Albums

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.

John Alexander’s latest release ‘Of These Lands’ follows on further down the dusty and rocky road with a weathered collection of 11 songs that have been scratched from time spent on his recent journeys. These tales of weather-beaten lives make for engrossing listening

Having signed to Naim Records Daudi Matsiko’s self-released recordings are brought together under ‘An Introduction to Failure’ for wider distribution. His warm tones, sparse arrangements and confessional songs deserve the additional exposure.

On Tim Grimm’s latest album, A Stranger in Time, he is joined by his family as he offers songs inspired by his rural Indiana homeland to social-political protest including a justified swipe at Trump.