Featured

On Stick In The Wheel’s second ‘From Here’ compilation well-known interpreters of traditional song rub shoulders with experimental folkies while Brit-folk royalty has a place at the table alongside impassioned protest-singers.

I have believed for a long time that there is magic contained in forms of improvised music that cannot be found in others and this album by Cormac Byrne and Adam Summerhayes certainly backs that theory. Their Stone Soup project is the best thing I have heard so far this year.

Coming in the style of Gillian Welch and Milk Carton Kids, the UK’s Copper Viper are beginning to run, with their debut album now out. We chatted about recording the album, classic duos and condenser microphones.

For me, ‘Union’ is the album where this incarnation of Son Volt have finally found their true voice and most authentic sound. This is the most musically rewarding album they have ever delivered.

Gripping from start to finish, here is Another Side Of Todd Snider: piercing, precise, bare but still as eccentric as ever. Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3 earns its place right up there with the very best of Snider’s sprawling back catalogue.

Cut it Down, Count the Rings does not feel much like a debut album. The songs and performances are strong and confident, the playing, too, is top-draw – it all feels at once new and utterly focused and considered. Hats fully off to Copper Viper.

Kathryn Tickell’s music flows so naturally you could be forgiven for thinking it’s plucked from the air. Hollowbone belies that notion in magnificent style. The music is complex and animated, exploring the mists of millennia but singing in a clear, contemporary voice… a wonderful, brave, and intoxicating album.

Yet another fine addition to the River Lea record label – Irish folk music is in a very healthy state at the moment and with The Hare’s Lament, Ye Vagabonds have emerged as its most accomplished exponents.

Changeable Heart’s soul is in the traditions from which Ruth Notman and Sam Kelly draw their inspiration, but at its heart is a series of exquisite vocal duets from two of the finest voices in the land. It’s a marvellous, elegant and finely crafted album that will long be remembered as one of this year’s highlights.

With their superb fourth album Diversions now out, busy super-folk trio Leveret spoke to us about spontaneity in the band, shifting roles and playing with better musicians.

His delicious caressing of the lyrics reminds me of Mike Scott at his most incisive; I can also hear the soulfulness of Ray LaMontagne at times too. Sean Taylor has recorded an album on a par with the strongest work by either of those high-ranking acts and has also written one of the premier topical song albums of our time.

Diversions is the clearest statement of Leveret’s ability yet, an album packed with beautiful, gentle, energetic and fluid works, and it fully establishes this band as one of the very finest in English instrumental music.