Essential Gigs

• Future Yard : 23-24.08.2019

  Birkenhead might not be the first place you'd usually look for something to do on an August bank holiday weekend, but it should be this year. Using a priory, a civic building and an arts centre, the team behind Liverpool culture magazine Bido Lito! have crafted an innovative two-day event in the town, headlined by Bill Ryder-Jones, Anna Calvi and Stella Donnelly, but distinguished by brilliance all the way to the foot of the bill. [Preview]

• Ara Deg 19 : 19-21.09.2019

  Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys has been involved in drawing together the line up for a brand new three day mini-festival in Bethesda this September. Working with Neuadd Ogwen and FOCUS Wales, he will present Aldous Harding I Audiobooks (Thurs 19th), followed by Múm I Jane Weaver (Fri 20th), before performing himself on Saturday 21st with Muzi and special guest Bill Ryder-Jones. The event promises three days of spellbinding music. [More + Tickets]
  
  

[Full Listings]

---

News, Reviews & Interviews

• Bill Ryder-Jones : Yawny Yawn

  For his fifth studio album Wirral's Bill Ryder-Jones has revisited the songs of his acclaimed fourth, Yawn. Relying on piano and voice to re-imagine the music, the result is an understated, perfectly crafted triumph - Yawny Yawn is a quixotic drift of melancholic beauty. [More]

  ---

  BILL RYDER-JONES I Yawny Yawn

• First Impression : Kitty Macfarlane

  The Somerset Levels have provided inspiration for folk singer-songwriter Kitty Macfarlane's first EP and debut album. The recordings confirm Macfarlane is one of the purest, most arresting voices to emerge in the last decade - even more compelling because of what she has to say, however softly, about the world she lives in. [More]

• News : The Joy Formidable Revisit A Balloon Called Moaning

  Ten years on from its first acclaimed release The Joy Formidable have recorded their debut EP, A Balloon Called Moaning, acoustically in Welsh and packaged it with a remastered version of the English language original. The resulting double CD will be out in October, until then, there is the delight of two re-recorded versions of Whirring to fill your ears and heart. [More]

• Live Review : Toria Garbutt / Roy

  Scouse storyteller Roy and West Yorkshire punk poet Toria Garbutt headlined It's an inside job, a sold-out spoken word fundraiser for Birkenhead's Bloom Building. They delivered an hour of raw and honest poetry and prose - "a stunning, darkly beautiful thing to witness". [More]

• Review : 9Bach Debut Re-release

  With two newly recorded bonus tracks, 9Bach's eponymous 2009 debut album has been repackaged by Real World for a tenth anniversary edition. 9Bach is as musically expansive as the band's later, more widely acclaimed works, Tincian and Anian - a decade on from its first release it is still an enchantment of poetic post-folk. [More]

• Gwilym Bowen Rhys : Arenig

  With his new album Welsh-language folksinger Gwilym Bowen Rhys has delivered on the promise of his live performances. The songs and instrumentals on Arenig are transcendent; the contrasting emotional textures of the recordings are available to anyone irrespective of language - the poetry resonates in the music itself. Arenig is available as a download now, and on CD from 1 June. [More]

  ---

  GWILYM BOWEN RHYS I Arenig

• Live : Cynefin

  Cynefin is a recording project led by folk musician Owen Shiers. The Welsh word he chose as a descriptive name for the venture translates loosely to mean a sense of place, belonging and familiarity in English. It's an apt title; Shiers has collected traditional songs and given them new life as resonant contemporary folk, whilst keeping their roots intact. A thirty minute showcase at FOCUS Wales 2019 demonstrated his genuine heft as a performer. [More]

• Edgelarks : Feather

  Devon's Edgelarks are Hannah Martin and Phillip Henry; they won 'best duo' in the 2014 BBC Folk Awards, and have been nominated again twice since - Feather re-stakes their claim to be recognised amongst British folk's finest. [Review]

• Llio Rhydderch : Carn Ingli Digital Release : "... a beatific work"

  The last of Llio Rhydderch's five albums to get a digital re-release, Carn Ingli, is out now. To mark the launch, I spoke to Gorwel Owen about Llio's past work, and what makes the triple harp such a captivating and creative instrument in her hands. Read the interview.

