Now, I’m not a parent, but I imagine there is an overwhelming sense of relief when your offspring makes the switch from gurgling, screeching waif in need of constant attention to something that is more developed and offers a little…
Author: For Folk's Sake
Live | Michelle Stodart @ Apple Cart Festival
If The Magic Numbers are a little too ‘shiny happy people’ for you, bassist Michele Stodart’s solo foray into country and blues territory is a far grittier prospect. We may be at the underpopulated, family-orientated Apple Cart festival (littler, more…
Album | The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient
Slave ambient is a very appropriate name for this album full of, well, ambient guitars. Coupled with Adam Granduciel’s vocals, reminiscent of many a country singer, it makes for a very interesting if slightly confused album. Every songs seems different…
EP | Florian Lunaire – Spring and Summer
Florian Lunaire is releasing a series of EPs based on the four seasons with each one being recorded in a different location in accordance to the time of year. Autumn and Winter will come in due course but he has…
Live | Ben Howard @ Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh
During festival season in Edinburgh, anything goes. Oxford students ride stationary exercise bikes, leafleters dressed as Victorian gentlemen heckle passers-by and opera singers cover pop classics for loose change on street corners. Yet only meters beneath the chaos, in a…
Album | Fruit Bats – Tripper
Like a lot of the folk revival album of the last decade, Tripper sounds very 1970s. It’s gentle, toe-tapping pace, its use of twinkling and sweeping major chords and warm pianos, is reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac or Crosby, Stills, Nash…
Album | The Fruit Tree Foundation – First Edition
It’s hard to make a good indie rock album. Harder still if you’re a band of mostly folk musicians plonked in a house together for only five days. And yet, here on this splendid fourteen track album, First Edition, Scottish…
Singles round-up | Lucy Rose, The Lost Cavalry, We Aeronauts, Anja McCloskey
Lucy Rose – Middle of the Bed What a stylishly simple debut single we have here from Lucy Rose. She’s come along way from busking on the streets of London, playing open mic nights, gigging in bars and eventually coming…
Album | Rachael Dadd – Bite The Mountain
I first became aware of Rachael Dadd last year, when she visited York alongside close friend, regular touring partner and FFS favourite Alessi’s Ark and the pair captivated a fairly large crowd in a very small venue. This is, of…
Album | Widowspeak – Widowspeak
Widowspeak may have a death-laden name, but the opening track on their eponymous debut, ‘Puritan’, is one of the sunniest songs on the album, with a surfing edge and casually sweet vocals, so that the grungy guitar of ‘Harsh Realm’…