You might expect When We Lived in the Crook of a Tree to be a collection of winsome, woolly songs about treehouses. Nope. The first words are: “There once grew a tree, ten flimsy branches on it, that used to…
Gary Stewart, for those who may not know, is the bassist in For Folk’s Sake favourites Ellen and the Escapades, and this is his latest collection of songs recorded under his own name and released independently way back in the…
There’s something honest about Roo Panes’ music – he manages romanticism without melodrama, sincerity without sentimentality. Indeed Land of the Living’s opener, ‘Glory Days’, where a ukulele is strummed alongside bowed strings, serves as perfect image of what Panes has…
Marika Hackman first burst on to the scene back in early 2012 with her sweet song ‘Here I Lie’, recorded for a Burberry campaign. The comparisons to Laura Marling, Joanna Newsom and Nico quickly rolled in, and it was clear…
Adrian Crowley and James Yorkston are no strangers to the scene. The former’s album Season of the Sparks won the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year in 2009, while Yorkston’s relentless touring and recording has seen him…
It’s hard to doubt that a 10th Anniversary release of The Magnolia Electric Co. would see the light of day, even if it’s auteur, Jason Molina, had not passed away earlier this year. But it’s impossible to deny that his death…
With a name as playful as David Harbottle & The Friendly Cats, one of the strongest elements I initially expected from their record was quite simply, fun. Happily, the seven-piece outfit’s third EP, Dawn Breaks, doesn’t disappoint in that sense…
It would be easy to criticise Bird for missing the unique experimental opportunity that an intermediary EP release can provide. Right from its opening; the plucked, strummed, looped violin of ‘Ethio Invention No.1’; I Want To See Pulaski At Night…
Beginning with a tour-de-force of voice and guitar combining in beautiful harmony in ‘Mother Earth, Father God’, Torres (real name Mackenzie Ruth Scott) declares that she was ‘Born on bloody battleground/to the middlemen between two realms,’ and so the tone of record is set within the opening three minutes.
Piers Faccini’s Between Dogs and Wolves is a beautiful album, for three simple reasons. His eclectic and unassuming vocal style is gently balanced on the music, falling somewhere between Nick Drake and Kings of Convenience. The instruments are deployed with…