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Arriving home from a recent solo Molly Tuttle performance, I was eager to slip on her CD, ‘When You’re Ready’, to relive the experience. The audience had particularly been blown away by the fast and furious, bluegrass style picking that has led her to win the ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ award at the 2018 Americana… Read more »
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Could you get further apart in musical terms than delta blues and Indian folk music? When an album comes along that combines such seemingly contrasting and idiosyncratic styles as the Blues and Indian Folk, one’s initial reaction is easily one of trepidation. Ajay Srivastav dispels any such fears instantly with the opening track Six Armed… Read more »
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An album of ‘Appalachian ballads of English and Scottish origin’. I’ve been to the Appalachian mountains just once, the White Mountains in New Hampshire. And it’s easy to see how these green horizons must have welcomed settlers from the British Isles centuries ago. Strangers in a strange, yet familiar, land – and what a land…. Read more »
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There’s been a growing fan base over recent years for the plaintiff bluegrass of the North Carolina duo, Mandolin Orange. Their new record, ‘Tides Of A Teardrop’, has them developing that sound into one that leans more towards a band. It’s a risk in that there are more musicians handling their fragile but beautiful style…. Read more »
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Gilmore gets into the state of the nation on her latest album. Small World Turning leans into the acoustic folk and roots vibe that she has summoned throughout her career. Her songwriting is as on the nose, confrontational and gorgeous as ever, in fact it is perfect for the times we live in. And what… Read more »
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I was going to lump all of the reviews of these Topic reissues for their 80th birthday celebration into one big review. everyone knows these albums, as they are, quite rightly, regarded as something of a gold standard in the British Folk canon. So everybody is familiar with them (what, you’re not?! Get to the… Read more »
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This new EP from Eddi Reader contains five songs from the ‘Cavalier sessions’, three are unreleased, scarecrow Song, No Reply Dot Com and Build High, Build Wide (In Contempt), along with Starlight and My Favourite Dress that featured as a double A side single release from the Cavalier Album. If you liked Cavalier then you… Read more »
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Blimey, doesn’t seem ten minutes since Topic’s 70th anniversary! They celebrated that with the delightful ‘Three Score and Ten’ boxset, now they have hit their octogenarian phase they’ve pulled out all the stops to celebrate. 2019 will see a raft of reissues and new releases, this one in particular, Vision & Revision, is a brilliant… Read more »
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Like an army of foraging ants, those music lovers at Grapefruit Records are building up a collection of box sets that have become a ‘go to’ resource for anyone interested in folk music’s development in the 1960s and 70s. First, there was ‘Dust On The Nettles’ which compiled what was accurately sub-titled ‘A Journey Through… Read more »
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Authentic is a word that, today, pops up on a regular basis as folks struggle to separate ‘real’ from ‘fake’. In music, it’s often about whether the music is played by musicians steeped in the cultural background of their chosen style. However, it’s never a question asked of Dale Watson. Some years ago, I asked… Read more »
