Folk
Track: Cameron Knowler & Eli Winter share the spiralling guitar wonder of ‘Parapraxis of a Dragonfly’
TWO ADEPT young guns of the fingerstyle guitar, Cameron Knowler and Eli Winter really came to appreciate each other on a winter tour of the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas. The Trans-Pecos is a land of stark beauty, of ghost towns and mountain ranges. The pair spent the winter of 2018 gigging through the small …
ALBUM REVIEW: Julien Baker – Little Oblivions
Memphis-born Julien Baker returns with her haunting, ballad-filled 3rd studio album, that you would have to be oblivious to not be enamoured with. In her first solo album since Turn out the lights in 2017, Julien Baker is showing that she is back and better than ever before with a slowcore, self-produced album that is …
Track: Brooks Williams, Findlay Napier, Boo Hewerdine and Kris Drever – ‘Farewell To Gold’: cult singers in quartet for a dream made reality
IT’S PRETTY much a cult, folky singer-songwriting dream; despite the lockdown and the all of it, that Cambridge Americana adept Brooks Williams, former The Bible! man Boo Hewerdine, Scotland’s Findlay Napier and Lau singer and potent artist in his own right, Kris Drever, should combine forces in song. … And so it came to pass, …
Track: Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles – ‘I See God’: that old time religion beautifully recast for guitar and banjo
KEYS, the soon-come long-playing conversation between Chicago’s Bill MacKay on guitar and North Carolina’s Nathan Bowles at the banjo, ranges back and forth across the great bluegrass and guitar soli traditions, both pushing forward with free-flying chemistry and grounding their essaying in the canon of the form; and it’s the latter angle they’re examining on …
ALBUM REVIEW: Indigo Sparke – ‘echo’: a jaw-dropping country-folk debut
You can hear Indigo’s very essence shot right through echo. It’s never less, at any point, than extremely lovely; at many points its genuinely bloody stunning. You know when someone has that alchemical it, and boy: Indigo incontrovertibly does.
It’s not an album to have on in the background, because it’s far too arresting and enveloping, commanding. She’s royalty in waiting on the leftfield folk scene. Astonishing; buy
News: Nic Dalton reissues brilliant and vibrant solo album Romolo for the first time in limited edition vinyl
There was a while when the capital of Australia – Canberra of course – punched way above its weight in terms of music – legendary bands like The Church, The Lighthouse Keepers, The Falling Joys, Youth Group and the Plunderers all made their way out of the remote sterile planned city to greater things in …
News: Folk legend Peggy Seeger announces new album, tour and single
‘Legend’ is a term often bandied about a little too loosely, but in the case of Peggy Seeger, it is a justified and well-earned description. Seeger has been a pivotal figure in the UK and US folk movements, in her own right, and with her late husband Ewan MacColl, and comes from a musical family …
SEE: Raine Hamilton – ‘Brave Land’: gorgeous chamber bluegrass tune launches new album; live-streamed show tonight
RAINE HAMILTON, the chamber-folk artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, grew up in musical family and learned her chops early; in fact, her parents met in a rock band in the 1970s – music runs that deep for her. Her particular brand of folk pushes the boundaries of the trad form, borrowing from the counterpoint principles of …
Premiere: Meril Wubslin release the melancholy indie-folk of C’est Faux
Out on Friday via Geneva label Bongo Joe Records is the new album from Meril Wubslin, Alors quoi. They’re the brainchild of Swiss indie royalty, Velma guitarist-songwriter Christian Garcia-Gaucher and Toboggan and Wild Guys singer-guitarist Valérie Niederoest, accompanied by Toboggan and Rosqo drummer, Jérémie Conne. From the album, we’re delighted to be able to premiere …
EP REVIEW: Lizzie Reid – ‘Cubicle’: cathartic beauty from young Glaswegian
Lizzie Reid’s Cubicle is a properly excellent debut from the young Glaswegian, with moments of real cathartic beauty