THE spirit of the world-famous Cambridge Folk Festival will inject the city with winter cheer in February and March (22nd Feb – 6th Mar) when Cambridge’s second city-wide winter folk and roots festival opens for two weeks of exceptional music and events.

In a duet with Natalie Schlabs, we have a new single to share from Ben Glover which is being released digitally today. The song is brought to another level with the amazing piano performance by Danny Mitchell and the cello of Chelsea McGough.

Van William (Port O’Brien) announces new album Countries – watch his latest music video and read about how his life on Kodiak Island, Alaska took a turn leading to a renewed sense of purpose and this new musical direction.

The latest offering from Don Merckle offers a short but highly effective and, for many, resonant portrait of the experiences and feelings of those called to do their duty and for whom war seemed to offer the only escape from hard times.

Watch the new video from Patrick Watson for his brand new single ‘Broken’ which was recorded at studio PM in Montreal last month. “This is a song I just felt like sharing before the next record. Dedicated to the storms we went through.”

The Melrose Quartet embody the kind of collaborative spirit and socially aware stance that makes folk music such an interesting, challenging and continually relevant form. As demonstrated on Dominion, they have prospered by seizing the day, by daring to do things that are slightly different…who are able to make old songs sound new, and new ones sound timeless.

Billed as one of the key folk music events of 2017, the 40th-anniversary revival of Peter Bellamy’s most revered work The Transports is to tour again in January 2018. Coinciding with the tour will be the release of the live recording of The Transports on January 12 on Hudson Records, a landmark album destined to become a collector’s item.

This month, Karine Polwart releases her latest studio album A Pocket of Wind Resistance. She has just finished ten performances of Wind Resistance at The Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, and we were keen to ask her about the inspiration behind those live performances, the attendant studio release and what else these wonders might lead to.

Sardinian guitarist Paolo Angeli has released a double album featuring performances captured live from some 60 concerts. His music is unclassifiable, a bit like his guitar which on closer inspection reveals an instrument that sits somewhere between guitar, cello and drums.

LOWP are a folk band from the North East of England, formed in late 2009. Their music is drawn from Tyneside, Durham and Northumberland, and has a quality that is unique to that area, a meeting of Scottish and English but suffused with its own vitality and its distinctive accents.

Will Varley announces details of his 5th studio album, ‘Spirit Of Minnie’, to be released February 9, through Xtra Mile Recordings. Produced by Cameron McVey, it features a full backing band for the first time. Listen to lead single All Those Stars.

This has-to-be-definitive reissue of Pearls Before Swine’s of One Nation Underground is something of a benchmark. The sturdily-packaged CD edition is sure built to last; it sports full lyric sheet and new notes giving a historical perspective from both Rapp and Alderson.