Albums

This year’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards was one of the best there’s been. We were there on the night taking in the celebrations, one which was fun, emotional and entertaining. Proof that the folk scene is very much in good health.

Block booking Dublin’s prestigious Vicar Street for a month of concerts was a bold move, but one that has paid off handsomely for Paul Brady, with a little help from his friends. You can hear it for yourself on The Vicar St. Sessions Vol. 1 which is released this month via Proper Records. Read our review here.

What a week it is for The Young’uns having just picked up the BBC Folk Award for Best Group they launch their new album ‘Another Man’s Ground’ this week at The Sage Gateshead. They’ve been on quite a journey since their humble beginnings, one that continues to grow and develop.

Paul heads to Leytonstone’s ‘What’s Cookin’ for an evening of great entertainment from Mark Olson and his wife Ingunn Ringvold. Supported by Welsh/Mississippi duo Lewis and Leigh. Another superb night he shares for you here.

‘High Rise’ is an album of wondrous beauty from start to finish, with pieces that combine jazz, blues and classical with Scottish roots music. The work of Scottish fiddler and composer David Grubb this is a superb, confident soundtrack to a bustling city, as observed by a visitor.

Kate Rusby works her magic once again at the Civic Theatre, Chelmsford – an invitation to step outside of your own world and to join hers for a brief moment, to become part of the great tradition that has seen songs passed to her from her parents and from her and Damien to their children. A superb evening that our reviewer Paul shares here.

Interloper is the latest release from Tom Kitching on which he is joined by some well known musicians to define the current state of the English tradition. This is a collection of cracking tunes with intelligent, absorbing arrangements. You can’t go wrong with this one.

Tom Russell’s epic The Rose Of Roscrae is the crowning achievement of one of America’s most potent songsmiths, a brilliant and dramatic, western folk opera with an all star cast. It could just be the single most important Americana release of all time.

For his second album A Day Like Tomorrow Fabian Holland returns with more magical guitar playing, a much bigger sound and another superb set of songs and the notable addition of percussionist Fred Claridge, a young and up coming star himself, while Jacob Stoney’s keyboards add variety and texture to the bigger sound that producer Mark Hutchinson has helped Fabian realise.

His last album saw him reinterpreting songs by his own favourite writers and singers, but here on his fifth album, Scott returns to his own pen for a collection of ten numbers. Songs that gets deep inside you.

Loyalty is an album full of wonderful, enigmatic murkiness, an album that should earn The Weather Station a place at the top table of Canadian songwriters. From the start her songwriting is assured and the musicianship – aided by Afie Jurvanen of Bahamas and Feist collaborator Robbie Lackritz – creates just the right balance of iciness and warmth.

To say Marika Hackman’s album ‘We Slept At Last’ is a warts and all album is an understatement. The flashlight’s glare is upturned and fixed on that frightful grimacing profile we all know only too well. Yet the radiant glow seems to embrace the blemishes and frailties. In fact it goes deeper, to reveal the unpredictable, eccentric and beautiful person hidden behind them.