This week’s Folk Show is filled with some top-notch new and forthcoming releases. Our Artists of the Month, Mama’s Broke (Lisa Maria and Amy Lou Keeler), kick-off with How It Ends, taken from their new album Narrow Line, which we reviewed here. Mama’s Broke are touring the UK next month, swiftly followed by a tour of Ireland with Irish trio Rufous Nightjar (Branwen Kavanagh, Anna Meike and Zoe Basha). We will have an interview on Folk Radio with Mama’s Broke very soon.
Scottish musician Hannah Read has teamed up with Edinburgh-based banjo player Michael Starkey for their new album ‘Cross The Rolling Water’, and Apple Blossom is the first single which we premiered a video for here.
Pharis and Jason Romero—whose old-time, country-folk, and early roots music has made them three-time Juno Award and seven-time Canadian Folk Music Award winners—have announced their new album, Tell ’Em You Were Gold, out June 17 on Smithsonian Folkways. Souvenir is their first single.
Rachel Baiman and Kris Drever recently announced a co-billed tour this spring across the UK (details here), news of which was accompanied by their new single, a stunning remake of Eliza Gilkyson’s “Hard Times in Babylon”, the video for which we premiered here.
Sam Shackleton is a Scottish folk artist based in Edinburgh, and his original trans-Atlantic folk songs on the banjo, harmonica, and guitar are a sheer delight as he demonstrates so ably on ‘Scottish Cowboy’ from his album Causeway Recordings, available now via Bandcamp.
A Mind With A Heart Of Its Own comes from the award-winning bluegrass outfit The Slocan Ramblers, who return on June 10th with their new album Up the Hill and Through the Fog. The all-star Canadian roots ensemble channels the past two years of loss into a surprisingly joyous collection of twelve songs intended to uplift and help make sense of the world.
Mrs Dixon was one of the first singles taken from Keston Cobblers Clubs‘ new album ‘Alchemy’, which is out now. The band are currently on tour, details of which can be found here. Not to be taken too seriously, the story of ‘Mrs Dixon’ centres on escapism and the balance of work and fun in life. Matthew says, ‘We wanted to start the year with a slightly convivial track to put a little warmth into January. I wrote the track with the early days of Cobblers in mind, with our first ever single You-go and its focus on melody and harmonies atop of a stripped back instrumental.’
The Canny Band are Sam Mabbett, Michael Biggins (BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2021) and Callum Convoy. Their eponymous self-released album is out now and features a rare fusion of piano, diatonic button accordion and bodhran. With Granny’s 93rd, they set a great pace and energy (find out more here).
Windjammer are a South West trio comprised of Jake Sonny Rowlinson, Jeremy Bunting and Fran Rowney, formed around Plymouth’s folk and acoustic music scene. They blend self-penned songs and instrumentals with original, genre-bending arrangements of music drawn from the traditions of British folk. As demonstrated here on the classic folk song ‘Bonny Ship the Diamond’, taken from their debut album, ‘Awaken’ (produced by Sean Lakeman). You can catch them at this year’s Sidmouth Folk Festival at The Cellar Bar, which Folk Radio UK is curating this year (more on that soon).
Moving from one seafaring classic to another, Liam Cooper, a folk singer, guitarist, mandola and tenor banjo player based in South London, delivers a fine rendition of Ye Mariners All from his debut album Course and Fine, which is available now via Bandcamp.
The award-winning Scottish trad group Kinnaris Quintet should need no introduction. They return this week with their new album ‘This Too’ (more on this one soon), from which ‘Happy Days‘ is taken. They take their name from the Southeast Asian mythological bird-women, renowned for their music, song, dance and poetry; they are made up of five wonderfully skilled musicians – Fiona MacAskill and Laura Wilkie on fiddle; Aileen Reid Gobbi on 5-string fiddle and vocals; Laura-Beth Salter on mandolin, vocals, and tenor guitar; and Jenn Butterworth on stomp, vocals, and guitar. Order the album via Bandcamp, and don’t miss their album tour dates, which can be found here.
Not long now until Ye Vagabonds return (review and interview to follow on Folk Radio), ‘Go Away and Come Back Hither’, is taken from their forthcoming album for Rough Trade’s River Lea label, ‘Nine Waves’, which is to be released on May 13th – Pre-order the album here https://ffm.to/ninewaves. Diarmuid of Ye Vagabonds explains what the song is about: “This song is about the ebb and flow of longing and fulfilment. When someone we love is kept from us, we want them more. It’s like inverse magnetism; the further away they are, the stronger the pull. It’s an old romantic theme, so I wanted it to have some of the feel of romantic era poetry. The first line and the melody had followed me around for a while until the first lockdown of 2020 when the rest of the song came together.“ Ye Vagabonds will be touring throughout the UK in May as well as a Vicar Street, Dublin date in June.
