Albums

Lisa Knapp’s new EP ‘Hunt the Hare – A Branch of May’ excels with ingenuity and magic and sets Lisa Knapp at the forefront and heart of the English Folk Renaissance, incredible.

Treacherous Orchestra have released their first studio album: Origins. It is about energy, joy, exuberance….if we could bottle this energy there’d be no more arguments about wind farms.

The Levellers new release ‘Static On The Airwaves’ should be seen not just as a great album, but as an important album. An album which will soundtrack a summer of parties and festivals, just as ‘Levelling The Land’ did years ago.

The fourth and final instalment of The Nomad Series, entitled ‘The Wilderness’, sees a laid-back return to the Cowboy Junkies’ musical comfort zone, with satisfying results.

Nels Andrews latest release ‘Scrimshaw’ is a sparsely presented and strikingly intimate album that combines deft storytelling with a warmth of tone and gentleness of pace.

Sandy Bull’s music is a slice of the 60s flower-power generation that was opening up to new ways of thinking and demonstrated one of the first cross-pollinations of modern and traditional music in the electric era.

Kyle Carey’s debut album ‘Monongah’ is a gentle delight which brings fresh rewards on each repeat playing. If she can maintain this standard, Carey deserves to be held in the highest esteem.

Sproatly Smith’s latest release ‘The Minstrel’s Grave’ demonstrates a band that are willing to play at the fringes of folk music and incorporate musical ideas drawn from rock, psychedelia and even rap.

Taken as a whole, Tarras’s new album ‘Warn the Waters’ is likely to be a good return to the scene for the band, as there is appeal for both folkies and the modern post-pop audience.

KAN are one of those bands that are at the forefront of moulding and re-defining tradtional music, if this is the standard then the tradtional music scene has rewarding times ahead!

Cynic’s New Year is a fragile beast with transitory fiddle, banjo, guitar and cello to cushion frontman Justin Ringle’s tentative laments and words of found wisdom.

Read our live review of Ian Anderson at the Derby Assembly Rooms. He is currently touring “Thick as a Brick” 2012.