  ---

   

• Mike Vass : Save His Calm

  Watching BBC Alba's excellent series Port, which sketches the music found in different Scottish and Irish towns, yielded a sighting of Mike Vass when the programme visited Inverness. Normally associated with traditional music, Vass released an album of self-penned compositions, Save His Calm, at the start of April. His shift in form has produced nine songs of mellow rapture. [Review]

• First Impression : Gwenifer Raymond

  From punk roots in Cardiff, Gwenifer Raymond has followed a singular path to American Primitive guitar music. Now signed to a prestigious US label, and having released an energised, emotionally articulate debut album, she is one of this year's unmissable acts at FOCUS Wales - this interview explains her journey.

• Live : Alden, Patterson & Dashwood : Blue Sky Café, Bangor

  Having released two acclaimed albums of Americana-influenced folk, Norfolk trio Alden, Patterson & Dashwood made a first visit to Bangor's Blue Sky Café and tore the roof off the place in as quiet a manner as is humanly possible. [Live review]

• From the Archive : Blodau Gwylltion : Llifo Fel Oed

  The day Blodau Gwylltion's Llifo Fel Oed was released I took a long bus trip to Caernarfon to satisfy the urge to buy a physical copy. The music the CD holds is as beautiful as it is understated - Manon Steffan Ros' vocals a hushed lullaby of sound, Elwyn Williams' guitar invariably a quiet, exquisite frame. [Review]

• Live : Nick Ellis : St Bride's Church, Liverpool

  The first date of Liverpool singer-songwriter Nick Ellis' Speakers' Corner Tour was held in his home city at the Leggate Theatre last October. On that occasion Ellis held the audience spellbound with an hour long set built around his newest songs. The tour's finale, held a mile from its start, was an equal musical delight. [Live review]

• Ruth Notman & Sam Kelly : Changeable Heart

  Ruth Notman released a pair of highly regarded albums a decade ago and has been mostly silent since. In the same ten years Sam Kelly has built a stellar reputation and gathered a string of successful collaborations to his name; a seemingly unlikely duo, but their debut together is an album of magnificent and bewitching contemporary folk. [Review]

• From the Vault : Alys Conran : Pigeon

  North West Wales' poet and author Alys Conran has a second novel, Dignity, due for publication in 2019. Her brilliant, award-winning debut, Pigeon, was the subject of one of the first few interviews uploaded to the From the Margins three years ago, and that conversation is worth revisiting for an insight into how Conran's roots inform her writing. [Full interview]
  

• Grice : One Thousand Birds

  The cover of One Thousand Birds is an image of an art installation inspired by the story of Sadoko Sasaki, an innocent child victim of Hiroshima, who died from the effects of radiation ten years after the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Two tracks on the album deal with her tragic life - the rest mirror their slow-burning emotional intensity, and confirm Grice, who has worked with Richard Barbieri (Japan) on this, his third album, as a unique art-rock talent. [Full review].

• Live : Tom Blackwell

  Climbing the stairs to the intimate setting of Bangor's Blue Sky Café it was hard not to have high expectations of the performance due, as Tom Blackwell's latest album of subtle Americana, Memphis Volume 1, released in July 2018, is an understated classic. Two near-hour long sets from the Liverpool based singer-songwriter didn't disappoint. [Live review]

• Merry Hell : Anthems to the Wind

  Merry Hell's music is rooted in the cobbly backyards of Wigan, where the band's previous incarnation The Tansads first sparked their clogs. A new acoustic album ranges over a decade of the (new) band's always spirited musical development - and confirms the undeniable, irresistible pop edge found in their folksongs. [Review]

• Ímar : Avalanche

  The diverse roots of the Ímar's members mean they bring a huge range of influence and experience to their work together; mostly self-penned, the tunes recorded on Avalanche represent a group of musicians able to effortlessly create irresistible moments of flow using traditional forms - an exhilarating achievement. [Review]
  

[Top of Page]