News

Northgate Folk Festival is a new experimental and contemporary folk all-dayer in the heart of Chester delivering a refreshingly original lineup including Brìghde Chaimbeul, Shovel Dance Collective, The Gentle Good, Toria Wooff, Jacken Elswyth, Calum Gilligan, Bobby Lee, Jennifer Reid, Milkweed and Robbie Caswell-Jones.

Bobby Lee is back with Endless Skyways, his third full album and second release on Tompkins Square. Watch the video for his woozy swamp rock ‘Acid Grassland’, also our Tune of the Day.

Sam Burton shares his inner-Walden on ‘I Don’t Blame You’, taken from his upcoming album ‘Dear Departed’. “…it’s so important for a writer to have an inner world they can go back to to reconnect with themselves and this song revealed that place to me.”

This Thursday sees the release of Paddy Dennehy’s second album ‘Love and Be Brave’. While created in a far shorter timeframe than his debut, it’s no less potent, as the title track testifies. “The great driving force behind this album was the slow realisation on my part that love is not a given thing in this world…”

Bonnie “Prince” Billy announces his new album ‘Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You’ and shares lead single & video ‘Bananas’ – Bonny’s call-n-response with Dane Waters passes the love around until flowers bloom forth from the desert…

Recorded at Panoramic House, outlaw country group Mapache have pushed their sound to new heights on their new album Swinging Stars. Watch the video for their lead single People Please.

Gate To Southwell Festival have called this year’s festival their most international, entertaining and musically diverse event yet, with more names still to be announced. The current lineup includes Jake Blount, The Raghu Dixit Project, Tom Russell, Morton Valence, Bonfire Radicals and lots more.

Our Song of the Day comes from Amy May Ellis with a live version of ‘Aud Mother’ which celebrates witches, mothers, and the power of friendship. There are some familiar faces in the video, including Rachael Dadd.

Canadian-American duo Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves are on tour in the UK now. Their stellar musicianship has been recognised with many plaudits coming their way, including a 2023 JUNO nomination and two 2023 Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Gregory Alan Isakov announces his new album, Appaloosa Bones (due for release on August 18th), and shares the accompanying music video for his lead single ‘The Fall’. To celebrate, he has an extensive North American tour lined up with some special guests followed by UK/EU dates.

The accompanying collage video by Renata Zeiguer for Laura Wolf’s new single ‘Homebody’ is the perfect visualisation of her music as sounds lose their gravity, being beautifully repurposed into something totally new and unexpected.

Brigid Mae Power shares a lyric video for her new single ‘The Waterford Song’, a dreamy psych-tinged offering, heavily steeped in the language of nature and a ‘meditation on the place where my family have lived for over 1,000 years.’