The sixth instalment from The Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties series covers Cornwall and South Yorkshire. It passes the creative reins over to experimental-leaning guitarist David A Jaycock and Sheffield-based avant-psych drone merchants Slug Milk to present two very different faces of experimental folk music.

If you’re after a sharp and tight set of traditional Old-time songs played with plenty of vim and a hefty dose of talent, then look no further than Grant / McGuire / Flaherty, a fun slice of Appalachian magic.

Leith-based folk music project Fidra deliver a stunning debut album. ‘The Running Wave,’ is as rugged, passionate, and enigmatic as the beautifully unforgiving land it celebrates…one of the finest Scottish folk albums of the year.

Hannah Mohan’s ‘Time is a Walnut’ conjures its own unique spell, one full of idiosyncratic turns and quirky melodies. What stays long after listening is her innovative, off-the-cuff orchestration and her myriad ways of exploring the here and now.

Americana often conjures up words like psychedelic or cosmic, but the form rarely offers such a way-out hue as experienced here; Wes Tirey Sings Selected Works Of Billy The Kid is a true one-off. 

Are Possible, the first full album from the trio Nathan Bowles, Rex McMurray and Casey Toll, is an outstanding slow burner of an album that benefits from repeated listens to unearth its intricate melodic details, phrases, time signatures and rhythmic shifts.

The Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties Vol. V covers Norfolk and West Yorkshire, courtesy of Pefkin and Dean McPhee. If this quality is maintained throughout the series, we will have a stunning and important body of work on our hands.

Watch the highly touted Irish folk singer-songwriter Lorraine Nash performing a gorgeous acoustic solo version of ‘Getting Started’, her first single (released this week), taken from her new EP, due in 2025.

Listen to our latest Monday Morning Brew Playlist featuring The Rheingans Sisters, Laura Jane Wilkie, Dani Larkin, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, This Frontier Needs Heroes, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Georgia Ruth, Andrew Tuttle/Michael Chapman, Chris Cohen, McKowski/Nick Power, Julian Taylor, D.C Cross and more.

Taken from his latest album, Glookies Guit, watch the accompanying short film to Australian guitarist D.C Cross’s new single, ‘Rhinestones, in Black and White’, also our Tune of the Day.

“Another Tide, Another Fish” contains imaginative re-workings and improvisations by Andrew Tuttle of the late great Michael Chapman’s unfinished instrumental album. Taken from the album, watch the accompanying video for ‘Wholly Unrelated To Four Seasons’.

Chris Cohen’s Paint a Room is an absolute joy, but it’s the uncanny kind of joy, the kind which can challenge you, and perhaps make you see the world in a different way.