KLOF

Win tickets to this year’s Folk by the Oak at Hatfield House on Sunday 24th July plus wine from festival sponsor Casillero del Diablo! The line-up this year includes Seth Lakeman, Show of Hands, Drever, McCusker, Woomble with Heidi Talbot, Bella Hardy, Adrian Edmondson and the Bad Shepherds, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman and Tyde!

Reg Meuross’s latest release: ‘The Dreamed and the Drowned’ a selection of unreleased songs reinforces my view of him still further. He ranks amongst the best folk singer/songwriters of our time. The man is an exceptional teller of tales, a true voice of the people!

The BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award Winner Megan Henwood has released her aptly named debut album ‘Making Waves’. An offering of allusive self-penned songs whose musical arrangements mirror an emotional journey of strength, strife, hope, love and despair. She demonstrates a mature view of contemporary society unafraid to question socal issues and motives. A spectacular debut!

Welcome to the Friday Folk Music Club when we feature videos, tunes and the occasional free folk music track that all convey the spirit of Folk Radio UK. In our first we feature: The Watersons, Sea of Bees, James Vincent McMorrow, John Fahey, Tim Eriksen, Spirit Family Reunion and Lisa Hannigan. Plus free tracks from Lucy Ward and Southern Tenant Folk Union!

This week, we heard about an idea, now in fruition but spawned at Cambridge Folk Festival by Damien O’Kane, David Kosky and Joe Rusby. An Irish instrumental album called The Mystery Inch also feat. John-Joe Kelly, Danny Cameron & Carmel O’Dea.

Moussu T e lei Jovents take their inspiration from Marseille in the thirties, a veritable musical melting pot, where Provençal songs could be heard alongside local operettas by Vincent Scotto or the black music bursting onto the scene at the time (i.e. blues and jazz, with music from the West Indies and Brazil too).

Folk Radio UK is off to Priddy Folk Festival tomorrow, we’ll be reviewing the festival and taking in the acts. The line-up is fantastic and the atmosphere will be great. You can still watch performances and more if you have no ticket so come along!

Nitin Sawhney has released a new album titled Last Days of Meaning. Nitin has managed to rack up a Mercury, Ivor, Mobo and Olivier awards for his past work and Last Days of Meaning, his ninth studio album, is certainly worthy.

Other Lives release Tamer Animals in the UK on 29th August which promises to be an opening salvo of ambitious scope: densely textured and uncompromisingly sophisticated, yet instantly appealing and alluringly mysterious.

Watch Kris Drever performing some impromptu sessions with pals Alasdair White of the Battlefield Band and Irish tenor banjo player Eamonn Coyne!

James Findlay’s Fellside Records debut ‘Sport & Play’ lives up to the fine performance that won him the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards, but I do feel we are gaining just a small glimpse of James Findlay’s fine talents. There is no rush, being only 20 he has a bright future ahead of him and will find many fans across the English folk circuit.

The Woodshedders latest release O Dig is a crazy gumbo of musical ingredients that they like to call Indie Roots Americana. Their ability to flip and twist from one genre to a fusion of others is both dizzying and elating. The Woodshedders O Dig is well up our list of recommendations…a must!