Gareth Thompson

James & The Giants might just be Toth’s most congenial work yet, veering damn close to all-round family entertainment. He offers sober musings for late-night booze hounds, with a wry literacy that echoes the late David McComb (The Triffids) and David Berman (Silver Jews).

It’s a sense of connectedness from the diaspora to the ‘motherland’ that makes Subhana such a  triumph – An ocean of sensations, Ahmed Ben Ali’s long-awaited collection radiates energy, peace and spiritual love.

Ben Chasny and Rick Tomlinson “drank delicious beer on sunny afternoons and had fantastic dinners” while recording ‘Waves’… an album in which we feel the warm vibrations of their dreams and visions.  

Gareth Thompson reflects on Mike Gangloff’s well-attended gig at the Golden Lion…Gangloff ends by saying, “A set of creaky old fiddle tunes ain’t the easiest gig to sell,” but the success of his latest touring venture would rather suggest it is.

The true narrative of the Ruen Brothers’ ‘Ten Paces’ is filled with ‘Wanted’ posters, wagon trains, big-city angst, dreams and despair – all given life by these bold songs, tailor-made to seize the airwaves from Scunthorpe’s steel mills to Dakota’s dusty border.

With additional production from Daniel Lanois, the country aspects of Tinariwen’s Amatssou are subtle. Yet for all the Americana trimmings here, this band’s political take on praise-singing carries an eternal purity.

Ahead of his UK tour in May 2023 with C Joynes, we catch up with Mike Gangloff, a founding member of Pelt and The Black Twig Pickers, to chat about taking Appalachian fiddle music into new spectrums, Shape Note singing, Jack Rose, Pelt and more.

Formed in a damp rehearsal room with no windows, using pre-loved instruments…, Niall Summerton’s ‘What Am I Made Of?’ emerges like a survival manual for those facing struggles or stigmas. It’s a winning debut album, full of tender stories and real-life truths.