The second album of collaboration between former journalist and current label owner Eric Brace and talented wandering guitarist Thomm Jutz, Circle and Square is a comforting mix of harmonies and carefully constructed acoustic tunes. The duos’ guitars are here fleshed out as required by bass, drums and piano, adding colour and sonic range where required. This is not music to challenge the listener, but to provide a tasteful and thoughtful frame for the ten songs which make up Circle and Square. Looking at the world around them, the two singers share leads and harmonies over stories of art, of neighbours, of memories, of lost friends. But the tone is also upbeat, finding the positive of creation amidst the destruction of all we once held sane around us.
Category: folk
Long before Sister Hazel become a platinum-selling name, its future songwriters Ken Block and Drew Copeland are just two friends chasing small gigs, harmonizing for the sheer love of it. That early spark finally surfaces with Ken & Drew’s: Lost Cassette Covers, a lovingly restored time capsule that pulls ten cover songs from tapes the duo recorded back in 1993.
These early sessions—now presented as Recovered Recordings: The Pre-Hazel Tapes—capture Ken and Drew in their most unfiltered form. There’s no polish, no grand ambition, just the sound of two voices locking in and discovering their chemistry in real time. The first two tracks to surface, tender takes on “Closer to Fine” by Indigo Girls and “Peaceful Easy Feeling” by Eagles, immediately…
Singer-songwriter Jeremy Ivey has released his new album, Its Shape Will Reveal Itself, via Soggy Anvil Records. The record is an intimate, home-recorded collection that leans into warmth, imperfection, and raw emotion rather than polished studio sheen.
Alongside the album’s release, Ivey has shared its first single, “Edge of Darkness,” recorded live to a single microphone with his wife, Margo Price. The track premiered through Back In The Garage, a stripped-down session project founded by Luke Pelletier and his brother Tristan Pelletier. Originally not intended for public release, the album was recorded at Ivey’s home on a refurbished Tascam 388 reel-to-reel machine, giving the songs a lived-in, analog warmth.
“I recently refurbished an old Tascam 388…
The Clay Street Unit may have formed in Colorado, but you can hear the influence of Appalachia throughout their debut, Sin & Squalor. Blending bluegrass with folk, country, and Americana, echoes of everyone from Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs to more modern musicians like Chris Stapleton and Sierra Ferrell can be heard throughout the 11-track collection.
Building on the foundation that was laid with their EP — 2022’s A Mighty Fine Evening — this full-length finds the band expanding both their sound and their themes, delving into some weightier topics here and there. The album starts off modestly with two of their mellower offerings. “Nothing Else Matters,” the song that introduces the record, is a relatable and sweet…
First Light, Sean Taylor’s latest release, is like a collection of broadside ballads; song sheets with the ink still wet, hawked on street corners from the 16th century for some 300 years.
As immediate as news bulletins, the songs were meant to provide information and insights into the happenings of the day. Taylor is the modern equivalent of the songmonger, the travelling troubadour who writes to inform, inspire and challenge his audience. He has been at it for decades. First Light is his 15th album.
While Taylor may be the continuation of an old tradition, his music evinces a multitude of influences. He is a multi-instrumentalist who focuses primarily on piano and guitar. His music has elements of blues, jazz, folk and…
Turner Cody first collaborated with Nicolas Michaux and the Soldiers of Love (Clément Nourry, Ted Clark, and Morgan Vigilante) on his album Friends in High Places. This album marked a turning point for Turner Cody, in which he started to incorporate country influences to his songwriting. But that was only the beginning, and Out For Blood is without question a country album.
This new album offers the perfect canvas for him to express his poetic lyricism, and to paint portraits inspired by American mythologies. The songs explore such themes as freedom, individualism, destiny, sin and redemption. Rooted in traditional narratives yet resonating with our times, these songs are to be seen as parables: imaginary characters faced with the dichotomy…
Slowly coming into view over the past two years through a succession of intriguingly diverse singles that stylistically ranged from doo-wop to ’70s troubadour balladeering, Tyler Ballgame gradually revealed himself, through both his songs and videos, to be a magnetic presence with an octave-vaulting voice.
