Interviews

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. 

Emily Portman selects ten objects from her home: her grandpa’s Mexican pottery owl, the mask she wore to become Blodeuwedd on the “Dominion of Spells” photoshoot, and a wedding ring cut in half by a spade and returned twenty years after it was lost. The stories behind them are quite magical.

Our latest Off the Shelf guest is Clàrsach player Anna McLuckie, whose latest release, “The Little Winters”, was one of our recent Featured Albums of the Month. She introduces us to the book she was named after, a pair of aggressively Scottish stools from her Grandad, a map lamp cut from an old Glasgow street map, invaluable notebooks (for the boring and emotional, for songs, poems, and dreams), and more.

Our latest Off the Shelf guest is Johnny Bell, whose album “Mountain States” expands mountain music beyond Appalachia to the Rocky Mountains of the American West. From a vintage western revolver lamp to a family heirloom lap steel and banjo finger picks, his ten objects sit close to the music — and the high desert home — that shaped them.

Lavinia Blackwall’s “The Making” is her most fully-formed conception yet — frank, dynamic songwriting turbo-charged by Marco Rea’s production. Former Trembling Bells bandmate Alex Neilson travels to her home in the hills of Molise to interview his oldest friend about melody-first writing, escaping mediocre situations, and finding a sense of freedom in Italy and at her off-grid cabin in Carbeth.

The Hanging Stars frontman Richard Olson pulls out all the stops for his Off the Shelf, gathering ten cherished objects — a Swedish utopian poster, his father’s signed Alan Lomax book, a Toronto-bought Martin 12-string, The Byrds on 7″. Revealing, moving and humorous, it ranks among the series’ very best, laying bare an intense passion for music.

Our latest Off the Shelf guest is MorganEve Swain of The Huntress and Holder of Hands. Ahead of “Babylon,” out June 5th, she talks us through ten objects from LadyBird Cottage: a growing collection of hands, a javelina skull, moon phase prints, anvil rings, and a recording box, each carrying a story, and often touching on love and loss.

Colleen — French composer Cécile Schott — talks to Harper Mahood about Libres antes del final, her new Thrill Jockey album written and recorded on a Moog Matriarch. With water flowing through it like an undercurrent, Schott reflects on overcoming a 30-year fear of swimming, the DIY life she’s built, and the loss of her father two days before release.

Abigail Lapell, whose new album “Shadow Child” is out now, selects ten meaningful objects from her home for KLOF’s Off the Shelf series. Her picks span a wooden dala horse picked up in Stockholm while touring with baby Charlie, sand timers that help with focus, marionettes from a favourite music video, and the hood ornament of a beloved camper van.