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.
We catch up with Senegalese kora master Seckou Keita to chat about his wonderful new Homeland (Chapter 1) album, a rich, beaming tapestry, and the various aspects of life that inspired it.
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.
Gearing up to release Silver Horizon (out this Friday, 16th August), Sheffield-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Sam Carter talks to us about his distinctive new sound.
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.
It’s unusual to encounter a debut full-length album with as much confidence and clarity as Malin Lewis’s Halocline, which is also a work of subtle, nuanced beauty. We met with the Scottish piper to learn more about it.
Halocline, the debut album from Malin Lewis, our Artist of the Month, is a highly creative and singular forty minutes of music that’s unique in its character and emotion. Clever in its approach and balanced in its execution, in short, it’s quite exceptional.
Martin Simpson is our latest ‘Off the Shelf’ guest, in which we ask artists to present objects from a shelf or shelves from their home and talk about them. Martin’s new album, Skydancers, is out now on Topic Records.
Martin Simpson’s Skydancers is a beautifully packaged album. The music exudes class and quality, but what impresses most is the restraint. No notes are wasted and all instrumental flourishes land, enhancing each song. It is an excellent record from a master of his craft.
We met Jenny Sturgeon and Boo Hewerdine to talk about their new Outliers album, a beautiful celebration of spontaneity and space, blending strong songwriting with acoustic arrangements and subtle electronics.
Jenny Sturgeon and Boo Hewerdine’s Outliers revels in the beauty of the remote. While conceived and recorded entirely online, it feels astonishingly close. The attention to detail and clarity of sound are incredible, and their contributions are clearly defined yet entirely in accord.
We meet up with English folk masters Eliza Carthy and Jon Boden, our current Artists of the Month, to talk about their wonderful new album Glad Christmas Comes and rum topped diplomacy…
