folk music
Lankum, Roundhouse review - a warm evening of folk masteryFriday, 15 December 2023
The folk band Lankum are (for want of a less cliched phrase) at the height of their power. Their gig at the Roundhouse, as they said themselves, was the biggest audience they had ever played for – and everyone was loving it. The Roundhouse,... Read more... |
Hozier, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - sublime voice and a super-sized soundWednesday, 13 December 2023
There was something misleading about the opening of this concert. As Andrew John Hozier-Byrne and his band stepped onstage, the stage was lit up by a single spotlight, focused around the microphone that the singer stepped up to. Yet the following... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 81: Nobro, Adrian Sherwood, Evian Christ, Ozric Tentacles, Maple Glider, Viken Arman and moreTuesday, 12 December 2023
The first of two December theartsdesk on Vinyls which will appear in quick succession. This one's mostly new artists. The next one will be our Christmas Special, filled with seasonal fare and present-suitable reissues and boxsets. For the best... Read more... |
Gogol Bordello, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - an incendiary performance by Eugene Hütz’ gangMonday, 11 December 2023
Gogol Bordello’s gig in Birmingham this week took place on the evening of Shane MacGowan’s funeral and inevitably turned into something of a celebration of that great poet and songwriter’s life. But then, with the raucous folk music on offer, it was... Read more... |
Album: Kate Rusby - Light YearsMonday, 11 December 2023
The regular appearance of Kate Rusby’s folkie Christmas albums have almost become a Yuletide tradition in themselves at this time of the year. 2023’s Light Years being, somewhat incredibly, the seventh in the series.Festive albums are generally, of... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Myriam Gendron - Not So Deep As A WellSunday, 03 December 2023
Myriam Gendron's debut album Not So Deep As A Well was originally released in 2014 by Feeding Tube, a US label run by the prominent music writer Byron Coley. When it came out, he wrote that she was a “wonderful if spectral guitarist and singer,... Read more... |
Album: Shirley Hurt - Shirley HurtSaturday, 02 December 2023
The realisation that Shirley Hurt is the name assumed by Canada’s Sophia Ruby Katz for recording helps explain why her debut album is so oblique. As well as the cloaked identity, what seem initially to be direct songs cleaving to familiar musical... Read more... |
Oh What A Lovely War, Southwark Playhouse review - 60 years on, the old warhorse can still bare its teethMonday, 27 November 2023
In Annus Mirabilis, Philip Larkin wrote,"So life was never better than In nineteen sixty-three (Though just too late for me) – Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban And the Beatles' first LP."That might be the only point... Read more... |
Album: Catrin Finch & Aoife Ni Bhriain - Double YouSaturday, 25 November 2023
Two weeks ago, Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Irish fiddler, violinist and Hardanger fiddle player Aoife Ni Bhriain entranced their audience at the Union Chapel in North London, playing from their new album, Double You, as part of the London Jazz... Read more... |
Album: Abigail Lapell - LullabiesWednesday, 22 November 2023
Abigail Lapell is a singer feted and given awards in her homeland of Canada, but who has yet to reach far outside it. Folk is her metier but only insofar as it’s Joni Mitchell’s.Five albums into her career, inspired by COVID lockdown-induced... Read more... |
Album: Kurt Vile - Back to Moon BeachMonday, 20 November 2023
Back to Moon Beach is a collection of new, reworked and covered songs that feels like a gift from Kurt Vile for his fans to dissect. He jokingly refers to the EP, which is just under an hour long, as “a KV comp”, an appropriate description given the... Read more... |
Christine Tobin, EFG London Jazz Festival, World Heart Beat review - an enchanting ode to homeSaturday, 18 November 2023
This UK premiere of the award-winning, Dublin-born vocalist and composer Christine Tobin’s latest project, Returning Weather, presented an otherworldly ode to finding home – casting multiple perspectives on our yearning for connection and human... Read more... |
