Featuring new music from Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita, Michael McGoldrick, Ross Ainslie and Ali Hutton, Moore Moss Rutter, Cinder Well, Hannah Sanders & Ben Savage, Blowzabella, Yorkston Thorne Khan, Dana Sipos, Vivian Leva and more.
With a new ‘worth the wait’ album now delighting fans the world over, we caught up with the singular John Prine, our Artist of the Month, to discuss nocturnal writing, old songs and families.
It’s no great stretch to say that Anne Briggs is our greatest folk singer, and if this new release brings her incomparable talent to a wider audience, then it will be the least she deserves.
Watch Appalachian songwriter Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno performing Time Is Everything, the title of Leva’s debut album. They arrive in the UK next month and they come very high up on our list of gigs to see.
III is a folk album played with the inventiveness of jazz and the control of chamber music. It is suffused with pastoral light but anchored in earthy realism, unshowy but technically innovative, driven by emotion but never sentimental.
Iron & Wine share ingenious stop motion video by Rachel Blumberg for ‘Last Night’, taken from their Grammy-nominated album, Beast Epic. They return to the UK later this year to headline Black Deer Festival in Kent, as well as perform in Ireland and Glasgow.
The Unconscious Echo features seven dynamic and original tracks, with moments ranging from Swan Arcade style unaccompanied harmony vocals, to swelling instrumental choruses reminiscent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Dorset-born Roo Panes is to release his third album ‘Quiet Man’ next month. Listen to his lead single My Sweet Refuge which carries the album’s hallmarks that convey “a place of stillness, peace and contentment”
One might assume the lyrics alone would be the highlight on this release, and they are indeed touching. However, the performances are equally impressive – each contributor clearly understood the gravity of these words and put forward a special effort.
Recorded against the backdrop of division brought out about by the Trump election Birds of Chicago deliver an album of positivity: “We want to give people some good news, and we want them to be able to dance when they hear it.” Consider both boxes duly ticked.
Folk Radio has teamed up with Vinyl 180 for a great vinyl giveaway of two white vinyl Record Store Day releases: June Tabor’s double LP ‘Ashore’ and Anne Briggs ‘Sing A Song For You’, originally released in 1973.
Senyawa take on the role of outsiders. Their music is a constant series of volte-faces against what is predictable or what is considered normal. Or rather, they distill the weirdness, the wonderful crookedness, inherent in what passes for normality in a fast-moving and hugely diverse culture.
