Essential Gigs

• Jon Boden : Welsh Solo Tour : 26-29.09.19 Folking force of nature Jon Boden (ex-Bellowhead, Boden & Spiers) has a short, four date tour of Wales penned in to herald autumn. The late September jaunt sees Boden visit Caernarfon, Cardigan, Builth Wells and Cardiff performing songs from his solo albums, and from his remarkable past collaborative projects. Somewhat unmissable. [More + Tickets]

• Liverpool Irish Festival : 17-27.10.19

  The Liverpool Irish Festival's 2019 edition has a strong programme of music, theatre, performance and art built around a theme of 'unique stories, creatively told' - offering sure highlights from Jack Lukeman, Kilkelly, Lisa O'Neill & John Connors. [More + Tickets]

• Faustus : Wales & Border Dates : 22-25.10.2019

  Award winning trio Faustus' last EP, Cotton Lords, brought the poetry of a sad interlude of Lancashire life to modern relevance through creative folksong. Their October tour brings the plaintive compositions to three dates in Wales and one in Bishops Castle. [More + Tickets]

[Full Listings]

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News, Reviews & Interviews

• Bird in the Belly : Neighbours & Sisters

  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]

• Matthew Frederick : Hay-on-Wye

  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]

• First Impression : Sonny Winnebago

  A summer spent living out of a battered suitcase in a camper van has done Welsh-Australian Harvey Jones, aka Sonny Winnebago, no harm. An accomplished debut single about failing friendship, Take Me For a Ride, recorded with Charlie Francis (REM, The High Llamas), breezily sets out his stall as a melodic, idiosyncratic songwriter. [More]

• Breichiau Hir : Yn Dawel Bach / Saethu Tri

  South Wales' punk spirit might live on in Welsh-language band Breichiau Hir, but this new AA single, exploring dark moods and anxiety, offers music with unexpected subtly and texture to contrast with the primal energy of their past releases. [More]

• Show of Hands : Battlefield Dance Floor

  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]

• Live : Meilir

  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]

• Tom Blackwell : Memphis Volume II

  Tom Blackwell brings his soul-stirring alt. country to Blue Sky, Bangor on November 29th, following a magnificent gig at the same venue a year ago - which is as good a time as any to consider the second installment of his Memphis album series, and its 'exquisite and luminous' songs. [More]

• From the Vault : Young Waters : Young Waters

  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]

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  YOUNG WATERS I Swimming Pool

• 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]

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  BILL RYDER-JONES I Yawny Yawn

• First Impression : Twenty Fifty

  North Wales' first zero waste shop has opened in Old Colwyn. Named after the year when it is projected that there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans, Twenty Fifty is a brilliantly realised project and worth a very long detour to visit. [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]

• 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]

• 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]

• 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]

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  GWILYM BOWEN RHYS I Arenig

• 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.

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• 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 Vault : 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]

• 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]

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