Albums

Kadia are a band to watch out for. This debut album confirms they are maturing rapidly as songwriters, as instrumentalists, as singers, as arrangers. They are the full package, destined to reach an ever widening audience.

With Tom Robinson due to release a new album, his first in 20 years, produced by Gerry Diver and featuring guest contributions from Martin Carthy & Billy Bragg, we were naturally inquisitive. Jon Earl went along to London to catch his ‘rough mix of tunes’. It turned out to be a very memorable evening.

Against expectations Chatterbox is one of the freshest and in its quiet way one of the most spectacular albums I have heard this year. Ranging from incantatory to reflective, it is always subtle, vital, and feminine in the most elementary sense of the word. Bartosik and James look to have created an entirely new platform for the accordion, but more importantly the have created a beautiful set of recordings.

TRADarrr is a folk rock big-band project whose core members are Gregg Cave, Mark Stevens, Marion Fleetwood, Guy Fletcher and PJ Wright with some notable guests as well. An album that will nestle very comfortably in the same CD wallet as such 70s folk rock classics as Please To See The King and Liege and Lief.

They enjoy a robust on-stage relationship that fuels their artistry. Neither appears to have an answer to where the person ends and the music begins – that puzzle is one part of what makes the Milk Carton Kids so special and their new album Monterey is no exception.

Folk Radio catches Dean Owens at his album launch show for ‘Into The Sea’ at London’s Green Note. He sings ‘six songs, six possible singles; it really is that strong an album.’ Let’s hope Owens doesn’t leave it long before returning south of the border again.

It’s been a long time coming, but ‘Boy In A Boat’ is a fine record, which combines literate songwriting and top class musicianship with high production values and painstaking attention to detail. The result is an album of which Barry Kerr can be justifiably proud; one which more than holds its own with the big names of the contemporary Celtic music scene.

Folk Radio get a double treat from Robert Chaney and Barna Howard at London’s Servant Jazz Quarters – “Both songwriters could have played all night and it would not have been enough.”

Dedicated to the late founding member and family patriarch, Lenny Barker, The Barker Band’s sixth album The Land We Hold Dear is already set be on the ‘Best of’ lists of 2015. It should be on yours.

Dreamer’s Circus have proven they will refuse, gleefully, to be restricted by genre or by tradition. Their approach is all-embracing and their technical ability simply outstanding. Their music is completely accessible and, at the same time, remarkable in its complexity. ‘Second Movement’ carries the listener from calm contemplation to a euphoric exuberance – a journey to be relished.

Danny Schmidt’s work is characterised by a beauty in the simplicity of its expression, a quietly compelling demeanour that draws the listener in immediately. Owls is everything a contemporary troubadour singer-songwriter album should be.

Nothing More is a most valuable set, not least in that it brings together under one roof a host of recordings that together could be argued to represent the best, the bulk of the collected Fotheringay, and impeccably presented in the house style of earlier Island/Universal hardcover box-sets including a new authoritative essay by Mick Houghton, along with a copious selection of rare and previously unseen photographs.