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Best Folk Music Blog & Promotion

Ariana Saraha & Flight Behavior showed us the true tribal roots of folk in Grandmother’s Tears

Posted on 26 June 2022

Here to remind us of what folk music was before it was commercialised and dominated by The Lumineers is the world music album, From the Wild, from Ariana Saraha & Flight Behavior.

The opening single, Grandmother’s Tears, takes contemporary frustrative energy and stretches it back a millennia through a soundscape inspired by infinitely more than the grand sum of human construction and destruction. With each element of nature a potential muse for Ariana Saraha & Flight Behavior, it’s almost surreal that they’re of this era. After listening to the lyric “Grandmother’s tears, they have fallen. Four thousand years”, which will haunt my contemplation for quite some time, I scarcely seem rooted in 2022 myself.

Ariana Saraha & Flight Behavior’s album, From the Wild, is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Allan Hill muses on impermanence in his sophomore album, Oxford

Posted on 26 June 2022

Unlike many lockdown-born projects, the Indie-folk solo artist, Allan Hill, didn’t give up the ghost when the bars opened again. After his 2021 debut, he’s revealed the delicate melancholia refined in his sophomore 2022 album, Oxford.

In his own words, the LP is a “coming of age turning inwards and an exploration of impermanence, nostalgia, isolation and queerness.” In the title single, the invitingly warm plaintive soul wraps around the simplistic admission, “everything keeps changing, and I’m fine”, which isn’t profound in itself until you start to consider the journey an artist had to go through to make that proclamation.

The fingerpicked Either/Or-era Elliott Smith reminiscences may be strong in the nature entwined single, but Hill’s autonomy as a stunningly talented artist in his own right is enough to quiescently beat them into submission.

Oxford is now available to stream on Spotify. Grab some tissues first though, yeah?

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Pat Burgess wonders if the two connected souls found the love map again on ‘A Borrowed Mandolin’

Posted on 25 June 2022

Taken off his first ever 12-track solo release called ‘The Song Box‘, Pat Burgess shows us the hard road that will be followed all the way to that ultimate love on ‘A Borrowed Mandolin‘.

Pat Burgess is a highly experienced Dublin-born, Leixlip, Ireland-based indie singer-songwriter who has been in the music scene for the past 45 years.

As the lead singer and founder member of the Irish Americana group, The Rye River Band, we find an artist who sounds in reinvigorated form with a classic single that will fill you up with a hope that is furnished with so much honesty.

”In the 70s Pat performed on the live Dublin music circuit doing solo gigs and guest appearances and around this time he started writing songs.” ~ Pat Burgess

Sung with so much true introspection, Pat Burgess presents us with a real insight into life and performs with a smooth vocal ability that will have you listening so intently, like you are hearing a lesson from an underground legend.

‘A Borrowed Mandolin‘ from Leixlip, Ireland-based indie singer-songwriter Pat Burgess is a trip down memory lane and a guiding light into what is needed to truly find that light again if you have lost it.

This is a storyteller’s delight and if you love music with a genuine message from someone who has truly lived, this will be a song you shall have on repeat for ages.

Listen up to this timeless sounding single on YouTube and see more news on his website.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

Romance is a form of fatalism in The County Affair’s latest slice of Americana, Beach

Posted on 25 June 2022

Following their 2021 debut album, which was recorded at Abbey Road and sold 100,000 digital copies, the UK-residing Americana duo, The County Affair, unveiled their latest single, Beach (Summer Mix).

In their own words, Beach is about love and a car crash, some may say they’re two of the same, but there is nothing quite like the old-school crooning country melodies entwining with the lyrical fatalism in the subversively blissful single.

With the bends of the bluesy guitar notes carrying as much poise as Swan Lake, the sepia-tinged single went beyond paying ode to the roots of Americana. The duo created a romantic reminiscence of nostalgia before driving it through their cinematically choral sonic signature. It leaves no room to wonder why The County Affair has been lauded on both sides of the pond.

Beach will officially release on June 17th via X&Y Records. Hear it for yourselves here.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

 

David Wakeling looks into the future of this dystopia in ‘Living at 45 Degrees’

Posted on 24 June 2022

With the melancholy of The Verve in their best years, the folky narrative introspection of Bob Dylan and psychedelic layers not all too far removed from the kaleidoscopic textures from The Legendary Pink Dots, David Wakeling’s seminal single, Living at 45 Degrees, hits a plethora of spots.

The Anthropocene-conscious single only runs on par with Amanda Palmer’s Drowning in the Sound in terms of the wit in the metaphors, which cleverly shine a light on the ridiculous state that humanity has shaped itself into.

It’s tracks like Living at 45 Degrees which truly prove the worth of music in society. It’s something for the minority of humans that are self-aware enough to see into the futility of existence to meld into and find reason within.

The official video for Living at 45 Degrees is now available to stream via YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Canadian originator, Ethan Mark opened his jazzy neo-soul in his album ‘The Concept of You’

Posted on 23 June 2022

After teasing us title single from his 2022 album, The Concept of You, we eagerly awaited the full length of Ethan Mark’s sophisticated psychedelic-soul experimentalism.

