On Tuesday 5 November the Official Charts Company, in partnership with English Folk Expo, revealed the Top 40 best-selling and most streamed folk albums released in the October reporting period in the UK by UK and Irish artists. The chart is first announced to the public on Tuesday 5 November at 7pm GMT as part of the Official Folk Albums Chart Show presented by Folk on Foot via their YouTube channel.
There are 10 new releases and a new No.1 in the October chart!
From exceeding a billion streams, being championed by Taylor Swift and playing shows with everyone from Coldplay to Stevie Nicks, Scottish singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt’s career has taken her from highlight to highlight. Yet the release of her new album Mountain Music (Apple Tree Records) which arrives at No. 1 in October’s chart, could well be her most significant release to date. Not only is it a record that leans into an accomplished and engaging new sound, but it’s also the first release via her new independent label.
Entering at No. 4 is Below A Massive Dark Land (Sub Pop/Memorials of Distinction) by Naima Bock. Most of the album’s songs started life very simply: Naima, alone in her grandmother’s shed in South London, wrote using only her voice, guitar and violin. Clash Music describe it as, “a beautiful record dominated by fading light and ominous shadows, it could well be your perfect Autumn soundtrack.”
New at No. 6 is A Thousand Pokes (From Here) from the East London outfit Stick In The Wheel. A record of wry urban folk, Nicola Kearney’s narrative casts a beady eye over those committing wrongs in plain sight. Kearney explains, “We sing these songs because we are the same people that would have sung them 200 years ago. It’s not a fantasy, or a cosplay, it’s a reality for us.”
Sometime During The Night We Fell Off The Map (Assai Recordings), the new album from Idlewild’s Roddy Woomble, lands at No. 11. Recorded in a 19th century church on the Isle of Mull, the new collection returns to the more acoustic, contemplative sound of his early solo releases after 2023’s electronic album Almost Nothing.
Parlour Ballads (Hudson), a piano-led mix of both stately and buoyant ballads that tie together parlour music and folk song from Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings, arrives at No. 12. The heyday of parlour music was during the Victorian era when many middle-class households had pianos and valued musical literacy. Parlour Ballads seeks to revive the sound of the well-loved, domestic piano and to reunite it with songs that might be glad of the acquaintance.
Multi-instrumentalists The Rheingans Sisters’ Start Close In (Rheingans Sisters) reaches No. 14. Sonically arresting, drenched in drones and pulsing with age-old patterns of communal dancing, the record continues the current rejuvenation of traditional folk music with and is steeped in minimalism, collectivism, beauty and noise.
Shovel Dance Collective have been hailed as one of Britain’s most exciting emerging bands for how they recontextualize traditional folk music through a contemporary, radical lens. Their sophomore album The Shovel Dance (American Dreams) delivers on this promise, arriving at No. 15. While their work has always had an inventive bent, the record unifies the collective’s experimentation with their live immediacy.
In at No. 20 is Yorkshire and Cardiff based guitarists Henry Parker & David Ian Roberts’ Chasing Light (Henry Parker), which draws on their shared love of Nick Drake, Genesis and John Martyn. In their 4-star review, Mojo wrote, “Fill your boots as Lammas Fair prog-folk beast Parker and Cardiff Twangler Roberts get their GADGBEs and DADGADs together for this mesmeric set.”
Mairearad Green & Rachel Newton’s Anna Bhàn (Shadowside) features at No. 21. Celebrated Scottish musicians and cousins, this record finds the duo coming together to celebrate and remember their Great-Great-Grandmother Anna Bhàn’s involvement in the successful women-led Coigach resistance of 1852/53 during the Highland Clearances.
The multi-award-winning power trio Talisk come in at No. 40 with Live at the Barrowlands (Talisk). This live recording of the Scottish band’s high-energy show at the iconic Barrowlands in Glasgow featured some of the best dancers in the world, including the Gardiner Brothers, Amy Mae Dolan, Keeva Corry, Brian Culligan, Ellie Mae Wheeler, Mairead Trainor, Morgan Bullock, and Zoe Talbot.
The full Top 40 list can be viewed HERE
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