folk music
Le Vent du Nord, Cecil Sharp House review - five extraordinary musiciansSaturday, 09 November 2024
Among the many things that make the folk community such a warm and welcoming “family” is that you know which side you’re all on, to paraphrase the title of the song written by Florence Reece, wife of a United Mineworkers official during the bitter... Read more... |
Tucker Zimmerman, The Lexington, London review - undersung old-timer airs songwriting excellenceThursday, 07 November 2024
Tucker Zimmerman is singing a number called “Don’t Go Crazy (Go in Peace)”. At 83, he performs sitting down. Surrounded by support band Iji, who act as his pick-up, he approaches the song in a whispery, affable voice. At the start of his set he was... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The OutcastsTuesday, 29 October 2024
This other major work by the writer of the English folk horror landmark The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), Robert Wynne-Simmons, is more restrained than that unsettlingly erotic, dreadful conjuring of rustic demons and collective evil. He argues... Read more... |
Album: Laura Marling - Patterns in RepeatSaturday, 19 October 2024
If there’s a rough-hewn tinge to Laura Marling’s eighth album, then there’s a wildly valid reason for it. It was written shortly after the folk singer-songwriter had her daughter, and was recorded in a home studio with the baby ever present – either... Read more... |
Nobodaddy, Teaċ Daṁsa, Dublin Theatre Festival review - supernatural song and dance odysseyThursday, 03 October 2024
Nobodaddy, taking its title from Blake’s violent dark-god “Father of Jealousy”, is much more than a dance piece, and Michael Keegan-Dolan, whose company was formerly known as Fabulous Beast, is more than just a choreographer, with unique takes on... Read more... |
Here comes the flood: Bob Dylan's 1974 Live RecordingsWednesday, 18 September 2024
Lighters at the ready, because here comes the flood. Drawn from 16-track tape, 1/4in reels and lo-fi sound board cassettes that are now a half century old, the 27 CDs of 431 performances, 417 of them previously unreleased, of Dylan and The Band’s... Read more... |
Album: Isabell Gustafsson-Ny - RosenhagtornFriday, 26 July 2024
In a discussion recently a friend compared generative AI to self-driving cars back in 2017: the makers were convinced, perhaps rightly, that they had solved 99.9% of the problem, and therefore would have a viable product within the year. The problem... Read more... |
Album: Kevin Fowley - À Feu DouxMonday, 22 July 2024
“Ne pleure pas, Jeannette” is a version of the 15th-century French song "La pernette se lève." It tells the story of Jeannette, whose parents want her to marry into the gentry or royalty. She, however, is in love with Pierre. He is in prison. She... Read more... |
Album: AJ Lee & Blue Summit - City of GlassThursday, 11 July 2024
In the world of popular music, tangential connections to success are profile-raising. They offer an immediate connection to an artist. It is beholden on me, then, despite not knowing it when I first enjoyed this album, to mention that rising Grammy... Read more... |
Album: Linda Thompson - Proxy MusicWednesday, 26 June 2024
She has one of the most distinctive voices in folk and contemporary British music, impossible to forget once heard, and impossible to ignore. Even – or especially – as Linda Peters, singing, aptly enough, “I’ll Show You How to Sing” on a fairly... Read more... |
Album: Naomi Bedford & Paul Simmonds - Strange News Has Come to TownWednesday, 19 June 2024
Almost exactly five years ago, I was transported by Singing It All Back Home, the third album from Naomi Bedford and Paul Simmonds. I gave it four stars, which in retrospect was perhaps a little ungenerous. Now at last comes a new opus from the duo... Read more... |
Album: John Moreland - VisitorSaturday, 15 June 2024
The mournful, lonesome voice of John Moreland from Bixby, Oklahoma, will be known by a few, but not many, in this country. The 12 songs on his latest album, Visitor, released on the Thirty Tigers label, should help to remedy that.Visitor is the... Read more... |
