On their myspace page, the Fast Sails describe themselves as a mix of happy hardcore and Dutch pop, but whatever the source material, our panel found that the result is a quirky, folky pop. Alice Sage: This girl has an…
Author: Ian Parker
Ian is For Folk's Sake's reviews editor. Find him on Twitter @iparky.
FFS New Bands Panel: Ben Keeler and the 500 Club
Ben Keeler and the 500 Club have been steadily making a name for themselves in their hometown of Chicago over the past few months and with their debut album Water, Water now finished, they’re looking to expand their horizons. The…
FFS New Bands Panel: Mathew Gray
So far, all we have to go on for Manchester singer-songwriter Mathew Gray are a handful of bedroom demos. EPs are on the way, so the panel took a listen to see whether they’re likely to be worth the wait.…
FFS New Bands Panel: Erica Buettner
The American Erica Buettner has been living in Paris for the past five years, and has clearly soaked up plenty of its influences during that time. But what she says she’s aiming for is something along the lines of Joni…
Album: Polly & The Billets Doux – Fiction, Half-Truths And Downright Lies
Polly and the Billets Doux are on dangerous ground. The sort of jazzy blues-rock that is pulled off by the likes of Grace Potter & The Nocturnals and Erin McKeown is hard to do without falling into the twee trap.…
FFS New Bands Panel: Swann
Sadly, it often takes us much longer than we’d like for bands to actually get their reviews published in this section. From first writing to us to actually seeing the panel’s reaction on line can take several weeks. We wish…
Album: Paul Heaton – Acid Country
You know where you stand with a Paul Heaton album. There will be bitter boy-girl duets, radio-friendly hum-along tunes, references to drinking and a song name checking lots of places. While at times the return the themes can seem a…
FFS New Bands Panel: Rebel Bran
Serbian-born Rebel Bran moved to Canada during the Balkan war, and continued to hone a musical sound which has been 20 years in the making. He finally feels it’s ready, so the panel went in to see if they agree.…
FFS New Bands Panel: Fling
The definition of folk music is increasingly hard to pin down in an age of anti-folk and psych-folk and whatever other folk you care to mention. Fling live in simpler times, playing what folk music used to mean: the music…
FFS New Bands Panel: Chasing Owls
The people behind Edinburgh’s Chasing Owls have been known to us at For Folk’s Sake for a while now, so it was a clear oversight that we’d not, as yet, given them a proper listen. After all, if the likes…