Albums

The Lines We Draw Together is a piece of work that sounds both fresh and full of experience, an album for our times, but steeped in history, its poetry is not short on intellectual rigour, but its message is one of earthy wisdom and simplicity – an important album, an album that is full of life.

Featuring innovative banjoist Jacken Elswyth and Herefordshire duo Alula Down, Betwixt & Between 5 is already proving to be the most irresistible instalment in the series so far.

Despite the album title, The Rails show no signs of going quietly into that dark night as they further the rockier, more electric guitar feel of their last release while also displaying the Thompson musical DNA and family folk influences.

Eilen Jewell’s ‘Gypsy’ is one of those rare things, an album containing a perfect dozen songs without a single dud track. If all were right and just in the world, she would one day take her place amongst the country music legends.

A delight from start to finish, Liag is a superb collection of tunes which reunites Dermot Byrne, Éamonn Coyne and John Doyle, three exemplary musicians, totally at one with each other and their music.

Part Two of our Cambridge Folk Festival features Rura, Karine Polwart, José González, Calexico and Iron & Wine, Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita, Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, McGoldrick, McCusker and Doyle and Daoirí Farrell’s All-Star Celtic Session.

Angie McMahon is a walking contradiction, a smiling 24-year-old who roars like a lion, a gentle folk singer who rocks with raw abandon, a guarded thinker who wears her heart on her sleeve. She wrestles with her demons in public, providing insight we can’t afford to ignore.

So busy is she that Sandra Kerr’s discography to date barely reaches double figures so a brand new solo CD is cause for celebration indeed. Rebel with her Chords finds her in mighty fine canny fettle and eternally committed to the cause.

The pleasure Topette!! derive from playing together spreads like proverbial wildfire to its listeners with the result that Rhododendron is one of those rare instrumental – and dance-oriented – albums which gives virtually equal proportions of cerebral and visceral pleasure. Seriously recommended.

“Dare”, Banter’s second album, is an equally polished showcase for the talents of three accomplished, adventurous musicians featuring Simon Care, Tim Walker and Nina Zella – they started out as a ceilidh band with a few songs, now they’re a concert band who can play ceilidhs.

Illinois-based contemporary roots-bluegrass-Americana five-piece Old Salt Union return with their fourth album ‘Where The Dogs Don’t Bite’. Produced by Alison Brown, the album brings out the best in the band and plays to their strengths.

The first live review coverage of Cambridge Folk Festival is in – featuring Ben Caplan, The Rails, Ralph McTell, Graham Nash, Tunng, Chloe Foy, Lisa O’Neill, Lucinda Williams, Nick Mulvey, Richard Thompson, Crooked Weather, Daoiri Farrell’s All-Star Celtic Session and more.