Albums

Johnny reports back on Swanage Folk Festival taking in The Lucy Ward Band, Winter Wilson, Urban Folk Quartet, O’Hooley & Tiddow, Goat Roper Rodeo Band, Johnny Coppin and more.

Plumes is a swift follow-up to last year’s A Fairer Sea from Mike Gale’s Winchester-based band Co-Pilgrim. it’s the sort of record that makes you hope the weather holds out long enough to enjoy to the full.

Recorded in Cornwall with the salt spray in the wind, The Sea gathers Martha Tilston’s family and friends, the people who have inspired her music for her first album traditional folksong.

To be following your creative instincts with such certitude at this stage of a musical career is rare and to be applauded, especially when the results are as warm and refreshing as Good-bye Lizelle.

Marianne Faithfull’s latest offering Features an inspired number of collaborators. Quite possibly the album to deliver her first Top 40 placing since 1965.

Starting a string of Scottish dates today, before heading out to Europe, Skerryvore give Folk Radio UK an exclusive insight into their hectic world and the brilliant new album Chasing The Sun.

With a stage show to complement the CD David Gibbs offers up a great new album for children featuring the likes of Blue Rose Code, Nancy Kerr, Bella Hardy, Lucy Ward and Jez Lowe.

Winchester-born singer Louise Jordan returns with her third self-produced Latin titled album ‘Veritas’ that showcases her clear, pure soprano and accomplished guitar and piano playing.

Fieldnotes is a gentle un-rushed musical affair from James Haddock Jr. backed by a fantastic set of musicians including Nathan “Junior” Andersen of M.Ward/The Dandy Warhols.

Luke Winslow-King’s fourth album draws extensively on the musical roots his adopted home of New Orleans. A stylistically diverse but cohesive collection of fine Southern blues.

On ‘South Wind, Clear Sky’ Mark Fry has created a set of songs that examine innocence, loneliness, tranquillity and adventure with a painter’s eye for detail and an enviable compositional skill.

In ‘Nothing Can Bring Back The Hour’ Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker have produced a work of beauty and depth which deserves to be acknowledged as a classic in the canon of contemporary UK folk music.