There are, sometimes, artists and bands you are lucky enough to grow with. Laish has been one of those, to me, and I am grateful for it. Daniel Green was born, musically, in the Brighton scene that sprouted the Wilkommen…
Venice-born and London-based, IAKO has a deep appreciation of quiet and loud. On his debut EP he uses a rich blend of folk and ambient sounds to explore the contrasts between the bustling life of the British capital and the…
Ska has seen quite a revival as of late, though not in the sort of way that one might imagine aficionados of the genre would be warm towards. In the world of ‘any press is good press’, though, bands professing…
Old Crow Medicine Show celebrate 20 years together in 2018 and mark the occasion with Volunteer, an album recorded in the historic RCA Studio A in Nashville by Jason Isbell producer Dave Cobb. It’s fair to say that they’ve faced…
Movement is important to Yvonne Ambrée. Born behind the wall in East Berlin, she knows better than most about the meaning of boundaries and borders. Under the name Panteon, she makes music which aims to break down such barriers, inspired…
Lookman Adekunle Salami has already been given the Bob Dylan Curse. For those who consider him to be the “next Bob Dylan” the question really is why can’t he simply be the first L.A. Salami? Based on The City of…
Alela Diane’s fifth record Cusp is her best to date. A touching reflection on motherhood, it tackles the complex topics of family and relationships. It is filled with moments of pure beauty, among them the rumination on the passage of…
Laura Veirs is an accomplished songwriter based in Portland with 20 years of experience under her belt. Her proficiency and attention to detail shine through in this album to create a palette of emotional depth and lightness. This is a…
Folk music has always provided a bastion for aching slices of real-life tales to be digested by a greater audience. In this sense, it’s always been ‘street music’, wherein troubadours brought their stories near and far for all ears to…
Belonging to a very specific scene can be a double-edged situation: everybody knows what to expect from you in terms of sound and style; also, especially when this scene is very localized (in time and/or space), there will be a…