‘Rootsy’ is a term that gets used a lot in describing that certain kind of Americana that draws heavily on rural country blues, evoking cotton fields and dustbowls. But if it’s actually possible to hear earth, soil, you can hear…
Author: Ian Parker
Ian is For Folk's Sake's reviews editor. Find him on Twitter @iparky.
Album | BOBBY – Bobby
From the moment FFS first laid ears on the opening bars, something of an obsession not only with the song but with all things BOBBY has developed.
The loose musical collective was strung together by Vermont musicial Tom Greenberg – and features Molly Sarle and Amelia Meath from the delicious Mountain Man
Album: Zervas & Peppers – Somewhere In The City
Does anyone fancy a trip through their parents record collection? Zervas & Peppers wear their influences on their sleeve, so it won’t take you long listening to this to realise that said influences are Fleetwood Mac, CSN&Y, Joni Mitchell and…
EP: Matthew P – The Breakfast EP
You won’t go mistaking Matthew P’s records for any of the other Americana bands who fit in to the same wistful bracket. For while his music recalls the straightforward ease of the Wood Brothers and others who dwell somewhere between…
EP: Michael Kiwanuka – Tell Me A Tale
I need to go and see Michael Kiwanuka in person. Only then might I believe he exists, at least in the form we’re told of. Surely it’s more plausible that, rather than being a 23-year-old Londoner, he’s now an aging…
PJ Harvey films to be screened at UK festivals
UK festival goers will be able to see the series of short films created by Seamus Murphy to accompany each song on PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake on the big screen this summer. The 12 films will be screened together…
Other Lives release ‘For 12’ video
Oklahoma’s Other Lives are preparing to unleash sophomore album Tamer Animals – their first proper release in the UK – later this summer, and whet our appetites with the dreamy ‘For 12’, which comes equipped with this rather lavish space-based…
Album: Sarah Jarosz – Follow Me Down
When Mumford & Sons recommend a 20-year-old banjo picker who is already on to her second album, it’s got to be worth a look. And so we found Texan Sarah Jarosz who brings us the rather fine Follow Me Down.…
Album: This Frontier Needs Heroes – The Future
History repeats itself, which explains why you can hear so much of the past in The Future, the second album from New York brother-sister pairing This Frontier Needs Heroes. Brad and Jessica Lauretti lap up influences from two of America’s…
Live: Anais Mitchell @ Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Anais Mitchell leapt into our consciousness with last year’s stunning folk-opera Hadestown, a sprawling masterpiece with a lengthy cast of distinguished contributers, not least Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, the Low Anthem’s Ben Knox Miller and Ani DiFranco. Lush instrumentation and…