Albums

In terms of longevity, musical and cultural interest, Brothers Briggs goes way beyond that of its intended one-off Birthday gift. We need more of this kind of adventurous and keenly understanding music-making.

Christine Primrose helped introduce Gaelic song to a far wider audience than it had ever enjoyed before. She returns with her new album this month. “The pleasure of losing oneself in the whole collection, from beginning to end, can hardly be expressed in words.”

Old Crow medicine Show pay tribute to Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, celebrating the truly seminal, cross-fertilising nature of the original record. I fully expect there to be claims that this set is destined to take its place amongst the great live sets of rock history.

Live at the Fillmore, February 1969, shows The Byrds in fine form at mid-career. A good study of a band in transition – from their popular folk rock 60’s sound toward a country-rock style that would be hugely influential for artists who followed.

Tara Clerkin’s ‘Hello’ is deeply steeped in lo-fi counterculture, it appeals to the analog audiophile or the music lover with a sixth sense for the production experimentation that embodied recordings of the psychedelic era.

After a successful album debut in 2015, Threaded return with ‘Fair Winds and Following Seas’… Enjoying the album is “like an evening spent at the best of dances among the best of company – you leave feeling fresh, elated, and eager for 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.

What is perhaps most impressive about Peasant is the way it invents and develops – seemingly with ease – a world, an entirely new ancient landscape that has its own musical language. Richard Dawson has created a genuinely outstanding and astounding work of art.  

Three years on, Luke Tuchscherer returns with  Always Be True, a more sonically fleshed out affair that, as the press release notes, comes with echoes of Uncle Tupelo, Tom Petty and Steve Earle.

With Oumou Sangaré’s mesmerising vocals, irresistible beats, and soulful social justice commentary, Mogoya is an album to continually return to for strength and celebration.

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.

Toronto mandolin maestro Andrew Collins and his trio partners have recorded an album which defies categorisation but which draws on a myriad of classical and folk influences – full of beauty, quirks and top notch musicianship.