Country
News: My Darling Clementine set to play The Workmans Club Cellar Dublin
A labour of love on multiple levels, My Darling Clementine – the sobriquet of spouses Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish – began as a homage to classic country duets of the 60’s and 70’s á la George & Tammy and Johnny & June. Their latest album is called “Country Darkness” – a collaboration with …
News: Sunny Sweeney to play Dublin’s The Workmans Club Cellar
Currently part of the American Currents: State of the Music exhibition at The Country Music Hall of Fame alongside Luke Combs, Charley Crockett, Miranda Lambert and many more… ACM-nominated recording artist Sunny Sweeney has long been known for her uncanny ability to straddle the line of demarcation between Texas Country and Nashville Americana, but her …
News: Joan Shelly to play headline show at Whelan’s, Dublin 5th September 2023
Joan Shelley is a songwriter and singer who lives near Louisville, Kentucky not far from where she grew up. Like the River Loves the Sea is her fifth album. She draws inspiration from traditional and traditionally-minded performers from her native Kentucky, as well as those from Ireland, Scotland, and England, but she’s not a folksinger. …
Album Review: As Hillsborough head on tour, their debut ‘Comin’ Back For You’ is a jangling melodic delight filled with a raw, engaging spirit.
Hillsborough – named after the area in Western Queensland where singer/songwriter Phil Usher’s family have been living since the late 1800’s – have a sound that sweeps across an alt. country landscape fringed with a gothic shade and just a touch – tastefully applied – of a rambling bluesy blush. The band consist of Usher …
Track: Full Power Happy Hour’s ‘Measurements’ takes a walk on the wild west side ahead of new album and tour.
Brisbane’s effervescent Full Power Happy Hour have stored their Doc Martens in a shoebox, pulled on a pair of cowboy boots matched with a checked shirt and boot-scooted their way into our ears with the country-tinged twang of ‘Measurements’, their new single. And, for me, it’s the good sort of countrified swing epitomised by the …
Track: Fanny Lumsden unveils the rollickingly melodic single ‘Tidy Town’ and announces massive Australian tour.
Fanny Lumsden is a shining star in Australia’s country music scene – a genre admittedly not often covered by me – and her new single ‘Tidy Town’ is a glorious upbeat and positive track that crosses genres with aplomb: a swiftly moving feast of jangling guitars and shimmering melodies. There is a glorious sparkle to …
Track: The Mother Hips examine a soured, bruised love in the riffin’ roots rock of ‘Clay Mask Clown’
WITH the first recorded cover version of their entire roots-rockin’ career, their cover of Anne Murray’s “I Don’t Want To Drive You Away”, just fading in the dust of the rearview mirror; but the street light glow of their eleventh album, Glowing Lantern, and a run of dates Stateside just cusping the horizon, The Mother …
Track: Erin Rae glides into an album and tour in the new year on the psych-country of ‘Candy & Curry’
WITH a sweet, hook-laden but straighter country-pop number, “Modern Woman”, dropping last month, Nashville’s Erin Rae has revealed a more gossamer, delicate psych-folk side to her forthcoming third album in the lighter-than-air “Candy & Curry”, sprinkled with a little retro synth and possessed of a real Margo Guryan harmonic feel; you can swoon for that …
Track: With her British tour kicking off today, Frazey Ford drops the honeyed, spectral folk of ‘Saul’
WITH an eleven-date UK tour beginning this evening in Milton Keynes, former Be Good Tanya and ethereally transporting talent in her own right Frazey Ford has released a track recorded for sessions for U Kin B the Sun but whose omittance from the final running order will surely surprise you as much as it does …
EP Review: Runaway June – Backstory
When I picked this up I realised I’d been away from Country for quite a while. Too long as it turns out. I needed a kick of something different. I’ve got the same levels of lyrical heartbreak and heartache, less queer and feminist protest. But I’ve traded noise, rage, hush, understatement, for harmonies and hooks …