Folk
News: Cambridge and Newport Folk festivals to merge
From next year, two of the powerhouses of folk are joining forces, Newport and Cambridge folk festivals will be a partnership to bring folk music across the Atlantic. Further details will be revealed in the run up to next year, but it’s certainly an intriguing move. Hopefully it will lead to a number of artists …
Album Review: Richard Thompson – Acoustic Classics II
Richard Thompson has been performing his particular brand of folk rock for the best part of five decades now, and his career has seen him regularly release critically acclaimed albums. Initially a founder member of Fairport Convention, he recorded a string of much celebrated albums with his then wife Linda throughout the 70s, and he …
Album Review: Siobhan Wilson – There Are No Saints
Siobhan Wilson provides the heavenly soundtrack to heartbreak and healing with her second album ‘There Are No Saints’. After returning to Scotland from Paris five years ago, Siobhan Wilson moved from Elgin to Glasgow and used her background in classical music and French jazz to stunning effect. Her second album ‘There Are No Saints’ (out …
Album Review: tunnel traffic – MEESH
Adam Hachey writes under the name tunnel traffic but we’ve met him before playing as part of a band called Meesh – enthusiastically reviewed by Backseat Mafia a few years back (sadly unavailable on the site at the moment). tunnel traffic have now released an album entitled MEESH just to confuse things, but one thing …
EP Review: Spirit of Play – Apocalypse EP
Smart, literate and good natured, Spirit of Play’s new EP is shot-through with the book-smarts and approachability you might expect from a four piece band consisting of employees of the Times Literary Supplement. While you’d be right in not expecting visceral rock and roll thrills from such a self-confessed geeky group, the uncharacteristically aggressive Apocalypse …
Live Review: Trembling Bells, Regather Works, Sheffield 05.07.2017 plus Gallery
It’s been an odd and unsettling few months to be in this country. Through it all though the thought that the likes of the Trembling Bells couldn’t come from anywhere else has come as a comforting thought. that mix of folk, psychedelia, whimsy and a bit of a fighting edge speaks of much of the …
News: Richard Thompson announces new albums and tour news
A legendary singer songwriter, and one of the most celebrated guitar players to strap on a six-string, Richard Thompson will release a follow up to his well received 2014 release, Acoustic Classics, on his own Beeswing record label, on August 11. In support of Acoustic Classics Vol. II, Thompson will play Cropredy Festival in August, …
Not Forgotten: Marty Robbins – More Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
Such is the high regard that 1959’s Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs is held, that the fact that the late great Marty Robbins released another 43 albums in his lifetime (and a further two posthumously) is often overlooked.Perhaps inevitably, the snappily titled More Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, is not dissimilar to Robbin’s best known …
Maarja Nuut – Rich Mix, London 16.05.2017
To label Maarja Nuut an Estonian folk singer and fiddler would be to hugely understate what she does and might even miss the point entirely. There’s no doubt the tunes and bluntly dark folk tales of her homeland are at the heart of her performance but there’s all manner of other musical layers, especially when accompanied …
Album Review : Mac Demarco’s ‘This Old Dog’
Mac Demarco is a hard one to put your finger on. On his last two albums 2 and Salad Days there was a definitely this vibe of a true blue singer/songwriter. He could put together these breezy, carefree tunes that brought to mind Harry Nilsson, Jonathan Richman, and even Cat Stevens. But there was this …