News

The age of cabaret is not dead. Bellowhead did a fine job with a grand stage performance. Now check this! Kirsty Almeida brings Eccentricity and abandonment in heaped doses to bring an altogether new recipe and magical performance. Musical dresses, circular doors, chirping toy birds, sonic hallucinations: in Kirsty Almeida we’ve the return, at last, of the enigmatic true eccentric. Her music (like her life) is magical, the kind of …

Seth Lakeman was the last person I expected to turn up in our local pub, The Oak, Clevedon. But after a phone call from a mate saying, “Alex, come to the Oake, Seth Lakeman is here, this isn’t a wind-up, honest!” I went, arrived, and there he was sat playing fiddle with Benji Kirkpatrick along with a discreet couple of film makers to record the video for Hearts and Minds.

Some great news on the line-up for this years Open House Festival which is looking like the Americana gig of the year! The Dave Rawlings Machine, fronted by long-time musical partner of Americana singer songwriter Gillian Welch, are to play an exclusive Irish debut at this year’s Open House Festival in Belfast on Saturday 11th September.

We have three exclusive acoustic tracks on offer today from Brighton based Jake Beattie who will be a newcomer to most of you. He has an unmistakeable voice, perfect for etching out his powerful and poignant tales. His voice has both a warmth and raw timbre that can carry both powerful and emotive whispered delivery.

Emily and the Woods is the very first Frukie Session to be recorded exclusively for Folk Radio UK and we hope there will be many more to follow. It was at the Communion launch night in Bristol that I first heard Emily and the Woods. There was a problem with her guitar so microphones were strategically placed around her in the hope of some amplification. The result was that the …

Here’s a great free sampler from Fat Cat Records. It was originally released as a CD for giveaway through indie records stores and features Tom Brosseau, Nina Nastasia and Bulky Mule as well as others from the label. It’s not a folk sampler OK…

I mentioned a little while ago (on facebook) that I was going to be featuring an occasional piece on venues that offer something a bit different and unique. The first place to catch my eye was The Rude Shipyard run by Pete David and Sally Smith in Sheffield. It’s a cafe/bookshop and the sort of place I’d love to have on my doorstep! In their own words:

Now you’ve seen what we play on Frukie (see previous post) this is a taste of what we played on the Roots Channel! The playlist is from the 4th May. The image is of Natalie Merchant whose latest album, Leave Your Sleep, features on the Roots Channel.

I occasionally post details of past playlists to give a flavour of what we play. This is the Frukie playlist for 4th May 2010. Maybe at some point in the future when we have more time on our hands we’ll post them daily. The image is of Michael Hurley who has been making incredible alternative music since 1965!

For those of you that know and love the music of The Low Anthem you will know the line-up as frontman Ben Knox Miller, multi-instrumentalist Jeff Prystowsky and the classically trained composer Jocie Adams. So who do those extra pair of feet in the photo above belong to and where is it?

That’s right, Colin Meloy of the Decemberists is about to release a series of Children’s books. Maybe not so surprising as some may report though. The series entitled Wildwood see’s Meloy collaborating with his wife, Carsons Ellis, an illustrator. Wildwood is a classic tale of adventure, magic, and danger.

Laura Marling performs Made By Maid exclusively for Later (BBC). The London new-folk favourite made her TV debut on the show in 2007.