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With Hinterland, Gerry Diver and Lisa Knapp wanted to create something ‘raw and real and unrestrained,’ something that flies in the face of the notion that folk music is a static form…this gloriously free-spirited album is the perfect example of folk’s potential for reinvention. 

Jim Ghedi’s ‘Wasteland’, for all its anger and anguish, provides us with many moments of beauty. It is a timely reminder of the potency of art in a world that seems to be turning uglier by the day, and it might just be Ghedi’s masterpiece.

For Matt Hsu, multi-arts all percolate in the making of music, so for the joint release of Noodle and Forest Party, Matt called on comic illustrator Madi Marston to make a comic about Obscure Orchestra. Read it here.

Dave McNally shares his Celtic Connections highlights, covering The Transatlantic Sessions, Natalie MacMaster, Donnell Leahy and Frances Morton, Michael McGoldrick, Tim Edey and Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves and Brian Finnegan.

Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra’s ‘Forest Party’ and ‘Noodle’ are fearsomely eclectic albums. Genre boundaries dissolve, and everything is suspended freely, creating its own universe with all the randomness and beautiful chaos it implies. He proves that home can exist wherever there is hope and community.

During their Celtic Connections performance, Catrin Finch’s mastery of the Welsh harp intertwined seamlessly with Aoife Ní Bhriain’s deft fiddle playing, creating a rich tapestry of sound that thoroughly captivated the audience.

In the hands of film producer James Mangold, there is a very real probability that the definitive Bob Dylan film has finally arrived, with the man himself nowhere to be seen but his spirit and very essence seeping into every frame.

We chat with 21st-century renaissance man Sam Amidon about his influences, his love of instrumental music, jazz and folk; and of course, the creation of his sublime new album ‘Salt River’.

Read Tom Blake’s poem about Ed Askew – ‘He Is 82 Years Old Now’. Ed, an outsider folk musician, poet and painter, passed away recently; Tom called him “one of the finest, most big-hearted, most underappreciated songwriters of his or anyone else‘s generation.”

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.

The true genius of Ross Ainslie’s ‘Pool’ lies in how it reconciles its stylistically varied individual tracks with an overall mood that remains consistent—and consistently engaging, something he pulls off with panache, originality, and an often breathtaking range of musical invention.

In terms of lyrical content and musical atmosphere, To Warm the Winter Hearth is a winter (rather than a Christmas) album. Along with Windborne’s almost supernatural grasp of harmony singing, this an impressive, evocative work of art.