Albums

Silver Horizon sounds like nothing Sam Carter has made before. As subtle as it is adventurous and finely nuanced, it’s an excellent album and a career-high for Sam who is also our Artist of the Month.

Danny Neill shares his highlights of Cambridge Folk Festival 2024, featuring notable performances by Leyla McCalla – a set that was tingling with magic, Fantastic Negrito, Konyikeh, Katherine Priddy, Lizzie No, Peggy Seeger, Oysterband, Rioghnach Connolly and more.

Unpredictable, varied and quirky, on the surface, Emily Barker’s ‘Fragile as Humans’ ought not to sound anything like a coherent whole but unequivocally does and represents her most personal, emotive album to date… a compassionate listen in every sense.

On ‘A Little Bit Slanted’, Molly Donnery and The Ciderhouse Rebellion revisit a selection of traditional Irish songs, supercharging each in subtly different ways.

The music of Myles Cochran’s “You Are Here” has a rootless quality, subtly shifting while shining a light on sonically rich moments that softly weave their spell.

The sixth instalment from The Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties series covers Cornwall and South Yorkshire. It passes the creative reins over to experimental-leaning guitarist David A Jaycock and Sheffield-based avant-psych drone merchants Slug Milk to present two very different faces of experimental folk music.

If you’re after a sharp and tight set of traditional Old-time songs played with plenty of vim and a hefty dose of talent, then look no further than Grant / McGuire / Flaherty, a fun slice of Appalachian magic.

Leith-based folk music project Fidra deliver a stunning debut album. ‘The Running Wave,’ is as rugged, passionate, and enigmatic as the beautifully unforgiving land it celebrates…one of the finest Scottish folk albums of the year.

Hannah Mohan’s ‘Time is a Walnut’ conjures its own unique spell, one full of idiosyncratic turns and quirky melodies. What stays long after listening is her innovative, off-the-cuff orchestration and her myriad ways of exploring the here and now.

Americana often conjures up words like psychedelic or cosmic, but the form rarely offers such a way-out hue as experienced here; Wes Tirey Sings Selected Works Of Billy The Kid is a true one-off. 

Are Possible, the first full album from the trio Nathan Bowles, Rex McMurray and Casey Toll, is an outstanding slow burner of an album that benefits from repeated listens to unearth its intricate melodic details, phrases, time signatures and rhythmic shifts.

The Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties Vol. V covers Norfolk and West Yorkshire, courtesy of Pefkin and Dean McPhee. If this quality is maintained throughout the series, we will have a stunning and important body of work on our hands.