Folk music

After 2021’s rightfully and universally acclaimed album Ignorance, Tamara Lindeman found herself interviewed by the likes The New Yorker and Pitchfork as an unlikely spokesperson on the subject of climate grief. As the plaudits rained down though, little was known of how unwell she’d become behind the scenes. “These things I was experiencing; this alienation, this dissociation, this loss...

To Warm The Winter Hearth, the latest polyphonic masterpiece by New England vocal quartet Windborne, rolls in as the nights grow ever longer. The beautiful four-part harmonies offered by Lauren Breunig, Jeremy Carter-Gordon, Lynn Rowan and Will Rowan are the star of the show, but they are ably supported by guest musicians Yann Falquet on accordion and Katie...

Lucinda Williams hasn’t always walked the straightest road. Since 2020 she’s survived a tornado, the pandemic and a stroke that has to date kept her from playing the guitar. She’s also released two albums of her own work, and six discs devoted to the music of other artists, plus releasing her memoir Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets...

Aisha Badru is an alchemist. She distills human experience with all its chaos and craziness into simple human truths as she paves a pathway to introspection. On The Sun Still Rises, only her second full-length album, she looks upon her music as a form of medicine, one that soothes the emotions, serving as a salve to the...

Sometimes the name of a band says it all. Exuding a childlike sense of joy and wonder, the innocence mission evoke memories and marvel on Midwinter Swimmers. Memories of days long past, and marvel that we live in a world filled with transformative beauty that exists in landscapes often ignored. Theirs is a world brimming with possibilities...

If we were drawing up a list of the artists we’d most like to hear make a seasonal record, the Unthanks would be somewhere near the top. Their rich instrumentation, careful arrangements, and beautiful harmonies are just the warming sound needed as the nights draw in and the Christmas decorations go up. Happily, they have long had...

The “great cremation ground” of Father John Misty’s Mahashmashana provides Josh Tillman with a way to examine the wonderfully weird life he has lived over the past ten years. The ultimate observer, he casts a jaundiced eye at the world around him, looking over the edge at the downward slope that lies ahead of him at age...

Canadian songwriter Jennifer Castle’s seventh album Camelot is a real fusion of the fantastical and the mundane, one flowing seamlessly into the other through themes of mysticism – apt, given the mystical, legendary seat of King Arthur’s court from which the album draws its title – as well as Mother Nature, magic, self and other. It is...

Following on from the success of his last album, What Matters Most, singer-songwriter Ben Folds dishes up an early festive treat with Sleigher, a delightful assortment of original songs and reimagined Christmas classics. Most of the album is a solo effort, Folds layering vocals and instruments to weave the tracks, however there are also some collaborations: Ross...

The intimate nature of Laura Marling’s eighth studio album is apparent before she has even played a note. We hear shuffling, voices, a yelp from Marling’s infant daughter, as they get themselves arranged in the home studio where Patterns In Repeat was recorded. Parenthood is unsurprisingly a recurring theme in Marling’s first record since she became a...