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When ‘world music’ emerged onto the radio airwaves in the 1980s courtesy of DJs like Andy Kershaw and Charlie Gillett, its fresh sound tickled many ears as something exotic. Even though it might have been music rooted in a nation’s tradition for many years, it was dramatic and new to Western ears. As time has… Read more »
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Hope in the Chaos is a new single from Ross Ainslie and is the first collaboration with Runrig guitarist Malcolm Jones. The single is an epic tirade of Scottish grit and struggle, the sound is very much in honour of Ross’ earliest influences including his great friend and mentor Gordon Duncan and Wolfstone. Ross Ainslie… Read more »
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Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra don’t care what genre you choose to put them in –western swing, country blues, ragtime hokum or whatever else–as long as you understand that they’re 100% sincere and 100% immersed in this stuff. This is no lazy pastiche, no dressing up box. They live and breathe this music and want you to get immersed with them. The Tea Pad are… Read more »
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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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Sheelanagig for over a decade have brought their array of foot-stomping folk tunes to audiences across the globe. A quintet with a well-stocked armoury of stringed instruments – guitar, fiddle, double bass – added with the rhythmic energy of flute and drums and a bagful of joint-jumping tunes, these boys from the South-West England create… Read more »
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The Trials Of Cato, a band that arrived fully formed and functioning from Beirut in the winter of 2016, have since torn a shape very much their own into the canvas of the UK folk scene. Originally from North Wales and Yorkshire, whilst living in Lebanon they spent a year boiling down the roots of… Read more »
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“Playing that over Richard Howard’s grave was incredibly emotional,” says Sam. “We were all just stood there, sobbing. He was unknown, no one knew anything about him, no one would ever have visited his grave, ever, and all of a sudden, there I was, playing his fiddle to him. And there’s going to be a… Read more »
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On a summer’s day in 2016, the organisers of FolkEast Festival masterminded one of the most intriguing and exciting collaborations on today’s folk scene. Peter Knight, legendary violinist and ex-member of folk-rock band Steeleye Span was paired with leading melodeon player and ex-Bellowhead member, John Spiers, for a special one-off performance which left audiences in… Read more »
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Newly Commissioned by the Scots Fiddle Festival and supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland’s Open Project Fund, The Four Pillars is a multi-media experience and musical suite from Scottish musician Mike Vass. Based on the four major tune types of the Scottish fiddle tradition – the slow air, the march, the strathspey and… Read more »
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Nathan Bell doesn’t follow convention. Let’s start with the title of this studio album, ‘Loves Bones and Stars, Love’s Bones and Stars’ – the marketing department would have a fit. He’s also released a new live album at exactly the same time – the management would claim that this is crazy. That live album was… Read more »
