With new album Emerald, Dar Williams really does live up to her tag as one of America’s best singer songwriters and with tour dates imminent there’s cause for double celebration. Emerald also includes several notable guest appearances to further enhance its credentials. It channels the heartfelt, the honest, the vital and and the poetic into one electrifying whole.

Our Tune of the Day is from an exciting new Irish duo based in Glasgow – Gráinne & Ryan. Together they combine fiddle with uilleann pipes and flute to perform Irish traditional tunes, contemporary tunes as well as their own compositions which together with their regional styles, produces some really great Irish sets, as you can hear.

Named after his late grandfather, who played in a marching band and on whose guitar he learned to play, Marching Donald is one Ryan Davies and this is his second self-released album. One that demonstrates an increasing mastery of his craft and a greater confidence in his own abilities. One to watch for.

With Despite the Dark, Rura have not only produced an album of its time for Scotland, but one with the musical breadth and strength to ensure it will appeal to a far wider audience. This is a band growing in stature and confidence, brimming with originality and innovation.

Watch the new video from The Young’uns, a timely song called You Won’t Find Me on Benefits Street. A great song and response to our warped media coverage of today. Taken from their new album ‘Another Man’s Ground’.

Our Song of the Day is a demo recording from Alasdair Roberts Hirta Songs (2013), a collaboration with poet Robin Robertson, a concept album of sorts that was inspired by the people, landscape and history of the remote Scottish archipelago of St Kilda, the most remote part of the British Isles.

To mark the recent release of their self-titled album, (New York, NY) Nashville-based, heartland rock band, Midnight Pilot reveal their exclusive new video session for Taking My Chances.

True to type, you can always expect Duke Garwood to do things his way, and do them masterfully – as James finds out when he catches his performance at St. Pancras Old Church.

Grassy Roads, Wandering Feet is organic in feel, it’s an unassuming album that never makes a big fuss about the members’ skills, simply allows them to do what they do with consummate and fluid grace and ease, and, as such, offers a very enjoyable travelling companion.

Rozi Plain returns to Bristol for the launch of her new album ‘Friends’. She performed in front a warm crowd gathered on-board the Thekla, in the Mud Dock area of Bristol’s Floating Harbour. Very much a homecoming show on which she was joined by The Hand and ‘Babe’ who were also her backing band for the night.

We caught up with Fabian Holland for a quick chat about his exceptional second album ‘A Day Like Tomorrow’ and the way his narrow boat life is starting to influence his work. Whilst life is not all plain sailing there are plenty of upbeat moments as he admits “…there are times when you just forget that you’re living in London, which is probably why I like it so much.”

We talk to Chris While and Julie Matthews about their latest album ‘Who We Are’ an album that includes songs about a village decimated by the plague in the 17th century and women working in Sheffield’s steel industry during wartime. Plus guest artists: O’Hooley & Tidow, Joe Broughton, Kellie While and Kit Bailey.