Interviews

For our latest “Off the Shelf” feature, Good Habits’ Bonnie Schwarz and Pete Shaw, whose new album “Better for Now” is a KLOF Mag Featured Album of the Month, choose ten objects from home. They include a stable door, a Mozart Mouse and a Beethoven Bear…there’s also a healthy discussion on whether art needs to have a story in order for it to make a connection.

Declan O’Rourke talks about “Oceanic”, his eighth studio album, recorded in Sydney with Jim Moginie of Midnight Oil. Give an artist a palette of colours, he says, and “you can’t expect them to stick with yellow or red.” He also talks about finding his old classical guitar teacher after about ten years.

For Part 2 of KLOF’s celebration of The Natural Bridge’s thirtieth anniversary, Thomas Blake interviews Peyton Pinkerton, the guitarist who played on the Silver Jews’ magnum opus. Pinkerton gives a rare glimpse into the process of making one of the most beloved albums of the 1990s and sheds new light on the genius of the late, great songwriter David Berman.

Martin Simpson talks to KLOF about “Some Kind of Jubilee”, the double album that marks fifty years since his debut. He talks about hope through nature, the power of instrumental music and more. “I feel like I’m a better musician now than I’ve ever been,” he says. “My chops are as good as they’ve ever been, although I’m not as flash as I used to be.”

We spoke with Ohtis after his End of the Road set. He wasn’t having the best of days; it was the kind that would have pushed even the most chilled artists into stress overdrive, but he played and spoke to us anyway. He talked plainly about his new album, a friend’s stories he’d played on repeat during a dementia period, the gospel band he’d love to start, and more.

We caught up with Marisa Anderson at End Of The Road and chatted about her latest album, The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music; how she talked her way into accessing Harry Smith’s final record collection; and how, while recording the album, she chose to stay pretty close to the source material: “I wanted to learn from the material rather than impose myself on it.”

Backstage at End Of The Road’s 20th anniversary, Kiran Leonard sat down with KLOF. He first played the festival in 2014, just before he turned nineteen. He talks about the maximalism of his early work, his interest in structure and trying things that supposedly don’t belong in song. Henry Cow’s “In Praise Of Learning” gets a mention too.

Karine Polwart and Jackie Morris talk to KLOF Mag about Spell Songs’ “In Thin Air”. The record follows the Seven Wonders of Bird: nest, egg, beak, song, feather, flight and migration, and grew out of a week-long Pembrokeshire residency. Polwart discusses ecology, folk tradition and the importance of physical albums; Morris explains her live painting alongside the band on tour and her relationship with birds.

Mama’s Broke’s Amy Lou Keeler and Lisa Maria discuss “Reunion,” their latest album, one of stark emotion and stunning but subtle playing. Born from Nova Scotian roots, Appalachian tradition and Eastern European influences, their deliciously dark folk resists easy labels. The pair talk origins, co-writing, folk as political expression, and the collective feeling that keeps their collaboration fresh after a decade on the road.

Carson McHone is our latest “Off the Shelf” guest, picking ten objects from home ahead of her UK and European tour. From a Langston Hughes poetry book held together by duct tape to a Robin Williamson painting and a Swedish flea-market tambourine that sounds terrible — stories of travel, family and creative life.

Rowena Wise picks ten objects from her home ahead of her second album, “Bad Things Feel Good*”. A monocular she whips out like a cowboy to watch birds. A wizard lamp that glows red while she records. Stones from a Portuguese beach. Her first guitar, nylon-strung, made by her father. Revealing and surprising from the start.

We chat to Derek Piotr about his Fieldwork Archive, featuring over 2,000 field recordings. The New England-based folklorist, performer and composer discusses recording total strangers, many of whom have never sung into a microphone before — to elevate someone for a minute to the status of a musician and record a clip of them… and have them celebrated in discussion and reflection… is a huge triumph to me.