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Silent Forum : Everything Solved at Once
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The sound of Bring Me the Head of Jerry Garcia is urgent, vivid and high-spirited. Keys can make music that torrents out of the speakers like a river in spate tearing brutally at anything in its way - expressing this power fully and recorded in two days, their fifth album is a five star psych-dazzle; a bold musical statement, made with glee. [More]
Keys : Bring Me the Head of Jerry Garcia -
Absentee picks up where Liverpool singer-songwriter Emilio Pinchi’s last EP, Holiday, left things a year ago, with more music from his soft-shoed, indie-folk hymnal. Influenced by Elliot Smith and Phoebe Bridgers, Absentee's eight songs offer twenty-five perfect minutes of autumnal, low-key, aural delight. [More]
Emilio Pinchi : Absentee EP -
Quirkzotic Pembrokeshire polymath Ben Mason's new album is experimental in its very essence; an exploration of beat, samples and found sound -with its songs and ideas compiled from an archive covering a decade of recordings. Waste Management Volume 1 is hypnotic, challenging and compulsive in precisely equal measure. [More]
Benjamin Mason : Waste Management Volume I -
2019's Album of the Year is again from West Wales and Libertino Records. After a series of electrifying singles, Los Blancos debut long player, Sbwriel Gwyn, is an irresistible sonic expression of disaffection and disdain. It only takes one listen through to realise that collective discordant-pop genius is at play. [More]
Album of the Year 2019 : Los Blancos
LOS BLANCOS I Dilyn Iesu Grist
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Renowned as one half of folk duo O'Hooley & Tidow, Belinda O'Hooley's solo album, Inversions, places her compositional and piano abilities centre stage. Drawn from deep rooted sources of inspiration, Inversions confirms that O’Hooley’s music has extraordinary emotive warp and weft. A Galeri [Caernarfon] date offers a chance to see that enchantment live. [More]
Essential Gigs : Belinda O'Hooley : Galeri : 01.04.2020 -
Caernarfon's Sera released her last album, Little Girl, in 2016 and songs from the LP found their way readily to national radio. Two new singles, the first Rabbit Hole in June, and now Into the Woods, suggest the bilingual singer-songwriter's next album is again shaping up to create much more than a local storm of attention. Whatever happens, Into the Woods is three minutes of magnificent, fiddle-edged, Alice-in-Wonderland folk-pop. [More]
Sera : Into the Woods -
As their electrifying live shows, first EP and the individual musicians' heritage might have suggested they would, award-winning Welsh supergroup NoGood Boyo have delivered an adrenaline shot of excitement into British folk music with their debut album, Eofn. [More]
NoGood Boyo : Eofn -
A fly-on-the-wall documentary of one of Britain's most successful folk bands might not sound like something you'd want to give up an hour and a half of your life for, but A Year in the Life is the most watchable, down to earth and warm-hearted music film you will see this year. [More]
Merry Hell : A Year in the Life DVD -
A stunning cover of Sandy Denny's Who Knows Where the Time Goes? is the highlight of this extraordinary album of folk, blues and more from Canterbury-based Luke Jackson. Journals is his fifth LP - and it is enthralling and exhilarating from the very first note. [More]
Luke Jackson : Journals
LUKE JACKSON I Honeycomb
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Inspired by Ben Myers' cult classic historical novel, The Gallows Pole, The Shining Levels released an album of folk-noir soundscapes earlier in the year, and have now followed it up with an equally beguiling EP. The band's music bears the mark of having being conceived and recorded on the edge of England's bleak Northern Moors - and has the same quiet, graceful intensity they bring to a live performance. [More]
The Shining Levels : Moonless Nights EP -
Bird in the Belly's second album follows the first in finding songs to record that have rarely, or never, been heard before. The result is a remarkable balance of revival reverence and contemporary folk-noir - raw, vivid music from the shadows of a nineteenth century back alley grog shop. [More]
Bird in the Belly : Neighbours & Sisters
BIRD IN THE BELLY I Robin & Starling
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Ahead of his first solo album, Fragments, Climbing Tree's musically versatile frontman Matthew Frederick has released a second single from the set, Hay-on-Wye - using guitar, piano and voice he has created a bucolic dream-sketch of the Welsh border town. [More]
Matthew Frederick : Hay-on-Wye -
Show of Hands eighteenth studio album is as honest and life-affirming as the their first, but an expanded line-up (with percussionist Cormac Byrne joining the band) and the willingness to experiment musically also gives Battlefield Dance Floor a layered depth, and room for some unexpected twists in style. [More]
Show of Hands : Battlefield Dance Floor -
A performance of hypnotic fascination at Birkenhead Priory, as part of new festival Future Yard, confirmed the undertow of magic that can be found in Meilir's unique music; he has two singles out later in the year, and a debut album early in 2020 - all three should be eagerly anticipated. [More]
Live : Meilir -
A year since it's release Bristol neo-folksters Young Waters' debut album still insistently demands attention. Informed by a love of minimalist composers as much as traditional forms, the vividly arranged songs test the latter genre to find its ecstatic limits. [More]
From the Vault : Young Waters : Young WatersYOUNG WATERS I Swimming Pool
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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 : Yawny Yawn -
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 : Arenig -
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]
First Impression : Kitty Macfarlane -
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.
Llio Rhydderch : Carn Ingli Digital Release : "... a beatific work"
