First Aid Kit are born performers. As I’m ushered through Bush Hall past the photos of the golden greats past and present, and into the Green Room which has seen the presence of Amy Winehouse, REM, Alanis Morrisette, Feist, Regina Spektor and many others, it seems like they should be there. The young sisters have a confidence and an...
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Ane Brun’s fourth studio album It All Starts With One was released earlier this month to widespread acclaim and praise; a gloriously emotive and compelling affair that ensures her talents as a musician will be further known upon these shores. On her recent tour of the UK I had the chance to meet Ane,...
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Vlautin, left, performs with Richmond Fontaine in Leeds “I’m not a huge fan of concept records,” says Willy Vlautin, the frontman and songwriter of Richmond Fontaine, who have just released, well, a concept album. The High Country is described as a ‘song-novel’, set in the remote Oregon logging community Vlautin now calls home. It...
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Our final best album nominee Rachael Dadd’s album Bite the Mountain. Reviewer Tom White said: “The record has an understated autumnal air to it, drifting by like the falling leaves and providing a pretty and colourful backdrop.” For Folk’s Sake: Congratulations, you’ve been nominated for a Schmercury, how do you feel? Rachael Dadd: Very...
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Emmy the Great’s Virtue is a devastatingly brutal and beautiful record about the break up of a relationship. There was no way we could fail to recognise it in this year’s best album list. FFS’s Rory Dollard said: “Sparse closing track ‘Trellick Tower’ – beautifully rendered with bare piano and a single bruised voice...
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The Secret Sisters are Laura and Lydia Rogers from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. After getting the stamp of quality that is a Jack White-produced single, the sisters released their self-titled debut album. Our reviews editor Ian Parker said: “the Secret Sisters are not just steeped in the sounds of their native American south, they live...
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Schmercury winners in 2009 for their debut album, The Sleeper, the Leisure Society’s masterful second album Into the Murky Water was released this year to a flurry of acclaim from critics and, notably, an awful lot of celebrities (John Simm, Chris Addison, Dom Joly, Olivia Colman – really, a lot). It’s a record of timeless...
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Marshall: "I wanted Dark Dark Dark to open for Adele on an "epic female vocalists and body-positive-famous girls" bill that would've stolen the world."
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Last of the Country Gentlemen, as a statement about Josh T. Pearson, only tells half the story. This year’s masterpiece of gutwrenchingly personal country-folk is expertly recounted, masterfully played and needfully drawn-out. But in talking to the man or seeing him play live it quickly becomes apparent that the individual whose soul seems to...
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Our 3rd Schmercury-nominated interviewee Mechanical Bride’s album was one of those long-awaited debuts. We’d been following brains-behind-the-name Lauren Doss’s career since FFS was founded three years ago. Living With Ants was finally released in June this year, after a long gestation period and takes the listener on a gently turbulent journey through genres and...
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