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An exclusive interview with Ashley Hutchings about his new album by Simon Jones. In September 1987 Ashley Hutchings released a truly remarkable and strikingly personal album, By Gloucester Docks I Sat Down & Wept. Detailing a love affair with painstaking references to his own feelings and the ensuing fallout it was the last thing you’d expect… Read more »
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English luthier NK Forster announced a major professional milestone today, celebrating 30 years of guitar making in Newcastle upon Tyne. His business, NK Forster Guitars, makes a variety of guitars and other stringed instruments for both amateur and professional clients. “It’s hard to believe 30 years have passed since I started in this business,” said Forster…. Read more »
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Award-winning festival Bearded Theory celebrates its ten year anniversary at the end of this month, we caught up for a pre festival interview with Rich Bryan, Festival Organiser….. For a festival that started life as a private party in a pub, you’ve come a long way, how does it feel to be celebrating the tenth… Read more »
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Wardruna have just released the final part of their Runaljod trilogy, an epic musical journey through the Norse runic alphabet known as the Elder Futhark. The final album is called Ragnarok and we caught up with main man Einar Selvik to discuss his approach to the runes and the incredible success of his project that… Read more »
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We grabbed a quick chat with Kate Rusby to find out a little more about her new release Life in a Paper Boat What comes first when writing your own songs, the words or the melody? Nearly always its a tune that comes first, tune, riff, passage of chords, any of these will be present… Read more »
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Angus R Grant is dancing round the kitchen along with all the rest of Shooglenifty; not physically of course, but as a reaction to the unexpected and sad news of his passing, I’m sequencing all of the Shooglenifty releases from Venus In Tweeds to The Untied Knot in chronological order. What’s coming out just now is one of those… Read more »
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Quite frankly it feels that Wardruna have tapped into some very ancient powers with their trilogy of albums exploring the deeper esoteric meanings of the ancient Norse runic alphabet. They use some of the oldest Nordic musical instruments , self-made frame drums and ceremonial drums, mouth harp, tagelharpe (‘viking fiddle’), flutes, goat horns, tongue horns and… Read more »
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Available now on the BBC iPlayer, the BBC David Bowie Prom is a celebration and reinterpretation of the music of David Bowie with the Berlin-based, genre-defying musicians’ collective s t a r g a z e and its Artistic Director André de Ridder. They are joined by guest singers and collaborators – including Jherek Bischoff,… Read more »
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The Living and The Dead is a six part BBC supernatural drama series set in the late 1800s in the West Country. Written by Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham, co-creators and writers of Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes, the BBC synopsis is ‘Somerset, England, 1888. A land and a community on the edge of… Read more »
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Triumphant trio The Young ‘uns made a guest appearance on BBC-tv’s Springwatch popular spin-off show, Springwatch Unsprung, on Friday June 3rd. Teesside’s Sean Cooney, Michael Hughes and David Eagle, together one of folk’s hottest properties, made it two in a row last month when they scooped the 2016 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards coveted “Best… Read more »
