Folk
News: Skullcrusher announces new EP ‘Storm in Summer’ and releases title track and video
If you were one of those who, like me, was totally mesmerised and enraptured by Helen Ballentine’s (aka Skullcrusher) gorgeous eponymous debut EP of last summer, then you will have been yearning for more ever since. Well, good news then, that the singer-songwriter has announced her next EP, entitled “Storm in Summer” and released its …
Premiere: Laurence Murray Project releases new video for the blue eyed soul of ‘Providence’
The Laurence Murray Project, headed (rather unsurprisingly) by Edinburgh singer songwriter Laurence Murray, have just released a new video of their single ‘Providence’, and we’re delighted to be able to premiere it right here on Backseat Mafia this morning. Mixing up Laurel Canyon folk, with a good spoonful of soul, and a touch of Real …
ALBUM REVIEW: Snowpoet – Wait for Me; Chamber folk-jazz duo return with absorbing album
Third album for the London-based chamber-jazz pair
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. …
ALBUM REVIEW: Cameron Knowler & Eli Winter – ‘Anticipation’: excellent studies in twin guitar primitivism
We don’t get to hear quite enough of the modern fingerpicking style this side of the Atlantic, so if you’ve drifted off from the form somewhat since Jack Rose passed, or wish to explore beyond William Tyler; then hell; start right here. A grand tour of two instruments and two musical minds woven together so tightly and also unravelling like fronds of a fern, seeking all the multiplicity of new directions in folk. An excellent record
News: New Model Army’s Justin Sullivan announces May solo set; hear the stark storytelling of ‘Amundsen’
NEWS which will delight members of the Militia worldwide: Justin Sullivan, founder of Bradford post-punk legends New Model Army, fierce social advocate and commentator, has announced he’ll be releasing only his second solo album come early May, 18 years on from the previous, Navigating By The Stars. It’s entitled Surrounded, will comprise sixteen new songs …
Track: Panteon – ‘Nobody’: electric folk lushness from Berlin
CURRENTLY based in Berlin, singer-songwriter Yvonne Ambrée writes, records and produces all of her music under the guise of Panteon. She’s gradually unveiling her forthcoming debut album with a string of singles throughout the year; and her latest release is “Nobody”, out today across all digital streaming platforms. It’s the kind of electric alt.folk loveliness …
Track: Le Ren and Buck Meek cover Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Early Morning Rain’ with sweet delicacy
MONTREAL chanteuse Le Ren has gotten together with Big Thief’s solo guitarist Buck Meek for a tender, delicate rerub of Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain”, which featured on his 1966 debut album. If you know Gordon Lightfoot’s catalogue, you know he’s never one to shout his considerable melodic chops from the rooftops – …
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 …
EP: Clara Mann – ‘Consolations’ – Bristol newcomer’s exquisite debut EP
‘Soft, I will say it softly’, Clara Mann opens on ‘Thoughtless’. The lyric encapsulates this, her debut EP via Sad Club Records. Plaintive, classic “almost folk”, quiet, private and intimate, ‘Consolations’ has an almost pictorial quality. You see yourself in the world Mann creates. It’s almost as if you stand sadly with her as she …