It is said that many years ago in the village of Keston, in the London Borough of Bromley, the local cobbler would spend the evenings playing his fiddle to the raucous village rabble. The music he played was so foot-stomping…
Author: For Folk's Sake
Album | Jon Byrne – Built By Angels
Barrow-in-Furness, the shipbuilding ‘cul-de-sac town’ of Cumbria is, by his own admission, responsible for shaping many of Jon Byrne’s tales. On his impressive first album, It’s Boring Being in Control, these were tales of a working-class existence consisting of neighbours…
EP | Nick Mulvey – Fever To The Form
Nick Mulvey’s new EP opens with a riff very similar to the first album of a fledgling Laura Marling. But once Mulvey is under way his own sound bursts through, crushing previous allusions to the current poster girl of folk.…
Album | Anne Marie Almedal – Memory Lane
Anne Marie Almedal’s Memory Lane is stunning from start to finish. For those of you who love nothing more than listening to folk at its most rustic and quaint, then look no further than this record. Blending the sounds of…
Album | Quickbeam – Quickbeam
Quickbeam’s debut album is all about gentle melodies and lush strings. Although the vocals of both Monika Gromek and Andrew Thomson carry these songs, it is the strings that bring them to life, that make you know the debut album…
Album | Tom Odell – Long Way Down
I was quite excited for this release, having highly commended Odell’s EP, Songs for Another Love, back in late 2012. That was a promising four-track sampler of the sensitive heartbreak tunes to come – both stomping piano heavy numbers and…
Festivals | Bushstock 2013 Review
Perhaps being the most discrete and well-behaved festival we have ever attended, Bushstock nestles in cosily amongst London’s bustling Shepherds Bush Green and surrounding chicken shops, pubs and Greek falafell take-aways. In fact it is the reality of the loveliness…
Album | Ralfe Band – Son Be Wise
Ralfe Band’s Son be Wise is a contradictory thing. A brooding, occult record driven through with pop hooks and fantastical shimmers. It’s somehow irresistibly danceable and irrepressibly dark. It’s one of those records that’s totally engrossing until it’s finished, when…
Album | Houndmouth – From The Hills Below The City
Folk? Well, no, not really. But folksy and bluesy and rootsy and thoroughly good fun. From The Hills Below The City is the debut album by Houndmouth, a band from New Albany, Indiana, just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky,…
Video | Alessi’s Ark brings Tin Smithing to life
The folk-phenomenon that is Alessi’s Ark has more good news for her fans this week. After the successful release of her third album, The Still Life and a sold-out UK tour under her belt, Alessi Laurent-Marke and her Ark have…