Amanda Shires wrote much of To The Sunset hiding in the closet of her Nashville home, but she opens the record by gazing at the stars on ‘Parking Lot Pirouette’ – “the stars, the shapes the constellations make, the burning…
Kate Vargas has packed houses from Ireland’s Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival to The Troubadour in London, The Mansion on O Street in Washington D.C. to New York’s Bowery Electric. Her latest album, For The Wolfish & Wandering (out now),…
With a new EP recently set out into the wild, For Folk’s Sake is keen to share some of the Rabbitts’ latest work. The UK-Canadian group of folkies embraces an inspired jubilance towards the natural world that we seem to…
Harbottle & Jonas are a Devon-based folk duo mixing vocal harmonies, guitar, accordion and, more unusually, a leg operated harmonium. They are currently working on their new album, following on from last year’s Anna is a Dancer, and when that’s…
“Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around / I’m gonna keep on walking, talking, singing, hoping, praying, saying, voting, voting, voting / marching to the freedom land”, sang Rhiannon Giddens in the closing minutes of the 54th Cambridge Folk Festival,…
I am looking as we speak not at my computer keyboard (I can touch type), but at the new video, released last week of Alex Lleo’s track ‘Go Alone’. Filmed during his recent headline tour of Scotland, the video features,…
Palamara’s A Voice in the Wilderness has a little bit of everything for those hoping to garner a tad more from their listening experiences than a cool beat or an undulating rhythm. The singer-songwriter’s music looks back at life’s larger moments…
It has been far too long since we last featured Natalie Evans on the site. Since then she has honed her virtuosic playing, continuing to pair complicated guitar or harp structures with simple vocal melodies to create a unique style…
From Jim Croce to John Denver and Joni Mitchell, folk music flourished from the 60s on through the 80s for singer-songwriters whose first name started with the letter ‘J’. They also managed to bring some stragglers-by along the road with…
What’s the best £20 you’ve ever spent? For Russell Swallow the answer is clear. He was 14 when he wandered into a Salvation Army shop in Suffolk, spotted a guitar and took it home. He taught himself to write songs,…
Crunching electric riffs, driving percussion, and hearty shouts reminiscent of the garage and post-punk scenes does not a folk album make. If your perception of the genre is skin-deep, you might find albums like Wilder Mind to define the entirety of the…
Following the release of her album, Things We’d Rather Not Say, earlier this year, Bri Murphy is sharing a poignant live performance of the LP’s leading tune with For Folk’s Sake. ‘Wait For Me’ aches with a yearning that is only…
To put it simply, Alien Country lives up to its name. This much is true enough that it very nearly feels like sensory overload when you first kick Like My Life Depends On It up, and not because it’s poorly mixed or…
Our new session comes from Kerry Devine. Kerry’s recent album Away From Mountains is haunting electro-folk inspired by The Fens in East Anglia. This track, taken from the album, is the gothic waltz ‘Fools That Fall’. Keep up with Kerry…
With his new album, Mark Huff may have Stars For Eyes, but the question is if the music that makes up this latest LP will leave our ears feeling just as cosmic. While criticizing music as a whole, like all art…
Approaching its 54th event, the Cambridge Folk Festival remains firmly amongst Europe’s foremost offerings for celebrating, introducing and shaping folk music. We spoke to operations manager Neil Jones and asked what the secret to its longevity is: “we’re so aware…
The latest in our ongoing ‘For Folk’s Sake 5’ interview series comes from Nashville’s own Lyman Ellerman. In his ‘FFS5’ sesh, Ellerman tells us the captivating story of his growing up into the world of roots music and all of…
