Featuring several special guests, including Cathal McConnell, Liz Knowles, Brían Mac Gloinn, Anaïs Mitchell and Will Oldham, Nuala Kennedy and Eamon O’Leary’s Hydra features an excellent selection of superbly sung songs and handsome melodies. It doesn’t get much better.

Alasdair Roberts’ book of collected lyrics, Library of Aethers, is out now, and he also kicks off a collaborative UK tour this month with Scottish piper and traditional singer Donald WG Lindsay.

In the second of our Wickham Festival interview-shorts, Johnny Whalley catches up with Katherine Priddy, who chats about her recent musical journey and her third album.

A nautical-themed Monday Morning Brew playlist featuring Lisa Knapp, Jolie Holland, Oisin Leech, Georgia Shackleton, Louis Killen, Sea Song Sessions, Rhiannon Giddens, Bellowhead, Jim Moray, Eliza Carthy, Richard Thompson, Ben Nicholls & Nadine Shah, Shovel Dance Collective, Rónán Ó Snodaigh & Myles O’Reilly, Frankie Archer and Robin Williamson.

Taylor McCall has released The Porch Sessions EP. McCall says, “The Porch Sessions are an intimate batch of outdoor recordings done with myself and Sean McConnell. I wanted to break down the artificial veils of the studio and bring the listeners onto my porch.”

Bluenose B, aka Stephen Lawson, speaks for itself. With top-drawer production values, Minstrel Of The Wasteland is often compelling, always accomplished and polished, but, above all, a most satisfying, rewarding and enjoyable listen.

We catch up with Muireann Bradley at Wickham Festival. The 17 year old blues and folk guitarist and singer from Ballybofey in County Donegal, Ireland released her debut album last year on Tompkins Square.

It’s not often one comes across a musician of the calibre of David Berkeley or an album as pure as A Pail Full of Fire. It springs from a place of honesty where words and music still matter. This is an album for the ages.

Jolie Holland shares provocative new video for ‘Feet on the Ground’ – “A piece of pure love and art…made by the astounding duo of Corinne Loperfido and Jordan Mose – Clowns Against Human Supremacy (NSFW).

Jennifer Castle announces her new album Camelot and shares her new single and video, “Lucky #8”, an irrepressible ode to dancing as a bulwark against the “tidal pools of pain” and the “theory of collapse.”

Northumbrian electro-folk musician and producer Frankie Archer announces her new EP, ‘Pressure and Persuasion,’ and once again transcends expectations with her lead single and video, Barbara Allen (also our Song of the Day).

Jamie Sutherland describes his second solo album, The World As It Used To Be, as songs with the sense that things aren’t black and white; laced with memories, hope and regret, it ultimately sounds the simple affirmation that “we will rise above the darkness”.