Hedera are a band of five tightly knit friends – violinist Lulu Austin, violin/viola player Maisie Brett, violinist/double bassist Beth Roberts, accordionist/ harpist Tamsin Elliott, and clarinettist Isis Wolf-Light – named after the Latin botanical term for ivy. The group’s debut album combines influences from Bulgaria to Bali, Ireland to Georgia, and establishes its mood of knotted, hypnotic locked groove from its opening track, ‘Sterretjie’ (named after an Afrikaans word for the coastal tern bird, which also means “little stars”). Brett’s violin passes the track’s melody to Wolf-Light’s clarinet and Elliott’s accordion with a bright, sparkling swiftness.
Many other moments of joy, lithe and spring-like, lift these 12 tracks. Roberts’ waltz about a Cornish meadow, Mayflies in June, travels…
Category: folk
Consummate troubadour and songwriter Tim Easton wrote much of his new album beneath a painting of a red horse. The artwork — created by his sister, visual artist Susan Easton Burns—was executed in an abstract-realist style, using gardening tools instead of paintbrushes to form a vivid image from fragmented strokes. It now serves as the cover art for fIREHORSE, Easton’s 14th commercially released record. Made with zero artificial intelligence, the album also arrives just as the Chinese calendar enters the Year of the (Fire) Horse — an apt coincidence given that Easton himself, born in 1966, is a Fire Horse.
“Whether the painting influenced the songs or the album was shaped to fit the painting makes no difference anymore,” Easton says.
Portland folk singer Jeffrey Martin releases one full show, Alive July 25, 2025, recorded at Portland’s The Showdown, with 16 tracks, unedited, overdub-free, and unsequenced. Sam Weber (Madison Cunningham, Anna Tivel, Bahamas) joins Martin on acoustic and electric guitars. Weber also recorded and mixed the record. Only five of these songs appeared on his acclaimed 2023 Thank God We Left the Garden. The others are selected from his sixteen-year recording career, along with a cover of Neil Young’s “Out on the Weekend,” along with a new song, ‘1519.”
Martin opens with “I Know What I Know,” in one sense an anthem of the well-informed, as Martin articulately points out that hate survives on a lack of information; it can’t function without it.
With Country Sides, The Band of Heathens lean fully into their rootsy instincts, delivering an album that feels both lived-in and refreshingly unforced. The record sits comfortably at the crossroads of country, Americana, and soul-tinged rock, favoring groove and feel over flash. It’s the sound of a seasoned band trusting the songs, letting space, harmony, and restraint do the heavy lifting.
The album opens in a relaxed, open-road mode, where dusty guitars and warm organ tones set an unhurried pace. There’s a conversational ease to the vocals, passed around between band members, that reinforces the group’s greatest strength: chemistry. Nothing here feels overworked. Instead, the arrangements breathe, giving each song room to settle into its own pocket.
Lucy Mellenfield began self-releasing her music while studying at the University of Southampton. It was a move to Birmingham to continue her education via a master’s in Jazz Voice that began to shape the songs on her debut album Tell the Water, She Will Listen. Twelve tracks produced by Chris Hyson take us through a sonic landscape of keyboards, guitars, saxophones and drums. At over 75 minutes in total, there is plenty to get involved with here.
The opening ‘Like a Feather’, which was released as a single, is a good example, starting with haunting piano-backed vocals before building to a crescendo of sound. The feather is a symbol of fragility, and that’s a theme that runs throughout the album. ‘Paper Thin’ reflects…
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.
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,…
When it was time to record her new album — the follow-up to 2021’s excellent American Siren — country-folk singer-songwriter Emily Scott Robinson chose to do so at Dreamland Recording Studios, housed in a 130-year-old church sanctuary hidden in the trees outside of Kingston, New York. But the setting and the spiritual center of her work can be found hundreds of miles to the southwest of that location: “Oh, my heart for Appalachia/ Oh, my heart for these blue hills,” Robinson sings in “Appalachia,” the album’s bluegrass-y title track. “Oh, my heart forever captured, beating still.”
The song is both an ode to that magical, mountainous region in the eastern United States and a celebration of resilience,…
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…