Folk music

Mark Erelli could have made a record of resignation, instead Lay Your Darkness Down is a record of empowerment. We live in a light that is ever waning. The landscapes get more shadowed, yet it has its own structure, nuance and beauty if we look for it. Darkness can only exist with the light. In an era...

Meg Baird first entered my life whilst still a member of psychedelic folk rockers Espers, when she released her solo album Dear Companion back in 2007. She also records with her sister Laura as the wildly originally monikered The Baird Sisters and now she returns with her long awaited fourth solo effort, almost eight years after her...

H.C. McEntire is one of the most compelling artists working today. From her rural North Carolina home, she has found a way to craft an album that celebrates Every Acre of this setting, while creating music and poetry brimming with more ideas that one is apt to find in the usual collection of songs. Brimming with sounds...

It’s a week before Christmas in Western Massachusetts and Mark Erelli is driving to the dog park. His new album, Lay Your Darkness Down, is filled with songs that urgently address his personal will to move forward. The album comes out the first week in February, so this should really be the best of times. But things are...

This follow up to The Wide, Wide River didn’t start life meaning to be a sequel to anything. James Yorkston – the now veteran of 10 or so albums, plus collaborations and books – found himself in early 2021 sitting in his studio in Cellardyke, composing songs on piano instead of guitar for the first time. He...

Delicate yet weighted with emotion, Juni Habel’s new release Carvings is a moment of pure intimacy.  That is not surprising when you come to learn that this record’s journey began in Habel’s home; an old Norwegian school house in rural hinterland which she shares with her close-knit ‘musical’ family. Recorded between the school classroom, hallway and her...

For his annual birthday release, ‘foolhardy folk singer’ and latterly author Beans on Toast has channelled his creative passion into a series of children’s books with a companion album. From the singer who brought you ‘M.D.M.Amazing’, ‘F*** You Nashville’ and ‘Hippy Bulls***’, it may seem an unlikely move – but the more significant cut from his back...

Late November, and there’s a week to go until Sophie Jamieson releases her debut album. She shares a post on her Instagram. It is both an advert for the record, and a note of the sense of unease that comes from releasing something that takes your deepest insecurities, your greatest flaws, and puts them on display for...

The seasonal tunes that Mediaeval Baebes have uncovered for their newest collection MydWynter are not necessarily the seasonal songs we remember from our youth. Their focus is on a much darker reminder of the pre-Christian origins surrounding the winter solstice. Track after track illustrates examples of how what we know has changed over time. Rough edges have been smoothed...

You need to have a good fix on who you are and where you are going to name your band after the roommate who hates your music, but The Trials of Cato tend to be quite fearless. Their second long player Gog Magog is named after the mythical Arthurian giant and the Cambridgeshire hilltop that served as the...