Featured

After almost 40 years as a performer, Cavalier proves that Eddi Reader’s talent as a singer, arranger and writer has never diminished, her music shines bright as ever. Album out on 28 September via Reveal Records.

Refreshingly contemporary in their approach, while staying true to their Highland influences; with Road To The North, Assynt have created a debut album that marks them as one of our most impressive young bands.

Jackie Oates took the time to talk to Folk Radio UK about the creative process behind the recording of The Joy of Living. Her answers provide a rare insight into a method that is both unorthodox and entirely natural.

Curse of Lono have lived up to the promise of their fascinating début and somehow manage to offer even more. There are big ideas and compelling prose, and that music is just thrilling. As I Fell is an exceptional album.

When All Is Still may be an album with its roots in tradition, but it has a freshness that makes these old songs seem wonderfully new. It is one of the best collections of traditional songs you’ll hear all year. Read our review and watch the video premiere of Ploughman Lads.

The Joy of Living is the seventh studio album from Jackie Oates, also our Artist of the Month for August. It is her most personal yet, covering an intensely personal period of her life in which she celebrated the birth of her daughter Rosie and bid an emotional and loving farewell to her beloved father.

On Banjophony, there’s a connectivity among the musicians that goes far beyond simply sharing a melody; it’s an exchange of ideas and influences and a platform to explore them. O’Kane and Block have taken a collective approach to create an album of incredibly captivating music.

Amid breathtaking Welsh landscape, we met up with twelve-string guitarist Toby Hay, our Artist of the Month for July, to discuss the mechanics behind his new set of acoustic instrumentals, The Longest Day.

All Souls seduces the senses with songs that individually open from a distance and come rapidly closer, but collectively flow along like a gentle river current. An album that’s sure to become a firm favourite.

This willingness to engage – emotionally and physically, with internal and external landscapes – is what sets Toby Hay apart from virtually everyone else currently making instrumental folk music. The Longest Day is a triumph, a thing of shimmering beauty.

With their new Anchor album already out and having the critics dishing out stars liberally, we met with the peerless mother and daughter duo to discuss the recording of the project, musical censorship and making a follow-up.

Anchor is a deeply intelligent and fresh selection of songs. The theme of perennial bonds through family friends and music shows its hand throughout and wraps up something very special. Another deeply satisfying, beautifully sang and arranged album of songs from a peerless musical family.

With each successive release, Dàimh seem to exceed their aspirations, creating and recording peerless new music. The Rough Bounds is an exceptional album, from an exceptional band.

With Songs From The Seasons, Joshua Burnell delivers a collection of assured, dynamic takes on a wide range of folk songs. An album full of loving detail and exceptional musicianship, an album of genuine ambition, scope and variety.

Gretchen Peters has reacted to the adoring reception of Blackbirds by writing an even better album in Dancing with the Beast. This is assured, highly impressive work from all involved.

With a new ‘worth the wait’ album now delighting fans the world over, we caught up with the singular John Prine, our Artist of the Month, to discuss nocturnal writing, old songs and families.

III is a folk album played with the inventiveness of jazz and the control of chamber music. It is suffused with pastoral light but anchored in earthy realism, unshowy but technically innovative, driven by emotion but never sentimental.

Shorebound is the sound of Ben Glover planting one foot firmly in his hometown of Glenarm, Northern Ireland and the other just as firmly in Nashville, Tennessee. It oozes confidence and skill. The production is assured, the playing excellent and the singing very beautiful. This is a worthy piece of work from a class act.