folk music
Album: Katy Carr - ProvidenceWednesday, 13 January 2021
Back in 2013, the London-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist launched the first of a trilogy of albums exploring her Polish roots and family history, entwined around the history of Poland and Europe and the traumas of the Second World... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2020: Laura Marling - Song for Our DaughterWednesday, 30 December 2020
Dropped a month into the year’s first lockdown, Laura Marling’s seventh album landed like a soothing tonic to an odd and chaotic time. The stripped back production had an air of loneliness, yet the vocals were effervescent and soothing. The... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2020: Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy WaysMonday, 21 December 2020
Given Dylan’s last album of originals was in 2012, and his standards phase had concluded with a slightly meandering three-disc set in Triplicate, expectations of anything other than an archival release or new tour announcement from Dylan in 2020... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Sumer Is Icumen In - The Pagan Sound Of British & Irish FolkSunday, 20 December 2020
The winter solstice occurs tomorrow, 21 December. Stonehenge, one of this island’s most significant structures, is constructed in alignment with the setting sun on that day. After the solstice, the days lengthen and a new cycle of the year begins.An... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Trees - 50th Anniversary box setSunday, 29 November 2020
Fifty years after their first album The Garden Of Jane Delawney was issued in April 1970, Trees seem to be better known than when they were active. Despite Françoise Hardy’s cover version of the title track a couple of years after it hit shops, the... Read more... |
Album: Kitchman/Schmidt - As Long As Songbirds SingSaturday, 21 November 2020
I really wanted to like this album – indeed, from a short sample, I thought I would love it. But while there are indeed some lovely moments, repeated listenings fail to persuade me of anything other than two good musicians with evident talents who... Read more... |
Album: Martin Simpson - Home RecordingsFriday, 06 November 2020
It’s 50 years since Martin Simpson dropped out of college to follow his vocation as a guitarist and his intention had been to celebrate the milestone with a live album. The best-laid plans… Instead Home Recordings finds him live in his living room... Read more... |
CD: Cunning Folk - A Casual InvocationMonday, 02 November 2020
As this review goes live on the internet – an invisible medium even more pervasive than coronavirus – we’ve just enjoyed All Hallow’s Eve with not only a Blue Moon but October’s Hunter’s Moon, too, gazing down upon us from the constellation of... Read more... |
Album: Barbara Dickson - Time is Going FasterSaturday, 31 October 2020
It’s 45 years since the West End success of John, Paul, George, Ringo… and Bert put a young Scottish folkie named Barbara Dickson on the map, launching a career that brought richly-deserved success on stage and screen, as well as in music. She’s... Read more... |
Singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter: 'I wanted to do something. I wanted to be useful in some way'Tuesday, 08 September 2020
Music has never been more important than in these dark, dislocating and death-stalked days, fear and grief visiting us in ways once unimaginable. The lack of live music – the lack even of the possibility of live music in the near future – is an... Read more... |
Cara Dillon Live at Cooper Hall, YouTube review - a warm Irish welcomeFriday, 14 August 2020
Cara Dillon and Sam Lakeman were bringing it all back home when they performed their first live stream concert from Cooper Hall, in Frome, Somerset, close to were they live and where they recorded Dillon’s 2017 album, Wanderer. Like that somewhat “... Read more... |
Album: Zapatilla - ZapatillaSaturday, 01 August 2020
A couple of years ago a vinyl white label appeared of a track called “Crumbling Down”. It was a breath of fresh air. Warmly crafted Afro-centric percussion, pared back but persuasive, it dragged the ears in, emanating a heads-down beachside vibe.... Read more... |
