David Morrison

Watch “Over Yonder”, the first single to be taken from Roberts Hall’s sophomore release entitled “2016” – The duo are a compelling and vital new voice in Canadian indie roots-rock and their audience is set to grow with dates planned in both the US and UK.

Canadian fiddler (and guitarist) Quin Etheridge-Pedden is just 15 years-old, and on the evidence of his first album, Embark, the young musician is heading for a sparkling career.

David Morrison selects his Top 10 albums of 2017 including Aerialists, The Unthanks, This is the Kit, John Moreland, Real Ponchos, Julie Byrne and more. We’ll have more End of Year lists coming soon.

At a special performance at The White Room, Nanaimo, BC, Canada, Roberts Hall elected to perform their new album ‘2016’ in its entirety, in the round, with an expanded line-up. Our BC-based reviewer, David Morrison was there to witness it unfold.

Vancouver duo Hannah Walker and Jamie Elliott, better known as Twin Bandit, deliver harmonies that are uncannily tight and melodies that are just as warm. Their second album Full Circle, is a collection of songs that radiate energy and hope, make sure they appear on your radar, you won’t be sorry.

In the Storm is a satisfying first album – a beautiful, positive record, composed and exquisitely performed by Citizen Jane. I hope that, as an inexplicably rare female duo operating in this arena, it may inspire others to follow suit.

John Thumb has written veritable earworms that are difficult to dislodge on this debut offering. This young man is evidently a talented songsmith, in fact, regarded by Other Songs Music Co. main man Scott Orr as a “classic songwriter…born in the wrong era.” 

Aerialists offer a dazzling display of stellar musicianship, inventive arrangements, and genre-melding music inhabiting a world of its own. Their latest offering, Group Manoeuvre, enchants, beguiles and thrills from the first note to the last.

We rejoin David Morrison at Campbell Bay Music Festival in British Columbia as he shares the highlights of a very hot Day Two featuring Shelder the Electric Clamfish, Tremblers of Sevens, The Stash! Band, Cuddle Magic & more.

In a special two-part series David Morrison shares his highlights of this year’s Campbell Bay Music Festival on Mayne Island, British Columbia. Day One includes Fish & Bird, Roger Roger, The Revelers, Top Men, Distant Grand and more.

While The Burying Ground may be devoted to the precious music of a long gone golden era, they still have an awful lot to offer the present and future, as music this good is evidently timeless.

The chemistry between Jenna Moynihan and Màiri Chaimbeul is a tangible, palpable entity at the heart of their new album ‘One Two’, making for as natural a sound as I have yet heard in contemporary, instrumental acoustic music.

By filtering the essence of (especially) early-to-mid-70s Grateful Dead (improvisational soloing intact) through earthy country twang and folk-rock stylings, Real Ponchos have absolutely knocked it out of the park with their sophomore album, To the Dusty World.

Idle Threat is an all too brief, quietly triumphant comeback for Benjamin Zyakin who has evidently been through the mill. Just getting these songs out there for all to hear will have done Zyakin a world of good, and maybe, in turn, it will inspire others struggling in similar situations.

Six years on from Abigail Lapell’s debut, Hide nor Hair is a calming 10-song collection of fine-spun folk songs, as much about mood as it is about storytelling. A departure from her earlier efforts, she possesses a persuasive voice, bearing echoes of many of the greats.

Our Canadian-based reviewer David Morrison selects his Top 10 Folk & Roots albums of 2016 including David Francey, Jesse Thom, Aerialists, John K. Samson, Emily Millard and more.

Samson is a purveyor of indelible lyrical imagery, both direct and opaque, real and imagined, drawing inspiration from a head-spinning range of subject matter…and a late contender for my favourite Canadian release of 2016.

David Simard’s second full-length collection, The Heavy Wait, has arrived after being pieced together over eight years, and it’s a real spine-tingler. An atmospheric, brooding, and compelling collection of dark-yet-pretty folk songs that artfully wend their way into one’s brain, and lodge there.