The Unthanks’ latest album is filled to the brim with the epic, the grandiose, and the fairytale-esque. The finest moments of Mount The Air are perfect slices of modern folk, always with a nod to some of the genre’s greatest…
More 4 are hosting a folk night this Saturday 7th December with three programmes all about how excellent folk is. Clue: it’s REALLY excellent. Get Folked: The Great Folk Revival A documentary about ALL THE FOLK with interviews and performances…
Folk music in the truest sense, The Testimony Of Patience Kershaw tells the story of a 17-year-old girl’s life working in the mines. Based on the actual testimony Patience Kershaw gave to the Children’s Employment Commission in 1842, the song was…
If there’s one thing The Unthanks can do really well, it’s evoke images of a northern yesteryear. In this latest offering from the sisters and their band, they rework folk songs by the likes of Graeme Miles, Alex Glasgow and…
Metal and rock are, of course, both well-established as musical genres. Wood is less so, but the Unthanks’ Adrian McNally is out to change that. As part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, a boat constructed from wood donated by…
The band is incredibly versatile, from march music offset with sparse, mournful arrangements on the beautiful ‘Trimdon Grange Explosion’, to near classical arrangements on the Prokofiev-reminiscent ‘My Lagan Love’ and the James Bond pyrotechnics in the new rendition of ‘Queen of Hearts’. In its tones and timbre, every track is as reassuringly traditional as logs on a fireplace, but they crackle with a new wit in combinations that, without contradiction, show British folk – and brass band music – at its most innovative.
Following on from our previous announcement regarding this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival line-up, we’re increasingly pleased with the way that 2012 is shaping up, and it’s not even finished yet. The big, warm, fuzzy Mummy of fiddle-led festivals will take…
As you might expect from a group as interesting as The Unthanks, Diversions is not a straight covers album. Rather it is a re-imagining, a project in its own right, comparable to many other ‘versions’ projects that have emerged from…
Sparky electro-pop and dance were more dominant than folk at this year’s Bestival, but it’s a cheerful mish-mash where sensitive strumming acts are welcomed (as long as they’re not upset by a soft background thud of drum and bass, as…
We’re stepping out of our comfort zone here, all of us. FFS is not used to attending gigs – no, wait, this is definitely a ‘concert’ – in venues like the magnificent 19th century Leeds Town Hall, and while the…