Listen on Mixcloud here: https://www.mixcloud.com/folkradiouk/folk-show-episode-85/
Kicking off this week’s Folk Show is Shooglenifty with a track from their new album Acid Croft Vol 9, one of our Featured Albums of the Month (read our recent review here). Black Dog is the second track on the album…Johnny Whalley shared the background to the song in his review:
Black Dog, turns a spotlight on two slightly less recent additions to the Shooglenifty armoury. Since 2012, the band has regularly been at Jodhpur’s RIFF festival in northern India. This, and in particular, their burgeoning friendship with members of Dhun Dhora, led to the Written in Water album. But the influence on their own music has been profound, as the opening tune of the Black Dog set illustrates. This first tune’s title, Black Dog on the Balcony, tells much of the story. An evening spent on a guest house balcony in Jodhpur, drinking Black Dog, a concoction that, bizarrely, can legally be called “whisky” in India, led Ewan to compose this piece. It has Malcolm’s guitar and a strongly percussive beat setting a suitably eastern rhythm while the melody, explored principally by Ewan on tenor banjo and Eilidh’s fiddle, juggles classic Western scales with Indian tones. It seems this is a musical form that Shooglenifty can slip into with ever greater ease.
The second part of the Black Dog track sees that spotlight firmly on Kaela. Already a well-established Gaelic singer with her own band…
Another recently reviewed release included in the mix is Fish Pond Fish, the new offering from Boston-based indie/folk band Darlingside who have turned adversity into adventure and separation into sensation.
“A mature, assured and eminently listenable album, frothing with melodic charm and lyrical intrigue”, that’s what our reviewer called Sowing Acorns, the new release from Emma Longford and Sailor’s Wife is a personal highlight from the album that I’ve included here. I hold my hand up and admit that I’ve yet to hear Joan Shelley perform anything I’ve not loved and that includes her live albums like this one Live at Bomhard – Recorded at the Bomhard Theater in Louisville, KY on December 13th, 2019 with the Best Hands band: Jake Xerxes Fussell, Nathan Bowles, Anna Krippenstapel, and Nathan Salsburg. Guest appearances by Julia Purcell and Bonnie “Prince” Billy.
Premiered at the beginning of this week on Folk Radio UK, how could we not include Factory Girl, the new single from the incredibly talented duo Suzzy Roche & Lucy Wainwright Roche, taken from their new album ‘I Can Still Hear You’ which is out on 31 October.
Only this morning I was shouting the praises of The Onlies, a young string band featuring Sami Braman, Riley Calcagno, Vivian Leva, and Leo Shannon. From their self-titled album we have Dear Little Soldier Boy, a song by Queen Belle Randolph about her son who served in Vietnam…despite its mournful air it ends on a killer fiddle tune that’s impossible to sit still to. That’s why it’s in here…
Adam Beattie‘s new single Somewhere Round The Bend was a recent Song of the Day, it’s the title track of his new album (27th November), the title of which “refers to the imagination stretching back into the past and forth into the future. The songs are intended to all transport you into their own unique world, they are all set in a very different time and place”.
Based in Amsterdam, God is in the Detour is the new album from Vanwyck – These are her ‘detour songs’. These are “direct and uncomplicated… true and simple, honest and sincere,” she says. “I really enjoy it when things don’t go according to plan. Actually I think that is where the magic happens, when you let go of the reins and end up in unexpected places. Both in music and in life.” The magic certainly happens here.
Another recent premiere the new single End of the Day from West Country-based duo Faeland, taken from their new album, When I Close My Eyes, due in January 2021. Likewise, Megson have a new single out – Every Little Night is their promise that even after the darkest of nights the sun will always rise again.
And from our current Artist of the Month Jenny Sturgeon, who we shared an interview with today, we have another track from her new album (out today) The Living Mountain, reviewed here. Of this particular track, our reviewer, Thomas Blake said:
The Group…is the most literal attempt to speak from the mountain’s own point of view. The lyrics are direct and elemental while the music – a ripple of strings, minimal acoustic guitar – has a timeless and beautifully stretched-out quality. Andy Bell’s production, here and across the album, is subtle and unobtrusive.
The next track is one I literally only heard today. It’s from Solas an Lae – The Light of the Day, the forthcoming new album from Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin & Ultan O’Brien…
The human voice and the fiddle are often thought of as musical cousins. Solas an Lae is an exploration of that relationship — an effort to bounce songs and strings off one another to see what might emerge.
Rachel Newton is also back with a new album To The Awe which is released on 6 November. Billy Rough recently reviewed the album here, concluding:
Beautifully produced, To The Awe is a striking, pertinent, and entirely enthralling album. A powerful testament to the experiences of women through the ages.
We premiered the video for Dana Sipos‘s new single Lily in the Window today…the video is amazing…you must watch it.
Lily in the Window was originally written a number of years ago when I toured with The Caravan Stage Company, an extraordinary circus-style theatre company, housed on a tall ship that toured political and experimental shows all over the world. Our 6 month tour consisted of storms of every stripe – actual hurricanes, political dramas, the emotional turbulence of group dynamics – it was mesmerising and challenging and I tried to capture some of the exuberant tension in this song.
Closing the show is Catriona McKay with a gorgeous track from her new album Love In Secret which only dropped through the letterbox of Folk Radio UK HQ today. Harp Like Hell is the longest tune on the album and is totally irresistible and is dedicated to her friend and harper Helen MacLeod (1980-2018). It’s out now and can be ordered from Catriona’s online store here.
Listen on Mixcloud here: https://www.mixcloud.com/folkradiouk/folk-show-episode-85/
Folk Show: Episode 85 – Music Played
- Shooglenifty – Black Dog
- Darlingside – Time Will Be
- Emma Langford – Sailor’s Wife
- Joan Shelley – If The Storms Never Came
- Suzzy Roche & Lucy Wainwright Roche – Factory Girl
- The Onlies – Dear Little Soldier Boy
- Adam Beattie – Somewhere Round The Bend
- Vanwyck – God is in the Detour
- Faeland – End of the Day
- Megson – Every Little Night
- Jenny Sturgeon – The Group
- Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin & Ultan O’Brien – An Sceilpín Draighneach
- Rachel Newton – Two Sisters
- Dana Sipos – Lily in the Window
- Catriona McKay – Harp Like Hell
Photo by Joe Gardner