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The summer festival scene is often claimed to be a saturated market and, for sure, festivals come and go. However, having moved from its beginnings in Bridgnorth, Shrewsbury Folk Festival has staked its claim to being one of the biggest and best folk festivals around. Wandering onto the site, it’s easy to see why so… Read more »
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Music in the Glen is the new album from Realta members Brendan Mulholland, Conor Lamb and Deirdre Galway, who take this opportunity to fully showcase their virtuosity with a selection of excellently performed airs, jigs, reels, hornpipe and waltzes. An enormous fan of Realta since I reviewed their second album ‘Clear Skies’, I was prepared… Read more »
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Summer is a coming, across the bridge and up the lane, to join the twenty thousand, come the sun or come the rain. Weather proofed for all occasions, Simon Jones ventures to Cropredy 2018. Summer eh? Who’d have it? Weeks of hot weather, a glorious run of sunny days and the very occasional… Read more »
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Like many folk musicians, Eamon O’Leary has spent a life in-transit including a move that took him from Dublin and his homeland to New York where he’s lived for over twenty years. It’s been much the same in his musical life where collaborations have involved Glen Hansard, Bonnie Prince Billy, Anais Mitchell, Anna and Elizabeth,… Read more »
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How time flies, it is nearly ten years since Rachael released her last solo album No Man’s Fool in 2009. It was an album on which Rachael explored and revelled in her influences, through which she interpreted trad material. Most people know McShane as part of the behemoth that was Bellowhead. She was integral from… Read more »
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What’s this, a review for an album that came out months ago? Doesn’t that stand as a glaring omission from your aim of featuring the best in folk and roots? Yes and yes, I’m holding my hands up, guilty as charged. What makes it all the more horrific is that 3 Daft Monkeys are one… Read more »
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You know that point when you are listening to someone play a banjo as part of their set or album and you wish it would go on longer? Our prayers have been answered by the über talented Damien O’Kane & Ron Block, devotees and masters of the Irish tenor banjo and American bluegrass banjo respectively…. Read more »
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It is no understatement to say that boats play a big part in the life of Mike Vass. The former member of Malinky had always been a keen sailor, but it was whilst recovering from Lyme’s disease that the two worlds of music and sailing came together for him. His dad gave him a book… Read more »
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This double album is an unreleased live recording of Clannad that captures the band just before the decade which would see them define a new age of Celtic Music and go on to global popularity. Recorded by Radio Bremen in 1980 it captures perfectly the trad material that they energised with their near magical talents…. Read more »
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There are many young musicians whose folk heritage has helped propel them into the world of music. Some get absorbed into the folk music scene and remain there, others follow their own muse into a wider musical perspective. ‘Notes From An Island’ is a record that confirms Blair Dunlop as a young man firmly in… Read more »
