Thomas Blake

With Companion Rises, Chasny has done something even more intriguing than usual: by pushing the experimental envelope further than before he has somehow emerged with a collection of songs that are amongst the most immediately rewarding of his twenty-plus year career.

Like the sound of the wind in the reeds from which Yeats took inspiration, Abbé’s music is full of shifting natural beauty, whispers and sighs that could be sounds of sorrow or of love. Numberless Dreams is masterful in its delivery and intriguing in its opacity.

Like Lisa O’Neill, Ye Vagabonds and Lankum, Varo share a deep understanding of traditional music, preserving the genre’s heritage with the need to create a form of music that is fresh and new. This accomplished debut should position them at the forefront of the scene.

Andromeda, like its predecessor, is a difficult, brilliant, rewarding snapshot of human turmoil…the stature of this formidable album will continue to grow even as the scars it describes begin to heal.

On Navarasa, Yorkston/Thorne/Khan achieve a kind of serenity that is certainly spiritual but is somehow completely secular and entirely inclusive. Its influences are clearly visible, but the way those influences are put together creates a kind of music that is original, exciting and wholly unique.

Folk Radio’s Thomas Blake shares his Top 10 albums of 2019 including Richard Dawson, Bill Callahan, Brìghde Chaimbeul, C Joynes, House And Land, Alex Rex and more.

For all its range and variation, for all the subtle and beautiful musical flourishes and lingering sonic effects, The Victorians is essentially a call to arms. Harp & a Monkey have made a stunning album that pleads the case for folk song as a working-class mode of expression.

All three songs have that timeless quality. Listened to out of context it would be difficult to tell the ancient from the modern. This is an important feature of O’Neill’s gifts as a singer and musician.

We catch up with Jon Boden, our Artist of the Month, to talk about his new album ‘Rose in June’, a stand-alone work that ranks among the most accomplished, passionate and polished of his releases to date.

An album full of human warmth, but also tinged with wildness. This is the sign of a master musician at work, and Hay certainly fits that description. It is only two years since his debut and he is already one of the finest guitarists of his generation.

Rose in June is an endlessly varied and accomplished album that sees the Remnant Kings at the top of their game and shows just why Jon Boden is one of the most lauded folk musicians this century.

Catherine Rudie’s ability to create vivid moods from often sparse ingredients is a rare gift – she can make you feel as if you inhabit the dream-spaces of these songs, and then return you to the real world with a bump.