With the opening single, The Unravelling of Every Day, equally as sublime as the openers on your favourite 90s Shoegaze albums (surely, everyone has some of those!), it is instantly affirmed what kind of production the Canadian artist constructed. One that is defined by its quiescence and the ability to hold your attention through the jazzy indie-soul juxtapositions.

Track 3, Gunslinger, is a trippy ethereal masterpiece, colourful enough to rival the fantasy-like escapism in tracks from Cosmo Sheldrake. Reminiscences fall by the wayside in the boundlessly experimental world music title single which breaks the monocultural mould with the percussion and throws in some flamenco guitars around the RnB grooves.

Not that The Concept of You has any skippable tracks, but special attention should be paid to Weight of it All. The lofty intricate work is a sublime pool of lyrical vulnerability, Avant-Garde ambience, and quintessential folk escapism. It is gravitas sonically personified.

Here is what Ethan Mark had to say on his album

“The Concept of You, and the upcoming album, came about from a challenge from my partner. She, a listener of neo-soul and jazz, challenged me to pare my usually elaborate and busy musical style down to something more organic, soulful, and pretty.

The result was a series of love songs encompassing many facets of love. The title single refers to her, the sepia-toned memories of summers, the roots we have put down together, and the love for home.

These themes felt especially important after a long period punctuated by isolation, introversion, and cabin fever. It’s accentuated by nylon guitar strings, cascading violins, gentle pianos, and the frailties of harmonised vocals.”

Concept of You is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

BREGN set the bar with his plateau-transporting ethereal indie-folk single, Summertime

Posted on 17 June 2022

Here to make me eat my words about the banality and predictability of summer singles is the singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, BREGN, with his latest otherworldly feat of melodious indie-folk, Summertime.

With little more than strings and choral vocals to drive and structure the single, immersing yourself within the all-consuming mellifluous accordance comes with an immediate payoff.

Beyond the production that stands as a testament to BREGN’s creative originality, Summertime refuses to lyrically scratch at the surface. If Dylan Thomas himself rose from the grave and speculated on the season in relation to nature, freedom, past, future and present, I’m not all too sure that he’d be able to implant as much poetry.

Hear it for yourselves on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Intuitively spiritual rhythm meets sensual folk in DORA GOLA’s latest single, Dance with Danger

Posted on 17 June 2022

If any track is going to tempt the weary and wary out of their comfort zones after sanity diminishing lockdowns, it is the artfully fierce electronic folk-pop earworm, Dance with Danger, from the spiritually magnetic singer-songwriter, DORA GOLA.

With the intuitiveness of the rhythm, you scarcely need her bio to tell you that she’s a dancer. Her connection to music is enviably strong, but at least she’s had the grace to share her natural gift with the world through emboldening hits that tease your rhythmic pulses as much as they stir the soul.

Following the release of Dance with Danger, the Poland-born, West Ireland-based artist will continue to make her discography a rediscovery of ancestral roots, mystery and sensuality. We can’t wait to hear what follows. She shines luminously bright in a sea of ego-driven artists.

Dance with Danger will hit the airwaves on June 17th. Stream it here.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Skeleton Dead doesn’t feel guilty at all for that withered love on ‘I Used To Think’

Posted on 15 June 2022

Released through Sugarlow Records, The Skeleton Dead takes us back to a picture that has moved inside a book that might tragically be forgotten rather expeditiously on the dreamy recollection, ‘I Used To Think‘.

The Skeleton Dead is a Halesworth, UK-based folk solo singer-songwriter that Tom Sharples has created with much gusto for us to listen intently inside.

”Songs on universal themes of love, seafaring and finding porn hidden in the woods.” ~ The Skeleton Dead

Reclaiming his place as one of the most introspective musicians in the world, The Skeleton Dead opens up those old wounds that perhaps needed that proper closure before being stitched up again.

‘I Used To Think‘ from Halesworth, UK-based indie folk artist The Skeleton Dead is a song that shall have you reminiscing about a time that you think about fondly but don’t feel too bad about its ending. Remembering deeply why you walked a different path – as it probably wouldn’t have worked out – this is an experience that many of us have felt in our lives before. Sung with a real insight and teaching us a lesson for us all to learn from, you will feel rather emotional after listening to a true underground master at work.

Listen up to this new single on Spotify and see more on the IG music page.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

Henry Liggins orchestrated every hopeless romantic’s quintessential playlist staple with his folk single, Makeup

Posted on 10 June 2022

After a Cohen-Esque acoustic guitar intro, Henry Liggins’ vocals mellifluously float in with the same captivating ease over his tenderly orchestrated piano and guitar progressions as Glenn Hansard in his latest single, Makeup.

The hopeless romanticism in Makeup is nothing short of breath-taking poetry as Liggins muses on his muse, capturing the fragile beauty within the vulnerability of relationships in our chaotic existence. The amount of sincerity is almost a shock to the system. There’s no doubt that this dreamy serenade came straight from Liggins’ sugared Shakespearean soul.

While staying true to his timelessly intimate style, the Birmingham-based singer-songwriter notably has a tirade of commercial appeal behind his ornately captivating sound.

Makeup will officially release on June 10th. Hear it here.

Review by Amelia Vandergast