Alex Gallacher

Our latest weekly brew playlist features Mishra & Deepa Nair Rasiya, Sourdurent, Francis Bebey, Michael Hurley, Natalie Wildgoose, Mari Kalkun, Peter Bellamy, Martin Carthy, Broadside Hacks, Red River Dialect, Joan Shelley, Spencer Cullum, Flora Hibberd, Lael Neale, Natalie Jane Hill, Niamh Regan, Andrew Tuttle, William Ryan Fritch and James Jackson Toth.

We rewind to January 2013 and a special Simple Folk Radio show that was hosted by James Yorkston. The show was recorded in his home on the east coast of Scotland, from where he shared some of his favourite folk tunes. These included tracks from Rita Farrell, Willie Clancy, Mick O’Brien and Caoimhín O’Raghallaigh, HMS Ginafore, Nic Jones, Anne Briggs, Jean Ritchie, Dick Gaughan, Bess Cronin, Elle Osborne and more.

Our latest Mixtape features new music from Junior Brother, Big Thief, Thomas Dollbaum, Carson McHone, United Bible Studies, Katy Pinke & Will Graefe, Setting, Saul Williams, Carlos Niño & Friends, JJJJJErome Ellis, The Cosmic Tones Research Trio, P.G. Six and Jens Kuross.

In a pleasantly surprising turn of events, the Mercury Prize has included folk legend Martin Carthy’s latest album, “Transform Me Then Into A Fish,” on its 2025 shortlist. This announcement, made today, marks the 84-year-old musician as the oldest artist ever nominated for this prestigious award.

Chicago boogie-rockers Glyders announce their signing to Drag City and a new album, ‘Forever’, out November 21, 2025. The new power-trio, now featuring drummer Joe Seger, celebrates with the release of their first single and video, “Stone Shadow,” a T-Rex and new wave-influenced track promising a high-energy, good time.

New York-based collective toso toso announce their self-titled debut album, and share “lluvia de meteoritos”, a lead single that upholds their album promise of an avant-pop sound that blurs the lines between structured composition and free improvisation, blending moments of furious energy with tender intimacy.

Recently shortlisted for this year’s Welsh Music Prize, watch a short film on the making of The Gentle Good’s latest album, Elan, and the landscape and people that inspired it. How he lets the past and present speak through his music is genuinely remarkable. Don’t miss his upcoming Autumn Tour.

This week’s Monday Morning Brew Playlist features Yo La Tengo, White Magic, Jeanne-Marie Sens, Xylouris White, Les Filles de Illighadad, Gossimer, Keto, Mary Ocher & Julia Kent, The Owl Service, Sarah Louise, Josephine Foster, Grand Veymont, Buck Curran, Monde UFO, Young Marble Giants, Ed Askew, Maxine Funke, Mess Esque, Dave Deporis, Myriam Gendron, and Peixe e Limão.

Our latest Off the Shelf guests are Dublin duo Varo, featuring Consuelo Nerea Breschi and Lucie Azconaga. In this series, we ask artists to present objects from a shelf or shelves in their homes and discuss them, a form of storytelling through objects. Varo recently released their highly anticipated new album, The World That I Knew, featuring some of the biggest names in Ireland’s contemporary folk and trad scene.

To mark the release of Junior Brother’s highly anticipated new album “The End”, a further video from Ellius Grace has been shared for the stripped-back “Old Bell,” a “rickety lo-fi folk song that grapples with impending death. Junior Brother says: “‘Old Bell’ is a song that pushes back against the forces which pull the fit and young into a pit of no return”.

Guitarist Steve Gunn has announced his new album, Daylight Daylight, his first for the No Quarter label. It features contributions from Macie Stewart, Ben Whiteley, Nick Macri, and Hunter Diamond, and was produced and arranged by his old friend, James Elkington. Listen to the lead single “Nearly There” and don’t miss his upcoming tour dates in the UK and EU.

Buck Curran takes us Track by Track through his new album Far Driven Sun, which finds him returning to his musical roots: a deep love for the ambient and resonant nature of the acoustic steel-string guitar in alternate tunings. The album was inspired by a unique ‘Butterfly’ Model 1 guitar made by Stefan Sobell in 1990, which was used to record Arborea’s first album, Wayfaring Summer.