His backstory proves to be equally compelling and unusual, involving stasis, depression and subsequent epiphany. During the pandemic, close to hitting 30, Tyler Perry was stuck living in his mother’s basement in New England, his early musical promise having led him to Berklee College of Music and then to flunk his course due to marijuana indulgence and poor attendance. After a period of singing in covers bands…
Stafell Sbâr Sain (Sain’s Spare Room) is a vibrant showcase of Welsh folk at its most diverse and inventive. Released on limited-run vinyl by Sain, Wales’ oldest independent label, this compilation brings together 12 tracks that weave a strong traditional thread while embracing bold contemporary sounds.
Long-established names like Bob Delyn, Lleuwen Steffan and Gwilym Bowen Rhys share space with fresh voices such as Irfan Rais, a Singaporean who learned Welsh during his studies, a testament to the genre’s growing global reach. The album balances reworkings of classics, like Georgia Ruth’s delicate take on ‘Blodau’r Flwyddyn’, with striking originals such as Lleuwen’s ‘Haleliwia Newydd’. Folk royalty is represented by newcomers…
There are some notable firsts for UK singer/songwriter/guitarist Laurence Jones’ On My Own. It’s not only his debut on the blues-rocking artist’s own, recently established label (Ron Records), but the only instance in his eight title catalog recorded entirely in solo acoustic mode. It’s also his most personal statement.
Most of these changes to the once fully plugged-in, some might say over-amped, and roaring attack Jones typically favored are integral to continuing his career dealing with Crohn’s disease. It’s an ailment he has suffered from for years and has become a spokesman for. According to his notes, the physical toll of leading a band and constant touring was not something he could continue due to the illness sapping his energy.
Toad the Wet Sprocket has issued some intriguing anthologies over the years, including P.S. (A Toad Retrospective) and In Light Syrup, but it’s arguable that none are so fascinating as Rings: The Acoustic Sessions.
Anyone surprised by the appearance of this unorthodox album hasn’t been following the band closely over the years. Originally emerging in the late ’80s and achieving some measurable success in the next decade before its dissolution, the quartet subsequently regrouped frequently over the ensuing years on both the stage and the studio. A formal reunion in 2010 only reaffirmed the DIY idiosyncrasies the quartet worked so assiduously to establish at the outset of their existence, first independently, then on Columbia Records.
Bob Lind has a mighty back catalogue. He recorded his first album nearly 60 years ago; he’s been recording almost consistently ever since, and his songs have been covered by over 200 artists, including Glen Campbell, Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton, Eric Clapton, Nancy Sinatra and The Four Tops. In recent years, he’s found a musician who really does get Lind musically and spiritually. Producer Jamie Hoover has worked with Lind on the last three of his albums and continues this work on the latest. Joining Lind and Hoover on the album is professor, composer, sideman and session musician George Wurzbach, as well as overdub engineer Brad Gagne at Sentient Sound Studios in North Miami. Between the four of them, they swapped various elements of…
“You put words to the song/I’ll keep singing after you’re gone” is a phrase that acknowledges the ephemeral fragility of life and art, while also tracing a continuing thread that links generation after generation of creativity. Songwriters may pass, musicians may lay down their instruments, but the force of human connection through music flows onward, disheveled and lovely through the years and decades and centuries.
A band of Irish brothers threads the needle between spare, contemporary songwriting and reeling traditional stomps. The two, Diarmuid and Brían Mac Gloinn, alternate ruminative confessionals and Celtic barn-raisers, their songs etched with melancholy but also lit up from inside with the joy of communal music making.
