Interviews
John Patrick Elliott of The Little Unsaid reflects on tour life: Fourteen years after my first tour ended ankle-deep in faeces on a pig farm, I’m on the road again. Older, wiser, trading dive bars for Premier Inns. It’s still not profitable, and the world seems rewired to make touring impossible. Yet we struggle on, driven by the vital connection music provides, embracing the vulnerability our new album demands.
Our latest Off the Shelf guest is American singer-songwriter and musician Madi Diaz, who has just released her new album, Fatal Optimist, via Anti-, her most stark and haunting collection to date. In this series, we ask artists to present objects from a shelf or shelves in their homes and discuss them, a form of storytelling through objects.
We chat to Junior Brother, whose songs are known for veering between the intensely personal and the hotly political. On his third album, The End, the Dublin-based songwriter’s ragged and uncompromising delivery reaches new heights of unexpected beauty, strangeness and relevance. Throughout the interview, his answers to our questions were considered and wide-ranging.
Our latest Off the Shelf guests are Dublin duo Varo, featuring Consuelo Nerea Breschi and Lucie Azconaga. In this series, we ask artists to present objects from a shelf or shelves in their homes and discuss them, a form of storytelling through objects. Varo recently released their highly anticipated new album, The World That I Knew, featuring some of the biggest names in Ireland’s contemporary folk and trad scene.
“I feel like I’m looking a little bit more outward now,” confesses Brian Christinzio, aka BC Camplight. And with good reason. He talks to KLOF Mag about “A Sober Conversation”, his fifth album for Bella Union in a decade, his seventh overall, which has been universally acclaimed, praised not just for his songwriting chops and musicianship, but also its subject matter.
KLOF Mag’s Gareth Thompson chats to Pneumatic Tubes, aka Jesse Chandler (Midlake and Mercury Rev), about his new album ‘Runner’s High’, referencing “a feeling you can’t get on drugs.” He shares that when he started running, “It coincided with the birth of my first child, my daughter Nico. It’s strange that my dad began running when my mom was pregnant with me.”
In an exclusive interview, Irish musician Brigid Mae Power discusses her unique approach to creating art. She explores her intuitive recording process, which embraces the unpolished and emotionally direct. Power delves into her philosophy of music-making, the importance of authenticity over perfection, the challenges of creating emotionally honest music in the contemporary landscape, and staying grounded when coming up against challenges and barriers.
This Is The Kit’s Kate Stables discusses the “peaks and troughs” of writing her seventh studio album, how collaborations can be liberating, and her excitement for performing a tribute to her idol, Joni Mitchell, plus her upcoming UK live dates, including an appearance at Moseley Folk and Arts Festival.
Our latest Off the Shelf guest is Fletcher Tucker, whose new album, Kin, is out next week on Gnome Life Records. Tucker shares some special objects from his home on the unceded Esselen tribal lands now known as Big Sur, California–From Jaime de Angulo, one of Big Sur’s wildest heart-minds, to wild incense and a trusty ultralight rucksack for wild camping, this one is pretty special.
We catch up with Grace Stewart-Skinner, a clàrsach player from the Scottish highlands based in Glasgow, who recently released her debut album, Auchies Spikkin’ Auchie. The album not only seeks to preserve the fading Avochie dialect for future generations but also celebrates the spirit, humour, and resilience of the community that shaped it. Grace provides a deep insight into the album’s creation and the cultural history of the Avoch community.
We chat to Ruth Clinton and Cormac MacDiarmada of Poor Creature about their debut album, All Smiles Tonight. A deep dive into its making, their influences (from the Cocteau Twins to Ellen Arkbro) and more. The album feels like a new high point in the constantly evolving experimental folk scene centred around Dublin and a thoroughly modern foray into ancient musical territory. But is it folk?
Mark Underwood chats with Bonnie Dobson about her new album with The Hanging Stars ‘Dreams’, and she recalls memories of poverty and living in an emergency housing project in Canada, Pete Seeger Summer Camp, McCarthy-era blacklisting, the Cuban Missile Crisis, touring with The McCalmans and Mike Harding…and even Ken Dodd—and her secret to longevity: singing and satsumas. He also has a quick catch-up with The Hanging Stars’ Richard Olson.