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Very few come sprinkled with the kind of magic dust that coats the new album by Georgia Shackleton. A sense of history seeps into every corner of the recording. These songs are timeless and wise, bright and intricate, shot through with polar light and the glint of the sea. “From the Floorboards” is an album with a story behind it, and that story is worth telling.
Notes to Self is Welsh harpist Catrin Finch’s most intimate work yet—a poignant “letter” to her 13-year-old self. Through eleven compositions, Finch explores themes of home, anxiety, and innocence with expert precision. From the eerie depths of Black Holes to the luminous runs of Môr Arianrhod, this album is a masterclass in emotional depth and musical intelligence; one to cherish.
From street-busking in Carlow to collaborating with Boygenius, Ye Vagabonds’ journey culminates in ‘All Tied Together.’ Releasing January 30, their fourth album swaps traditional covers for deeply personal original songwriting. Produced by Phil Weinrobe, it’s a masterful blend of earthy folk and experimental textures—shimmering synths and soaring strings—capturing the grit of their past and the warmth of home.
Bergamo-based guitarist Buck Curran’s Far Driven Sun is an intensely musical, layered set celebrating his reunion with a 1990 Stefan Sobell ‘Butterfly’ acoustic guitar. From the intimate “Vignettes” to the subtly dynamic “Bells” and the buoyant “Unicorn Song,” it showcases Buck’s exquisite touch as a player and recording artist. It’s a highly accomplished album, made with love and performed with the utmost skill and intricate musicianship.
John Elliott of The Little Unsaid has a way of drawing listeners in with universal truths presented in the most personal – and often poetic – of ways. On Stay Fragile All Across This Cold Frontier, the album moves from intimate piano ballads to raw blues-rock and stately meditations, confirming The Little Unsaid as one of the best-kept secrets in contemporary music.
We chat to Junior Brother, whose songs are known for veering between the intensely personal and the hotly political. On his third album, The End, the Dublin-based songwriter’s ragged and uncompromising delivery reaches new heights of unexpected beauty, strangeness and relevance. Throughout the interview, his answers to our questions were considered and wide-ranging.
With photography by Sophie Reichert, Danny Neill reports back from End of the Road, a brilliantly curated festival that still gets it right. Some of the shining highlights from a fully packed four days include Bug Club, Emma-Jean Thackray, Lisa O’Neill, Broadside Hacks & Mike Heron, Katy J Pearson, Jerron Paxton, Sharon Van Etten, Rosali, Scott Lavene, Muireann Bradley, Yoshika Cowell, Throwing Muses, Stewart Lee, Father John Misty and more.
With this year’s Supersonic Sunday-lineup featuring some of KLOF’s favourites, we went along for the ride. Bridget Hayden, Jackie-O Motherf-cker, Hedgling, Six Organs of Admittance, Cinder Well, Jennifer Reid, Poor Creature, Richard Dawson, Funeral Folk and The Bug & Warrior Queen were outstanding. On the strength of these performances, Supersonic can claim to be not just the best small festival in the country, but the best of any size.
On Junior Brother’s third album, The End, Ronan Kealy displays real genius in the way he links ancient themes, such as the album’s underlying central motif of fairy forts, to our contemporary plight. “we can do nothing other than hang on his every word, words that slip from calm to fervid to agonised. It’s a journey we are willing to take again and again.”
We chat to Ruth Clinton and Cormac MacDiarmada of Poor Creature about their debut album, All Smiles Tonight. A deep dive into its making, their influences (from the Cocteau Twins to Ellen Arkbro) and more. The album feels like a new high point in the constantly evolving experimental folk scene centred around Dublin and a thoroughly modern foray into ancient musical territory. But is it folk?
The Archivists (2020) is a Canadian short film directed by Igor Drljaca that explores how artistic creation is the ultimate expression of our interconnectedness. Set in a dystopian future where past art is forbidden, the film follows three musicians who discover a secret room in an abandoned home containing vinyl records and a gramophone. Selecting one of the albums to play, they are inspired to perform one of the songs.
Tension, contrast and juxtaposition are words that inevitably come to mind at multiple points throughout All Smiles Tonight. Poor Creature are masters at harnessing that tension and creating soundworlds that are utterly compelling from start to finish. This is music that straddles darkness and light, and traverses the blasted terrain of loss in wholly unexpected ways, picking apart and reassembling the whole idea of folk music as it goes.
Gareth Bonello, aka The Gentle Good, has written an in-depth guide to his new album ‘Elan’ (also featuring audio and video). The album is a psychedelic portrait of Cwm Elan, the Elan Valley in Powys, Wales. It explores the landscape, history, and politics of the area that was flooded at the end of the Victorian era to create a series of reservoirs for drinking water. Out now on Bubblewrap Collective.
The Gentle Good’s latest album, Elan, is a concept album of sorts, a study of the Elan Valley in Powys through music, recorded off-grid in the Cambrian mountains. An admirable creation, it’s a broad and generous soundscape for a beloved area of Wales, containing both music and singing that is diverse, adventurous and rich in character. Gareth Bonello’s most ambitious album so far, this bumper collection is a triumph.
While she grew up in Yorkshire, Iona Lane’s new album, Swilkie, is a love song to Scotland’s islands and the people who live there, and an impassioned plea for the conservation of wild spaces and communities on the margins. A relative newcomer to the region, she spoke to KLOF about how she came to know and love her adopted homeland, and how it came to inform her music.