folk music
Nu Civilisation Orchestra & ESKA: 'Hejira' and 'Mingus', Poole Lighthouse review - redistributing the futureTuesday, 22 November 2022
I had high hopes for this show. After all, Eska Mtungwazi is pretty much the only singer on earth I’d go out of my way to hear sing Joni Mitchell songs.Not only does she have the necessary vocal range and control, but her own sole solo album sits... Read more... |
Album: Craig Fortnam - Luna One - A-Sides - Full Moon Releases October 2021 - September 2022Thursday, 17 November 2022
There can be few currently operating musicians who have a sound as distinctive as Craig Fortnam’s. Whether solo or with his erstwhile band The North Sea Radio Orchestra, his writing has a kind of zig-zagging melody that’s part Robert Wyatt, part... Read more... |
Album: Neil Young with Crazy Horse - World RecordWednesday, 16 November 2022
When most of us fall victim to things beyond our control, the impulse is to howl into the abyss, scream to the stars, wave our fist at clouds. Most of us, of course, aren’t Neil Young.While the raging wildfires that destroyed the singer’s home in... Read more... |
Barbara Dickson, Cecil Sharp House review - intimate and beautifully pacedFriday, 11 November 2022
Cecil Sharp House, citadel of folk music, finally resounded last night to the mellifluous tones of Barbara Dickson whose distinguished career began at the Howff Folk Club, Dunfermline, in the heady days of the 1960s folk revival. The choice of venue... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 73: Sandy Denny, Plastic Mermaids, Orbital, Speedy Wunderground, The Snuts, The Kinks and moreWednesday, 09 November 2022
After an unavoidable delay theartsdesk on Vinyl returns with over 9000 words on new and recent releases, ranging across the entire spectrum of known music. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHEdrix Puzzle Coming of the Moon Dogs (On the Corner)Nathan Curran... Read more... |
Oslo World review - a dizzying selection of high-tech, grassroots global brillianceWednesday, 09 November 2022
The Oslo World organisers are at pains to point out that, despite the name, they are not a “world music” festival. And with good reason, really. There may have been a few familiar WOMAD veterans headlining over the week-long event – Senegal’s... Read more... |
Album: First Aid Kit - PalominoFriday, 04 November 2022
First Aid Kit have grown up and moved on. So says the cheerful conglomeration of lockdown-emergent pop sounds that makes up their fifth studio album.The record has the movement of a road trip around the USA with kitschy Americana, echoes of... Read more... |
Album: Laura Jean - AmateursThursday, 03 November 2022
Much of Amateurs is observational. “Folk Festival” ponders appearing at said event: is the place on the bill right; would fitting in be easier if the lyric’s subject were a different age? During “Market on the Sand”, it’s wondered while browsing... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Ballad of Tam-LinFriday, 28 October 2022
The British folk horror wave of the late Sixties and early Seventies wasn’t impervious to American influence. Though Roddy McDowall (1928-98), the director of The Ballad of Tam-Lin (1970), was born in Herne Hill, he was as Hollywood-steeped as its... Read more... |
Bob Dylan, London Palladium - busy painting his masterpieceSaturday, 22 October 2022
It’s the second night of a four-night run at the London Palladium of the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Tour – no other Dylan jaunt has taken an album for its title – and it begins with a blast of symphonic violence from the first movement of Beethoven’... Read more... |
Angeline Morrison, Cecil Sharp House - a ballad-maker for our timeFriday, 21 October 2022
Among those making her Cambridge Folk Festival on the diminutive Club Stage back in the summer was Angeline Morrison, a Birmingham-born singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who these days makes her home in Cornwall, drawn at least in part... Read more... |
Album: The Unthanks - Sorrows AwayWednesday, 12 October 2022
They've been away for a long time, not just due to that virus. Sisters Rachel and Becky have been busy with other projects including a score for Mackenzie Crook's Worzel Gummidge and works inspired by Emily Bronte and Molly Drake. So this... Read more... |
