Albums

Wheels of the World is a remarkable achievement: an album that not only sounds like a classic folk album of many years vintage, but it can also stand head-and-shoulders with the best of them too. And it seems like they’ve only just started…

It may have taken Michael Walsh a long time to make his first album, but Quare Hawk is a warm, unassuming collection of tunes, songs and spoken word, striking coherence across a multiplicity of influences and styles.

Dick Gaughan’s greatest talent has to be his ability to share his music with skill, passion and humour. That fact is abundantly clear on The Harvard Tapes, a unique and unmissable opportunity to relish a vintage Gaughan performance.

Quite how an artist regroups after an effort like this is anyone’s guess. I’ve not heard anything as beautifully intense or personal since Bon Iver’s ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’.

Awaken, the new album from Bristol-based band The Schmoozenbergs, is a fun and enjoyable record of all originals, played with love and abandon,  adding a new chapter to the long and winding saga of gypsy swing and acoustic roots music.

Evoking a 70s Laurel Canyon feel with inevitable early Joni Mitchell comparisons surfacing, Native Harrow’s latest album shimmers and glows with a warmth and emotional intimacy that’s impossible to resist.

Released in December 1968 as a private pressing of 200 copies, Kusudo & Worth’s mega-rare “Of Sun And Rain” gets re-issued and proves an inordinately fascinating album, a privileged glimpse into a creative maelstrom that still after several playthroughs promises to reveal even more delights.

With the release of 365: Volume Two, Aidan O’Rourke continues to present highlights from both his music and James Robertson’s stories; and again collaborates with piano and harmonium player Kit Downes. His musical responses provide a fascinating, detailed and perfectly executed musical miscellany.

Featuring Tatiana Hargreaves, Hard Drive deliver high-octane bluegrass-old-time style, delivered with deep intuitive insight, manic exploratory zeal and seriously powerhouse instrumental (and vocal) chops but also, importantly, with an abundant and overwhelming sense of fun.

Karine Polwart covers some fifty years of Scottish pop and rock in an album of covers from Gerry Rafferty to Frightened Rabbit. Sung from the heart she makes each song her own, a triumphant tribute to some of Scotland’s finest.

Canadian folk duo Mama’s Broke deliver a strong debut with ‘Count the Wicked, a journey through rural early 20th century Americana that’s fizzing with melodic ideas and tales to tell. Debut albums as strong as this should not be ignored.

With help from friends Kevin Scott, Dave Colohan, Graeme Lockett, James Connor, and Ronnie Maxwell, Alison has created something remarkably fresh. Which is to be expected from someone who has always responded to her own muse.