This week’s Folk Show features tracks from Hack-Poets Guild, MSAKI & TUBATSI (image above), Congo Cowboys, Lucy Farrell, I’m Kingfisher, Nico Paulo, Kristina Jung, Jonathan Day, Lisa O’Neill, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Cinder Well, Broadside Hacks, Sourdure, Lankum and Milkweed.
We have tracks from our latest Albums of the Month, namely Lisa O’Neill‘s All Of This Is Chance (reviewed here) and Jonathan Day‘s Sakura which we reviewed today. Both of those albums are out now, and you can help support all the artists we play by using the purchase links in the playlist below.
a timeless piece of work, wholly unbound by style or genre…
Danny Neill on Lisa O’Neill’s All Of This is Chance
But most of all, it is surprisingly but deeply an album about love, about the small but important connections between humans in a world that can feel overwhelmingly big.
Thomas Blake on Jonathan Day’s Sakura
We have another new track from Hack-Poets Guild, a new project from Lisa Knapp, Marry Waterson and Nathaniel Mann. They are on tour next month; tickets and further details can be .
We have a track from ‘Synthetic Hearts’, the debut album from MSAKI & TUBATSI – the new project from South African solo star Msaki (a double winner at the 2022 South African Music Awards) and Tubatsi Mpho Moloi of Johannesburg band Urban Village (also a member of the Keleketla! collective alongside Tony Allen, Shabaka Hutchings and Joe Armon-Jones).
Also a Song of the Day this week, ‘Paperthin’, is the new single from Lucy Farrell (featuring Kris Drever) taken from her forthcoming solo debut ‘We are only Sound’, which she is touring in March.
Make Up a Good Time is the new single from Swedish singer-songwriter I’m Kingfisher from his fifth album Glue, due out on 3 March via Stockholm-based indie label Fading Trails Recordings. The record features Tom Waits collaborator Bebe Risenfors in a prominent role alongside guest spots from Irish folk sensation Niamh Regan, Martin Hederos and Vilma Flood. It’s the follow-up to his acclaimed Transit, and The Past Has Begun LPs, released in 2018 and 2020.
We have a track from Portuguese/Canadian songwriter Nico Paulo; her self-titled debut LP is coming in early April via Forward Music Group. Talking about the track ‘Time’, she says, “Time is a song about friendship, admiration and change. It’s a dialogue between two characters that investigates the discrepancies between them — one is more rigid and one is more free. This song is the coming together and the nuance and beauty created by two opposing perspectives. They unite in a dance that forces them to reckon with time. And in this moment of change, they realize that they’re maybe not so different after all.”
A Wolf In Every Womb is taken from Kristina Jung‘s debut album Care and Explosion, which was released late last year. Kristina produced her debut album Care & Explosion herself; for four years, she realized maximum musical and artistic autonomy: indulgent strings meet shrill synths, the heartbeat of her unborn daughter becomes an electronic soundscape, epic choirs lead us to the altar of a dark basement club. She recorded the album, according to her own statement: “everywhere and under all circumstances. In the bedroom, in the studio, in unheated rehearsal rooms; pregnant in the ninth month, with baby on her back, alone, in the circle of my girlfriends and friends.”
Scottish smallpipes player and experimental music purveyor Brìghde Chaimbeul announced her new album ‘Carry Them With Us’ (out 14 April). How could we resist her first single, “Tha Fonn Gun Bhi Trom (I Am Disposed of Mirth)”, which we also shared the video for here.
Cinder Well also recently announced her new album ‘Cadence’ which features a number of contributions, including strings from Cormac MacDiarmada of Lankum. Her single, Two Heads, Grey Mare, also came with a great video.
Critically acclaimed Irish quartet Lankum recently announced their new album ‘False Lankum’. The first single, ‘Go Dig My Grave’, was accompanied with a video by Peadar Gill/Vicky Langan, which you can watch here.
We end on the latest experimental folk offering from the Milkweed titled The Mound People, released on 5 March and available via Bandcamp.
We also have some not-so-recent releases from Congo Cowboys and their 2021 EP ‘Yoka’, and Sourdure‘s 2021 De Mòrt Viva – Constructed like an invented tarot deck, De Mòrt Viva explores the idea of a contemporary paganism in ten jubilant, humorous and spiritual odes.
Broadside Hacks released The Broadside Hack – Live from Real World last year…We’ve included their rendition of Gently Johnny, a song made popular by The Wicker Man…
Music Played
Hack-Poets Guild – Hemp & Flax (Blackletter Garland)
MSAKI & TUBATSI – Subaleka (Synthetic Hearts)
Congo Cowboys – Walkin’ Boss (Yoka)
Lucy Farrell – Paperthin (We Are Only Sound)
I’m Kingfisher – Make Up a Good Time (Glue)
Nico Paulo – Time (Nico Paulo)
Kristina Jung – A Wolf In Every Womb (Care & Explosion)
Jonathan Day – isolde (Sakura)
Lisa O’Neill – If I Was A Painter (All Of This Is Chance)
Brìghde Chaimbeul – Tha Fonn Gun Bhi Trom (I Am Disposed of Mirth) (Carry Them With Us)
Cinder Well – Two Heads, Grey Mare (Cadence)
Broadside Hacks – Gently Johnny (Broadside Hack – Live From Real World)
Sourdure – L’Ivern daus Astres (De Mòrt Viva)
Lankum – Go Dig My Grave (False Lankum)
Milkweed – Blackbirds Nest (The Mound People)