folk tracks
New Music: Dreampop quartet I Know Leopard release new single Close My Eyes
I wrote about I Know Leopard, after the release of their debut single, ‘Picture Perfect’ late last year and saw it as a perfect antidote to the Northern Hemisphere’s winter. Now, six months or so later, at my desk at the Backseat Mafia’s antipodean offices in Sydney, it is the Southern Hemisphere’s turn to be …
New Music: Cabane release debut single Sangokaku, featuring Bonnie ’Prince’ Billy & Kate Stables
Sangokaku is the perfect title for Cabane’s debut single. In Japanese it translates to ‘sea coral’, believed to hold magical healing properties, which have been completely absorbed into this music. Sangokaku is graceful and haunting. As you listen you find yourself feeling isolated, considering your own loneliness, teetering between the elated and melancholic. But you …
Track: Meesh – Lake/Endings/Glenn
I first came across Meesh last December, attracted in a sort of anti-Mumford and Sons fashion by their self-labelling of their music as anti-folk. Despite this label, their music was a little bit folky, but I loved it nonetheless (see my earlier review). They have just released three new songs, available to download for free, …
Track: Jenny Hval releases That Battle Is Over, ahead of her new album Apocalypse, Girl
Already the veteran of albums under her own name and her guise of Rockettothesky, as well as being the singer of gothic metal band Shellyz Raven in her younger days, Norwegian singer songwriter is preparing to release her third studio album ‘Apocalypse, Girl’ on June 8th via Sacred Bones. Ahead of it, she’s released a …
Track: Folk troubadour Sam Lee releases new song, Blackbird.
Travelling the UK, Sam Lee has collected and reinvented folk song and story. His creations are inspiring a new generation of folk musicians to explore, adapt and experiment with folk and sound. Blackbird is Romany in origin and was imparted by May Bradley of Shropshire, passing on her cultural roots. The tale told in Blackbird has not lost its …
Track: C Duncan – Say
Last time we heard from C Duncan, it was when our interest was peeked when we heard his track ‘For’. Now the Glasgow song-songwriter is back with a new single, ‘Say’ taken from his forthcoming debut album, due out this Summer. As with its predecessor, it was lovingly recorded at home by C Duncan, who …
Track: Jack Carty releases the gorgeous indie-folk of Be Like the Water
Ahead of the release of his third album, Esk, due out at the end of the month, Bellington, NSW, singer-songwriter Jack Carty has released a new single, Be like the water, out now on Gigpigplet / Inertia Records. It’s a follow up to recent single ‘The Joneses’, which recieved significant airplay on Australian Radio. Be …
Track: Band of Holy Joy – When a gift is a curse
Out digitally on June 16th digitally is the new single from The Band of Holy Joy. For nigh on thirty years the band have been releasing records – including for legendary Rough Trade label, and the band continues to trade in the sort of outsider folk-punk that made it popular all those years ago. On …
Track: Ben Watt to release new album Hendra, and listen to the title track
There are things we all either put off, or keep meaning to get round to. I’ve been meaning to paint my garden shed for quite a while now, while the borders need weeding. One thing is for sure though, it won’t take me the thirty years its taken Ben Watt to get round to it. …
New Music: Hudson Taylor – Weapons
It seems there is a wealth of acts coming out of Ireland, with people like Kodaline and Gavin James leading the charge in 2013. This year though, it might be Hudson Taylor, a pair of brothers from the suburbs of Dublin, that could be coming to the fore. We’ve written about them before, but they …