Albums

Jolie Holland & Samantha Parton, founding members of The Be Good Tanyas, re-join forces for Wildflower Blues. A very welcome reunion and hopefully just the beginning of an ongoing partnership. They are on tour in the UK & Ireland during October 2017.

Pretty Peggy firmly adds Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys to the list of artists who are proving that great party bands are no longer the exclusive domain of the Scottish & Irish music scenes. Pretty Peggy is easily one of the best albums to come from the ever-growing world of youthful folk music.

Small Believer is the latest offering from Portland singer-songwriter Anna Tivel. She offers insightful and often moving images of ordinary lives drawn from stories heard while out on the road. Open, honest and deeply affecting, it’s her best work yet. 

John Smith’s Headlong is a restrained and affecting album from a master craftsman. What it lacks in happy hooks, it makes up for in slow-burn – these are songs to enjoy as they unfold over many listens.

Songs from the Attic is very much a personal journey by Hampshire-based musician and journalist Jon Wilks. His love for folk music manifests itself throughout this lovely album.

Afterglow is a full, large scale and grand piece of work that is as intelligent as it is entertaining, and it confirms Jon Boden as one of the most interesting and exciting British singers and arrangers currently working.

Strength and courage is what ‘Strangers’ is all about. Despite the hardships it describes, there is barely a moment on this album that doesn’t hum with positivity. The Young’uns have perfected a sound that is as unique as it is uplifting, and it would be no surprise if their already burgeoning popularity were to rise to even greater heights.

If there are any listeners who might harbour the thought that the presentation of “one man and his box” would by now be sounding a touch tired, then this thoroughly refreshing new John Kirkpatrick album should convince them otherwise. It finds him in splendid voice and both nimble and sparky in his perennially expert squeezeboxery.

On their new album ‘Interesting Times’, Basco invite you to ‘listen, ponder and sip your drink, and we’ll see you all out there tomorrow ready to sniff the air, feel the grass, and see which road seems better’. You should accept the invitation.

It’s impossible to listen to Marry Waterson without the inevitable comparison to her mother, Lal. However, this album is firm evidence that while the apple may not have fallen far from the tree, it has grown into very much its own orchard, one made all the richer by her partnership with David A. Jaycock. This is one to treasure.

The Glasgow welcome that Skipinnish received on Friday night was beyond exuberant. The audience was in a euphoric mood throughout, and it’s heart-warming to see a band whose core audience is in the north-west of Scotland enjoy such an enthusiastic welcome in the heart of Glasgow.

The unsurpassed sense of delight and commonality in Mac Ìle is nothing short of exhilarating. It’s as if there’s freedom among Fraser Shaw’s melodies and memories for this jubilant collective to express themselves like never before.