Artist of the Month

We chat to Sheffield’s Melrose Quartet about their new album ‘Make the World Anew’ – a staunch defence of the sheer joy of creativity, allowing for contemporary political songwriting and age-old dance tunes, poignant a cappella standards and complex instrumentals.

Make The World Anew attempts in a small but determined way to achieve the edict set out in its title, and it succeeds resoundingly. It is the Melrose Quartet’s most upbeat and accomplished album to date.

As Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening return with their second album, Cloud Horizons, we chat with Kathryn about how the album came about, the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall, mythical magic, the multicultural history of Northumbria, job-sharing singers and more.

Aptly described as ‘Ancient Northumbrian Futurism’, Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening’s ‘Cloud Horizons’ is an electrifying and incredibly captivating album. In capturing a sound that effortlessly conjures the past whilst simultaneously referencing the present and future, they have created a rather unique and striking soundscape.

We chat with Rónán Ó Snodaigh & Myles O’Reilly about their new album, The Beautiful Road, a work of graft and craft as well as exceptional artistry: music like this isn’t just plucked out of the air; it is the result of a serious and well-defined working relationship, nurtured over a period of years.

Myles O’Reilly recalls some of the magical moments experienced with Rónán Ó Snodaigh while making their new album, ‘The Beautiful Road’, at a “quaint cabin, isolated from the world’s noise…where boundaries between reality and imagination blur”.

Rónán Ó Snodaigh & Myles O’Reilly’s ‘The Beautiful Road’, is a calmative, a sonic balm in times of literal and metaphorical noise, but also a reminder of the verve and the life that can still exist in music. It’s an exceptional feat.

Amelia Baker, the singer, musician and writer behind Cinder Well, is disarmingly honest. But behind that honesty lies an intriguing depth and complexity. We chat with her about her new album ‘Cadence’; her Southern California roots and living in Ireland; and her influences and tastes, from Joni Mitchell to Lankum and Haruki Murakami.

Cinder Well’s ‘Cadence’ is something of a journey. Meandering, non-linear, but full of care and wisdom, it is an astonishingly powerful piece of work that seems to have been conceived in uncertainty but realised with the supreme assurance of one of the most consummate songwriters around.

We catch up with The Young’uns songwriter-in-chief Sean Cooney and chat about their new album ‘Tiny Notes’ – the songs and the stories behind them – and the growing appetite for folk music and songs.

When singing unaccompanied and in unison, The Young’uns make an elemental sound, and on ‘Tiny Notes’, it pins you to the wall; they have created an album that has the potential to become a benchmark classic in modern topical folk music.

After three decades as one of folk and traditional music’s leading fiddle players, John McCusker has plenty to look back on in our Artist of the Month interview in which he shares his musical heroes, memories and more.