Featured Albums of the Month

Gigspanner Big Band’s ‘Turnstone’ is a great example of how traditional song can provide a template for exciting new musical discovery. It’s also a career-defining release from one of folk’s most powerfully creative groups.

With Hinterland, Gerry Diver and Lisa Knapp wanted to create something ‘raw and real and unrestrained,’ something that flies in the face of the notion that folk music is a static form…this gloriously free-spirited album is the perfect example of folk’s potential for reinvention. 

Jim Ghedi’s ‘Wasteland’, for all its anger and anguish, provides us with many moments of beauty. It is a timely reminder of the potency of art in a world that seems to be turning uglier by the day, and it might just be Ghedi’s masterpiece.

Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra’s ‘Forest Party’ and ‘Noodle’ are fearsomely eclectic albums. Genre boundaries dissolve, and everything is suspended freely, creating its own universe with all the randomness and beautiful chaos it implies. He proves that home can exist wherever there is hope and community.

Sam Amidon’s Salt River is an album whose full kaleidoscopic experience is revealed through repeated listens. Eclectic is an easily applied word, but here we have an artist releasing a groundbreaking, spirited and adventurous album that is genuinely worthy of the description.

The true genius of Ross Ainslie’s ‘Pool’ lies in how it reconciles its stylistically varied individual tracks with an overall mood that remains consistent—and consistently engaging, something he pulls off with panache, originality, and an often breathtaking range of musical invention.

In terms of lyrical content and musical atmosphere, To Warm the Winter Hearth is a winter (rather than a Christmas) album. Along with Windborne’s almost supernatural grasp of harmony singing, this an impressive, evocative work of art.

Return to Kielderside is, among other things, a document of what has happened between that first Kathryn Tickell release and the present day-It’s like a long-exposure photograph of an important and highly impressive career in constant evolution.

It’s clear from this first chapter of Homeland that Seckou Keita is here to take us on a musical journey; peppered with guest artists, the whole thing is a beautiful, buoyant celebration of life and place. Music this joyous and full of pathos is irresistible.

Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings’ Parlour Ballads shines a light on an unfairly neglected part of musical history–a collection of beautifully performed, sad and compassionate songs brought to life by one of folk music’s premier performers.

Displaying a real willingness to push boundaries, The Rheingans Sisters’ ‘Start Close In’ is an endlessly fascinating, multi-faceted album steeped in the traditions of European folk dance but equally inspired by the avant-garde leanings of John Cale and twentieth-century minimalism.

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.