by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on Album | Josienne Clarke – Onliness (Songs of Solitude & Singularity)
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there” So begins L.P. Hartley’s 1953 novel The Go-Between, but it could easily apply to this wondrous reclamation of a past that had almost been considered lost forever. The story…
by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on Album | Signe Marie Rustad – Particles of Faith
It’s been over a decade since Signe Marie Rustad first introduced her talents to the world, though it wasn’t until her third album, When Words Flow Freely, that the wider public became fully aware of the sheer scope of that…
by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on Album | MF Tomlinson – We Are Still Wild Horses
During the wild and scary days of January 2021, with everyone trapped and isolated from one another, Australian-born London-based songwriter MF Tomlinson suddenly realised how lonely he was and “how much I needed to make some music”. From the ashes…
by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on Album | Meg Baird – Furling
Meg Baird first entered my life whilst still a member of psychedelic folk rockers Espers, when she released her solo album Dear Companion back in 2007. She also records with her sister Laura as the wildly originally monikered The Baird…
by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on James Yorkston, Nina Persson and The Second Hand Orchestra – The Great White Sea Eagle
This follow up to The Wide, Wide River didn’t start life meaning to be a sequel to anything. James Yorkston – the now veteran of 10 or so albums, plus collaborations and books – found himself in early 2021 sitting…
by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on Album | Hushman – Hushman
“I am not from a family of tradition bearers, but my forebears hail from all over the British Isles and music is in my bones. I think song is a great medium to tell a story and it’s an amazing…
by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on Album | Eliza Carthy & The Restitution – Queen of the Whirl
“Music is mathematics. You can actually learn about the science of how arpeggios affect your nervous system. Music is so undervalued. It can be life-changing.” – Eliza Carthy To be honest, if you’re reading this review on For Folk’s Sake,…
by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on Album | Native Harrow – Old Kind of Magic
In the first few days of 2021, the two-piece London band Native Harrow – Stephen harms and Devin Tuel – moved to Brighton, on the south coast of England, living at the top of a crumbling, regency building and decided…
by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on EP | Josienne Clarke – Now & Then
Surprises come in many forms, but none in any finer or more beautiful shape than this release by Josienne Clarke. Recorded as a stop gap between last year’s amazing A Small Unknowable Thing and its companion EP I Promised You…
by Mark Buckley • • Comments Off on Album | Lambchop – The Bible
On the ‘His Song Is Sung’, the opening track of Lambchop’s new album The Bible, the listener is eased in with plaintive piano and orchestration before Kurt Wagner’s voice cracks through warmly – ‘In the spring the view was better/And…