Albums

On the Demon Barbers latest offering a bewildering array of styles is woven into the pieces, as traditional folk songs are reinterpreted with a contemporary dance music twist. Overlaid by Damien Barber’s powerful, passionate vocal, it all results in a stunning collection of foot-tapping brilliance.

The Lilac Time release their Ninth Album ‘No Sad Songs’, an album that is charged with an uplifting, buoyant vision of life. Given its April release, a quote TS Eliot quote fromThe Waste Land seems appropriate – “ breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” Go gather.

Karl Culley’s fourth offering is, as the name suggests, a stripped-down affair but his clever, intricate guitar picking creates the illusion that there is more than simply the singer and his guitar.

Rural Music is a collection of songs that exudes contentment. Absorbing lyrics, eloquent story-telling and a thoroughly engaging sound create enough sunshine to thaw those snowy hilltops. Seek out this album from Ash Hunter , and get your summer off to a good start. You won’t regret it.

Although not well known outside of their North East London stomping grounds, The Persecuted have the potential to attract far wider audiences already tuned in to the likes of Turner, Chris T-T and Beans On Toast.

With Charms Against Sorrow, Hannah Sanders places a wide range of traditional songs in a contemporary folk setting and in the process enables the listener to experience them in a new light on this finely-crafted and beautifully realised debut record.

Bella Hardy’s seventh studio album ‘With The Dawn’ contains originals that deftly bridges new and old, forging new links between the two without forgetting the importance of the song, another feather in the cap for an award winning artist.

These new editions are both handsome and pretty much definitive, and likely the most desirable ones to have residing permanently in your Tyrannosaurus Rex collection.

The Taxidermist is the fourth full-length album from Thirty Pounds of Bone, the nom de plume of Shetland born multi-instrumentalist Johny Lamb. It marks a departure from its predecessor in being an entirely one-man show with Lamb playing everything, recorded live (with no overdubs or edits) in a cellar in West Cornwall.

There’s a lot to savour on ‘A Wanderer I’ll Stay’, not least a free and easy feel to the delivery, some deeply embedded hooks that emerge the more you listen and cultured playing. Allied to some good songs and those incredible voices, it’s a delicious little nugget of an album.

This tribute provides a space in which some of the musicians who rightly look up to Molina’s work can express their gratitude to him and to his family. It also gives fans another perspective on the music of one of the best and most quietly influential songwriters to have ever tried his hand at the game. Jason Molina may never have known it, but he is not alone.

We were recently given the opportunity of an exclusive insight into Dan Walsh’s musical life from his inspirations and roots to his new album ‘Incidents and Accidents’ and the exciting collaborations that fit in between. How could we resist: Dan reveals all from crowd surfing in New Zealand to his all-time favourite songwriter.