fri 11/07/2025

folk music

Prom 55, Lisztes, Lendvai, Lendvay, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer review - unity and strength

There seems no limit to the sheer creativity that fizzes from Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra. For their second night at the Proms, packed out this time, the theme was the meeting of classical and Gypsy musical traditions. And...

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CD: Jackie Oates - The Joy of Living

Birth and death are nowhere more entwined than in folk music, and the seventh album by Radio 2 Young Folk Award-winner Jackie Oates poignantly honours both her father and her daughter, his unexpected death just five days before the birth of Rosie....

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CD: Tom Baxter - The Other Side of Blue

It’s been a decade since we last heard from Tom Baxter when he released his second album Skybound, which itself was four years after his debut Feather & Stone. That album included “Almost There”, a song somewhat implausibly covered by Shirley...

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Cambridge Folk Festival review - women rule the roost

Twinned with the legendary Newport Folk Festival, founded on Rhode Island in 1959 as a counterpart to the celebrated jazz festival, the Cambridge Folk Festival this year celebrated its 54th birthday under blue skies. The sun shone relentlessly...

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CD: The Proclaimers - Angry Cyclist

A sight every music fan should see and hear once is The Proclaimers playing Scotland. Around 18 years ago I saw them play a giant marquee at the T In The Park Festival. It was like a rally, a roaring wall of joyful fanaticism (on which note, their...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Gathered From Coincidence

It might have begun with The Beatles espousal of Bob Dylan in 1964. There was also The Animals whose first two singles, issued the same year, repurposed tracks from Bob Dylan’s 1962 debut album. Before The Byrds hit big with their version of his “Mr...

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theartsdesk in Riga - 43,290 Latvians sing and dance for their country

"They incessantly break down, destroy and fragment the mistrust that exists among people," wrote a Latvian journalist of a folklore group during the start of the Baltic countries' "singing revolution" against Soviet rule in 1988. This is the recent...

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CD: Cowboy Junkies – All That Reckoning

This woozy, seductive slice of gothic Americana is the Canadian quartet’s first album in six years, a swampy follow-up to the icy, winter-inspired sounds of their last offering, The Wilderness. “All That Reckoning Part 1” gets things going, an...

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CD: Dirty Projectors – Lamp Lit Prose

Lamp Lit Prose is the ninth Dirty Projectors album since 2003, an incredibly prolific output for any artist. All the more impressive when you consider it’s the project of producer/songwriter David Longstreth, who also finds time to collaborate with...

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CD: Roo Panes - Quiet Man

There aren’t too many folk singers that make it into the pages of Vogue and Interview magazines, but that’s what comes of being a face of Burberry – attire that’s not necessarily a good folk fit. He’s also been snapped in the Augustus Hare catalogue...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Rose Garden

The Rose Garden didn’t linger in the bright lights but for those inclined towards harmony pop their name resonates due to the quality of their sole album rather than memories of them as a one-hit-wonder. Granted, their debut single and late 1967 US...

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CD: Melody’s Echo Chamber - Bon Voyage

Sophomore records are never easy, especially when your debut was as acclaimed and beloved as french artist Melody Prochet’s first outing as Melody’s Echo Chamber, and this follow-up has had its fair share of bumps in the road. Prochet first...

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