Albums

We conclude our three part review of The Big Whistle festival with Folk Radio UK favourites The Shee who put on spellbinding and highly passionate upbeat performance.

Bellowhead put on a great performance last month at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall with the stage transformed into a traditional galleon, resplendent with a backdrop of sails and rigging!

The Willows debut release ‘Beneath Our Humble Soil’ is a hugely enjoyable album; with songs that engage and enliven and Jade Ward’s husky tones create bewitching vocal performances.

Fence Records darlings Kid Canaveral make a long-awaited and welcome return with Now That You Are A Dancer, the follow-up to 2010’s compelling Shouting At Wildlife.

Steve Knightley took advantage of a break in the Show of Hands schedule to fill in with some solo dates. Unsupported and unaccompanied he entertained the crowd at The Met, Bury which included a revisit to some old songs.

We continue our three part review of The Big Whistle festival. Folk Radio UK favourite Rachel Sermanni put on a pin-drop performance which sold out several days in advance. We were not suprised!

Approximosey is the debut album from Holland Patent Public Library, the album is as quirky as the band name and is an equally intriguing and delightful find…the solo project of an inventive Ryan Dann.

Broken Down Gentlemen s the latest release from trad folk trio Faustus has been well worth waiting for…featuring 10 traditional English songs that had the original collectors reaching for the censor’s pencil.

By her own admission, Mindy Smith has had to work hard at her latest self-titled album release, but that investment has paid off handsomely. Boldly self-titled, self-produced and self-assured, this is one hell of a statement.

Remember the giddiness of spinning around, wide-eyed, arms flailing? And how trees blur into houses blur into people which keep spinning lazily even after you have stopped? That is what it feels like listening to Ólöf Arnalds’s third album Sudden Elevation.

‘Not Waving, But Drowning charms’ the listener on every level – the three part harmonies are spine-tingling, the expansive arrangements warm and inviting, and the lyrical content fascinating. A wider audience must surely follow.

Richard Thompson’s ‘Electric’ album finds him in top form packing mighty punches in between homely emotive meanderings as he seeks challenge and inspiration amongst a brotherly trio.