Author: Mark Buckley

Album | Niamh Regan – Come As You Are

Arriving four years after her debut album Hemet introduced the world to Niamh Regan’s powerful brand of quiet and powerful introspection, we receive the follow up Come As You Are. Whereas the former was recorded in studios between Galway and California, the latter…

Album | Josienne Clarke – Parenthesis, I

Hot on the heels of last year’s Onliness, which saw Josienne Clarke recording, reworking and reclaiming a collection of her older songs, comes Parenthesis, I. Thirteen songs about finding who you are through the prism of where you came from and where…

Album | Iron & Wine – Light Verse

When Sam Beam (the man behind the moniker Iron & Wine) was asked for the reasons why he named his seventh solo studio album Light Verse, he spoke about the process of making it “felt like coming out of a tunnel…

Album | Hurray for the Riff Raff – The Past is Still Alive

In a recording studio in Durham, NC just one month shy of losing their father, Aylnda Segarra – the songwriter behind the monicker of Hurray for the Riff Raff – committed to tape the most personal album they’d made to…

Album | Chatham County Line – Hiyo

Since rising from the ashes of previous band Stillhouse a quarter of a century ago, Chatham County Line have been presenting their modern take on the bluegrass tradition to a devoted fan base across the world. Hiyo is their 11th…

Album | Devendra Banhart – Flying Wig

Devendra Banhart is no stranger to anyone who reads these pages. Flying Wig sees the Houston-born musician and songwriter releasing his 11th album into the wild. He is 21 years deep into a recording career and shows no slowing down…

Album | Gregory Alan Isakov – Appaloosa Bones

Gregory Alan Isakov is one talented fellow. He writes bruising songs, sings in a weathered voice and has a knack for writing a melody that stays with you for a long time. He also has heart, a deep lying sense…

Album | Shirley Collins – Archangel Hill

Every generation of the Collins family has been carved from the hills of the South Downs, and it is those hills that act as a silent partner and accompaniment for Archangel Hill, the third album that folk queen Shirley Collins…

Album | Arborist – An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeros

“Sometimes these are the best dreams I’ve ever had/Like a sparkle of crystals in the palm of my hand”. From the opening lines of Arborist’s third album, we are welcomed into a world observed from a different angle. Arborist, aka Mark McCambridge,…

Album | Lucy Farrell – We Are Only Sound

Lucy Farrell has been a name on the English folk circuit for a number of years, duetting with Jonny Kearney for a while and gaining acclaim in supporting slots or the likes of The Unthanks and Bellowhead. After winning the…