Veteran troubadour Steve Poltz is the epitome of one who doesn’t take himself too seriously. It’s so refreshing. He describes his approach to making a record as “chaos, caffeine, and accidental poetry – art colliding with microphones and commerce in a glorious mess.” Inevitably, the resulting music makes us laugh, and, oddly, raises a few serious thoughts. Poltz has one of the happiest demeanors of any songwriter. Yet, Poltz is not to be underestimated. His observations on life’s details ring with sarcasm and underlying truth.
We find those qualities on his 14th solo album, JoyRide, recorded in East Nashville, and featuring co-writing with greats such as Gary Nicholson and Jim Lauderdale. Many of the tracks had the backing of Emmylou Harris’s Red Dirt Boys,…
Back in 2021, Tom Paxton and John McCutcheon had stopped touring because of the pandemic, but their ideas for new songs kept flowing. So, the two decided to meet every Monday afternoons at 2pm via Zoom for songwriting sessions. Before long, they had enough songs for an album, and they released Together in 2023. After Together appeared, they continued swapping songs and making music, and when they took stock, they found they had plenty of material for another album, Together Again.
…To dive into their collective pasts would take a book, but suffice it to say that Paxton has recorded or appeared on more than 70 albums starting in 1964, and written thousands of songs which are largely staples of the folk tradition…
Guitars on Life is a duo offering by acoustic guitarists Jack West and Walter Strauss. Both are Californians. The recording was released in tandem with Essential Curvature, a compilation from West’s folk-jazz band who released five excellent albums between 1996 and 2003. He developed a solo style that allows him to play his trademark eight-string acoustic, slide guitars, bass, and percussion — simultaneously, which he does here. Strauss is best known for his global folk work with Malian musicians including kora masters Mamadou Diabate, Sidiki Diabate, and kamale ngoni great Mamadou Sidibe, among others. He’s also worked with multi-instrumentalist Joe Craven, Cuban violinist Tanmy Moreno, Scottish fiddler Jonny Hardie of the Old Blind Dogs,…
Essential Curvature is a double-length compilation drawn from five albums by Bay Area folk-jazz-world fusion outfit Curvature, guitarist Jack West‘s acoustic band that existed between 1996 and 2003. Their discography includes Continuum (1996), Big Comet Headed for Earth (1998), As We Know It (1999), Big Ideas (2001), and Around About Now (2003). Otá Records signed West for Guitars On Life with guitarist Walter Strauss, to be released alongside the new disc. It contains cuts from each of their releases. The sequencing of these 16 cuts is glorious; it is structured along an aesthetic of flow rather than chronology.
The set opener is the killer title track from Big Ideas. It’s performed by West, bassist Scott Amendola, marimbist/percussionist…
…The expanded digital album includes 11 bonus tracks in total: the three songs from the 2007 ‘End Like This’ EP, four previously unreleased outtakes, and four demos.
Makers is Rocky Votolato’s fourth album, appearing fittingly in line after 2003’s Suicide Medicine, but with a worn resilience all its own. It finds Votolato sounding older and weathered, more content than jaded, and there’s a modest quality to his steady voice that projects words as both sincere and comforting.
Some songs are country-tinged — with touches of harmonica, pedal steel, violin, and piano supporting the focal acoustic guitar — but it’s more that they simply evoke images of rural dirt roads, long walks and quiet autumn nights at home…
Johnny Delaware describes his latest record as a nomadic affair.
“I recorded it in studios in Mexico and the United States and in hotel rooms all across Latin America, and if you listen closely, you can hear bits and pieces of all those places and the people I met along the way. They’re all a part of me now.” As a result, Para Llevar is a swirl of indie rock, Americana and psychedelic folk making for a dreamy, atmospheric listen.
The co-founder of the South Carolina-based Susto, Delaware’s solo work is not a big step away from that band’s work, despite being a little more subdued. Para Llevar opens on “Jungle Full Of Ghosts,” a slightly ominous track inspired by the rain in Mexico and a little help from…