Interviews

We chat to Sheffield’s Melrose Quartet about their new album ‘Make the World Anew’ – a staunch defence of the sheer joy of creativity, allowing for contemporary political songwriting and age-old dance tunes, poignant a cappella standards and complex instrumentals.

This month, Jonathan Day heads to M’hamid El Ghizlane, for Festival Taragalte, where he and his band will play under the starry skies. He shares his previous experience of the festival and talks about the importance of tourism to the area following the recent earthquake.

Cardiff-based songwriter and instrumentalist Gareth Bonello, aka The Gentle Good, is our latest ‘Off the Shelf’ guest, in which we ask artists to present objects from their homes and talk about them. Gareth’s new album, Galargan, is out now on Bubblewrap Collective.

As Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening return with their second album, Cloud Horizons, we chat with Kathryn about how the album came about, the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall, mythical magic, the multicultural history of Northumbria, job-sharing singers and more.

We catch up with JUNO Award-winning singer-songwriter and plant-loving Dominique Fils-Aimé at her Montreal apartment to talk about her fourth album, Our Roots Run Deep, an album themed around greenness and rebirth – and the first in a new trilogy.

We chat with Rónán Ó Snodaigh & Myles O’Reilly about their new album, The Beautiful Road, a work of graft and craft as well as exceptional artistry: music like this isn’t just plucked out of the air; it is the result of a serious and well-defined working relationship, nurtured over a period of years.

In the run-up to his Moseley Folk headline appearance, Graham Nash talks to Folk Radio about politics, old friends, and the magic of music – “It’s the duty of every artist to reflect the times in which we live.”

Myles O’Reilly recalls some of the magical moments experienced with Rónán Ó Snodaigh while making their new album, ‘The Beautiful Road’, at a “quaint cabin, isolated from the world’s noise…where boundaries between reality and imagination blur”.

Pat Gubler, aka P.G. Six, chats to Folk Radio about his new album ‘Murmurs & Whispers’ – the artwork, songs and themes, Irish harp, folk music (including Maddy Prior, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn), collaborating with Sharron Kraus and more.

Liz Hanks is our latest ‘Off the Shelf’ guest, in which we ask artists to present objects from a shelf or shelves from their home and talk about them. Liz’s new album, Land, is out now on Hudson Records.

Aisha Badru is our latest ‘Off the Shelf’ guest – She reveals her love for interior design and homeware craftsmanship, shares objects that have enduring beautiful memories, and reveals books that have been influential not only in her life but in her songwriting as well. Her new EP, Learning to Love Again, is out on June 2nd via Nettwerk.

Damir Imamović, the Sarajevo-born sevdah performer and tambur player tells us about his remarkable new album and soundtrack for Aleksander Hemon’s novel, The World and all that it Holds.