitar, clever if slightly opaque lyrics and a voice straight out of 1974. You may argue that it’s a long way from folk music but it’s damn good.
https://www.robynhitchcock.com/
She originally half of C86 outfit Jo & Danny, he frontman with 90s indie rock outfit Submarine, JO BARTLETT & NEIL HAYDOCK tee-up debut album North Sixteen (Through The Looking Glass) with ‘Let It Happen’, a summery shuffling, guitars jangling, coyly sung joy that, complete with spoken passage midway, conjures 80s folk pop.
www.jobartlett.bandcamp.com/album/north-sixteen
There is a flavour of Merry Hell (without the politics) about ‘Stand Up Tall’, the new single by Welsh folk/rockers RUSTY SHACKLE. Think folk-pop with added banjo, the song encourages perseverance and self-belief, a theme that is seemingly becoming more prevalent as the world goes to hell in a hand-cart.
https://www.rustyshackle.com/
The third taster from their highly anticipated upcoming album, Canadian duo Amy Lou Keeler and Lisa Maria, aka MAMA’S BROKE, release ‘Build It Up’ (Free Dirt Records), a bluegrassy banjo-dappled and fiddle flurrying meditation on memory, change, and the things worth holding onto, as, using the image of a green wood @hauled away’ to create a highway, they remind “If you don’t build it up, somebody else will tear it down”
www.mamasbroke.ca
Jangly guitar, a touch of steel and a spare arrangement characterise ‘Back At The Cabin’, the new single by Canadian singer/songwriter GORDIE TENTREES. Written on the porch of the titular cabin in Ontario it is a paean to the simple life: “Back at the cabin coffee tastes good/Bare feet sleep on wood” are the opening lines and you know where you are straight away.
https://www.tentrees.ca
The title track from her forthcoming album, her first in four years, MARY GAUTHIER releases the six-minute plus ‘Reckoning’ (Soundly Music/Thirty Tigers), a steady, darkly,strummed state of the nation/world co-write with Aaron Lee Tasjan she describes as “a meditation on a world at a breaking point where personal, political, and spiritual truths can no longer be ignored” urging to choose optimism over despair as there will be a dawn after the darkness. Growing increasingly muscular as the drums kick in, she drawls “a reckoning is beckoning and the old world is fading into black/You can cut down all the flowers, but you cannot stop the spring”.
www.marygauthier.com
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