Albums

The First single release from Emily Barker’s forthcoming Dear River album is the wonderful title track. Like the best of Emily’s songs it has an immediate familiarity, yet is uniquely hers.

Prior to the start of their UK tour, we caught up with Sarah Howells of the Welsh acoustic pop duo Paper Aeroplanes, she talks about their new album ‘Little Letters’, the beauty of West Wales & more.

With his fourth album ‘Bright Sunny South’ Sam Amidon revisits bare folk storytelling. What he calls “a lonesome record”, to Bon Iver, is “the tips of the blades rising”. Either way: an adventure.

The erstwhile Wailin’ Jenny and Juno Award winning songwriter Cara Luft is back with her best album yet. Darlingford is a powerful, personal statement and a triumph built on tragedy.

Thea Gilmore’s latest release ‘Regardless’ sees her moving away from her folk persona towards a more commercial sounding album with an 80s – early 90s flavour.

The Tortoise is a mightily impressive first release, full of sadness and surprise, and introduces a spirited new voice. Despite the melancholy, good times beckon for Nuala Honan.

Two years in the making, The John Langan Band’s “Bones Of Contention” boasts voluptuously proportioned tracks, a veritable United Nations of musical influences and an infectious disregard for musical convention.

Simon Holland catches Amy Duncan’s London Album Launch, a great performance that leaves an enduring memory. Her songs possess an ethereal quality, each a vivid herald of a quietly compelling songwriter and a special night.

Track Number 7 from Chris Woods latest album ‘None the Wiser’ is ‘Tally of Salt’ and the first of two collaborations on this CD with the professional story teller Hugh Lupton. Listen to it here.

Turner Cody’s latest album “Last of the Big Time Spenders” illuminates contemporary struggles like a zoetrope nightlight and cool as a cucumber.

Mary Hampton has released a new song called ‘Gold Hat’, on Bandcamp; it is a setting of the epigraph from the opening of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby’. Listen to it now, she performs it with her band Cotillion

Part Two of our review of the Hothouse Festival held at Halsway Manor, Somerset with video sessions from Songs from the Shed and recordings from Folk Radio UK of some of the live performances on the day.