The award-winning harpist Catrin Finch (Wales) and kora player and singer Seckou Keita (Senegal) return on 27th May with their third album Echo (reviewed here), from which Gobaith is taken. Their last album, Soar (reviewed here), was a remarkable album and Echo is a stunning follow-up. The album proclaims the tender triumph of an extraordinary partnership, the dissolution of opposites into one seamless musical expression of our common humanity. “With this album, it feels like we’ve reached our place, musically and creatively,” says Catrin. This is the echo they will leave behind – the echo of dear ones now departed, of beating hearts, of music, of love. “That’s what continues to travel through space and time,” Seckou says, “even after the last note has been played, or the last word has been sung.” The duo are touring the album from this week; details and ticket links can be found here: https://www.catrinfinchandseckoukeita.com/. Pre-Order the album here: https://www.catrinfinchandseckoukeita.com/shop
Breaking The Thermometer is the new album from the wonderful Haitian-American artist Leyla McCalla which is out on 6th May via Anti-. The album charts her own journey of self-discovery alongside the exploration of an archive of recordings from Radio Haiti, the first radio station in Haiti to report news in Haitian Kreyol. Pre-Order the album here: https://leylamccalla.ffm.to/breakingthethermometer.
Mask is a track from Water, the new solo EP from internationally recognised Double Bassist and Vocalist Nina Harries. The release was supported by Arts Council Lottery Funding and recorded aboard her narrowboat home moored on a lonely stretch of canal in the Midlands countryside. It follows a journey through psychological destruction and loss, fighting post-traumatic stress disorder and finally finding a safe place. Water is available now via Bandcamp: https://ninaharries.bandcamp.com/album/water
Released today on CD (2nd May) via antigen records (who also gave us MacGillivray’s ‘In the End is My Beginning’), Saltings is an album of ten songs by Rev’d Matthew Simpkins, which is accompanied by ten beautiful illustrations by artist Tom Knight. It is an attempt to share the atmosphere and history of the salt marsh wildernesses of Essex, a portrait of their ever-changing tides, skies and seasons, and a meditation on the wilderness time of the pandemic. It’s a beautifully presented release that visually and musically accomplishes its goals.
The album weaves together tales of the legendary and mysterious figures of the saltings, such as the track included here, The Ballad of John Ball (leader of the peasants’ revolt), with reflections on the wilderness’s ever-changing tides, skies, and seasons.
Matt writes, “I wrote these songs walking the saltings during the pandemic, pondering the tears of exhaustion, anger, fear, frustration and mourning that I’d seen in others. So the songs are themselves saltings: little tears. Instead of weeping, I wrote and I sang. But these aren’t sorrowful songs. I hope they speak of the hope that resides in the saltings, and of real life and real compassion.” Order it here: https://antigenrecords.bandcamp.com/album/saltings
The final track, Light As Bone, is taken from the debut solo album of Tamsin Elliott, a Bristol-based folk musician, composer and filmmaker, and co-leader of fusion project Solana. FREY (Penny Fiddle Records, 30th June) was recorded by Alex Garden (The Drystones) at Dylan Fowler’s Stiwdio Felin Fach. The album comprises compositions for accordion, harp, whistle and voice in a mesmerising conjunction of sonic textures. It inhabits a soundworld true to her English folk roots, with modal and rhythmic echoes of time spent in Egypt and moments of ambient experimentalism using effects, drones and field recordings.
Music Played
Mama’s Broke – How It Ends
Hannah Read & Michael Starkey – Apple Blossom
Pharis & Jason Romero – Souvenir
Rachel Baiman & Kris Drever – Hard Times in Babylon
Sam Shackleton – Scottish Cowboy
The Slocan Ramblers – A Mind With A Heart Of Its Own
Keston Cobblers Club – Mrs Dixon
The Canny Band – Granny’s 93rd
Windjammer – Bonny Ship the Diamond
Liam Cooper – Ye Mariners All
Kinnaris Quintet – Happy Days
Ye Vagabonds – Go Away and Come Back Hither
Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita – Gobaith
Leyla McCalla – Nan Fon Bwa
Nina Harries – Mask
Rev Simpkins – A Ballad of John Ball
Tamsin Elliott – Light As Bone
Photo by Niilo Isotalo