folk video
Album review: Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles – ‘Keys’: pull up a pew for bluegrass instrumental delight
You know what the best thing about Keys is; for all its intimacy, the focus wholly on how the two players and their instruments mesh,a real joy in creation rings through. William Tyler, Black Twig Pickers, Jack Rose fans; please come on over and pull up a pew
SEE: The fairytale stop-motion video for Renée Reed’s graceful, mysterious ‘I Saw A Ghost’
WITH her stunning, graceful, mysterious debut album out tomorrow on Keeled Scales, Louisianan folk riser musician Renée Reed has dropped a fourth and final single to usher you into the scented finery of her world; watch the video for “I Saw A Ghost” below. “I Saw A Ghost” rings true with the four-track ambience which pervades her home-recorded …
See: Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles get languid with the deep verdancy of ‘Dowsing’
IT’S STILL pretty weird out there right now, right? I think it’s getting better; thank the sweet lord for the gift of music. And one area in which 2021 is shaping up to be really interesting year is in the field of solo Americana musicians who’ve been carving their own, unspooling instrumental path coming out …
News: Red River Dialect’s David John Morris announces May solo outing – see the video for ‘New Safe’
SINGER with excellent British folkies Red River Dialect; a man who for many years breathed such essential life into the Cornish music scene, snaring artists such as Jack Rose, William Tyler and Damon & Naomi for performances down at the very bottom of our islands; all-round gentleman, actually, David John Morris, has revealed he’s set …
Premiere: Watch the video for Sasha & The Shades’ theatrical folk-blues, ‘Smile’; the magician’s assistant finally has her say
SOUTH-EAST London vaudeville blues-folk quintet Sasha & The Shades have a new EP, Grin & Bare It, lined up for release not just digitally, but on that sexiest and scarcest-used of formats, the 12″, too, and that’ll be with us next Friday; but they want you to draw close, so today here at Backseat Mafia …
See: Sarah McQuaid – ‘The Day Of Wrath, That Day (The St Buryan Sessions)’: six strings resonate from the Penwith granite
AFTER a life’s journey so far that’s taken her from her birthplace, Madrid, over to the States and on to Ireland, folk singer-songwriter Sarah McQuaid has put down roots in the vibey, windswept, granite-hard Penwith peninsula at the end of Cornwall. With all the constraints of the lockdown purdah, she’s been busy recording a series …
See: the video for the supernatural psych-folk of Nainnoh’s ‘Colors’
NEW YORK-based Nainnoh has a particularly supernatural way with psychedelic folk, perhaps casting herself in a lineage that casts back to Dr. John, Buffy Saint-Marie, Espers and others. There’s something about her vocals, precise, husky, but somwhow shadowy and speaking of other worlds, cast against a landscape of dramatic Americana; Nancy Sinatra gone fully darkside. …
See the lyric video for Polly Paulusma’s ‘Jack Munro’ – an album of songs that influenced Angela Carter’s on the way
YOU WANT intelligent folk songcraft? Look no further than Polly Paulusma. Fresh from teaching English to undergraduates at Cambridge, and having recently been awarded a PhD, English folkie Polly Paulusma is set to returned with an album of songs which inspired Angela Carter’s dark retakes on the traditional folk tale paradigms, to be entitled Invisible …
Track: John Smith – ‘Hold On’: a plea to stay hoping with The Staves’ Jessica
AT LEAST once in recent times, Essex-born, Devon-raised folk troubadour John Smith has received the epithet “the guitarists’ guitarist”. And with a CV like his, you couldn’t argue; as a session musician he’s has played with Joan Baez, David Gray, Joe Henry, Lianne La Havas and Tom Jones. He’s also in possession of a voice …
See: Sarah McQuaid – ‘Charlie’s Gone Home’ (The St Buryan Sessions)@ folk excellence from the far west
FOLK singer-songwriter Sarah McQuaid undertook a perigrination from Madrid to the States to Ireland before arriving in mainland Britain’s ultima thule, the deep Penwith peninsula. She’s releasing a series of intimate single videos under the banner the St Buryan Sessions, which will ultimately lead to a full album later in the summer; but for today, …