folk music
Kieron Tyler
The cape is not an everyday item of clothing. Worn by magicians, it brings an air of the extraordinary. It billows in the path of superheroes. The cloak of invisibility confirms the cape’s singularity. Basia Bulat was first seen in a sparkly gold cape on the sleeve of her recent Good Advice album and last night it was integral to the renewed vigour of her music and stage persona. Moved to say how hard it was play guitar with its folds fluttering, she nonetheless did not take the easy path and discard it.None of this is to say that Bulat would lack anything without the cape, but it is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“If we want to keep this free and democratic Europe of ours free and democratic, we must enlist ourselves, our skills and our commitment to liberty and justice. The problems we face are too great to simply say let the politicians do it. I say this as a President.” Making this declaration in his country’s capital on the opening morning of 2016’s Tallinn Music Week, Estonia’s President Toomas Hendrik Ilves stressed that the power for change is in all our hands and also confirmed the all-too prevalent view that the international political class is unlikely to address, let alone solve, the world’ Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
I’ve never understood why the great American train journey isn’t as romanticised as the great American road trip. There’s nowhere else you get quite that same uninterrupted time with your own thoughts: to create, to ponder, to come to terms with everything. Certainly not in the UK, where the six-hour stretch from Glasgow to London is punctuated by so many stops that letting your mind wander as a pushchair or a scalding cup of tea makes its way up the aisle is something you do at your peril.Laura Gibson’s Empire Builder is, perhaps, the first great American rail trip soundtrack, named for the Read more ...
Tim Cumming
The Gloaming’s return to the Union Chapel in north London is a packed-out affair – and with good reason. Their British debut here, before the first album was released back in 2013, was a revelation. Few knew what to expect as Clare fiddler Martin Hayes, New York pianist Thomas Bartlett, Dublin-born viola and hardanger fiddle player Caoimhin O Raghallaigh, Sean Nos singer Iarla O Lionaird and Chicago guitarist Dennis Cahill launched into the epic "Opening Set" from that debut album.Over the next 20 or so minutes they astonished all who were there with the space, dexterity, lightness and Read more ...
Barney Harsent
The thing about having a very distinctive voice is that it gives the audience something to latch onto. That’s all well and good, but it can also mean people find it easier to hear without listening. As the familiar tones and comfortable cadences of King Biscuit Time and former Beta Band member Steve Mason drift in, it’s easy to see how people could simply think, “Ah, another Steve Mason album.” Which it is, to be fair – but it’s also the rather wonderful result of all his former experiments.From the Beta Band – the glorious, stumbling and staggering Beta Band, with their moments of ragged Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Claims to embody the spirit of flamenco, or to be born with flamenco in one's blood, abound in the programme of the annual Sadler's Wells flamenco festival. Sara Baras, whose show Voces opened the two week festival on Tuesday, doesn't make such a claim in writing: she doesn't need to. Her every move on stage radiates the self-possession of a flamenco aristocrat, a confidence so vital it simply bulldozes proscenium and fourth wall to set up a visceral – and vocal – relationship between audience and performer.Whether this is your cup of sangria or not probably depends on how you respond to that Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The nature of Europe, its administration, institutions and its porousness are hot topics. Sectors of Britain’s media and political class hyperventilate over trumped-up concerns while real issues which are just about impossible to address remain unresolved. In this climate, the European Border Breakers Awards are ripe for misinterpretation. Instead of being for those devising the shrewdest ways to slip in and out of countries, they are an annual European Union-sponsored award presented to pop musicians achieving success beyond their own borders.There are rules in this contest, one which no one Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Music can be passed down through generations like family heirlooms, precious and forever.For me, I was gifted Johnny Cash, Perry Como, Burt Bacharach, Joni Mitchell, Elton John. Songs that have resonated with me throughout my whole life, seeing me through good times, hard times, first dances, big birthdays or life-changing gigs.For my kids, I want to give them Jewel. Her musical poetry has seen me through key moments – those first tentative steps taken with Pieces of You and Spirit when I was living alone in London for the first time at 18; or This Way, when I was finding my path, travelling Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Is language a barrier to international recognition? Is English necessary to make waves worldwide? Musicians from the African continent and South America regularly perform in their native tongue beyond the borders of their home countries. But often they are – rightly or wrongly – marketed or pigeon-holed as world music, a branding which allows for eschewing the Anglophone. The always problematic label of world music can be and is debated endlessly, but one thing is certain: for Scandinavia, most internationally successful music is delivered in English.Of course, after setting quirky micro- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Choosing an album of the year is an exacting process. For an album to be arresting, it either has to come as a bolt from the blue or build on what’s come before in a way which represents an identifiable artistic development which takes things to new level while saying something fresh. Holding patterns and restatements of default settings will never have an impact, especially if they speak of or to comfort zones.Alina Orlova’s third album, 88, is arresting, a bolt from the blue and represents identifiable artistic development. Boxes ticked then. More importantly, it is also the album which has Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Kate’s no stranger to the Christmas collection – Sweet Bells from 2008, and While Mortals Sleep from 2011 both focused on South Yorkshire-inspired carols and seasonal songs, and the Kate Rusby at Christmas DVD from 2014, filmed at Harrogate Hall, put listeners firmly in the picture, with the Barnsley Nightingale supported by her excellent band, featuring partner and guitarist-singer Damien O’Kane, and a five-piece brass section.That soft northern brass sound features again on “Bradfield”, the mellifluous opener for The Frost Is All Over, a plump, pillowy arrangement that fits her voice very Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Say what you like about The Corrs, there was never any denying their talent – or the voice of raven-haired youngest sister Andrea, fronting the familial quartet with ferocity and grace. It’s why it’s so disappointing that White Light – the band’s first album in a decade – begins with egregious autotune and woeful EDM-by-numbers.As far back as “Runaway” (released in September 1995) the band always tried to pair the instruments and flourishes of traditional Irish folk music with whatever was happening in the charts – but given the extent to which contemporary pop is itself Read more ...