Stevie Scullion believes in weirdness. Having a couple of kids, it was important to let them know a few things. “I was thinking of a way to tell them its okay to be weird and that sometimes it’s our weirdness…
Age is just a state of mind, up to a point. No one really expected to see the Stones rocking into their seventies back in 1964. Yet that’s where we’re at today, and for Amy Rigby, at 59, she’s rocking…
In the release of Andy Shauf’s side-band debut album, nearly a decade in the making, there is much of The Party’s deserved success. The style of the record is very much in the vein of Andy’s solo release, again a…
As the wool-sweatered Henry Jamison points out during his opening set, Village Underground in Shoreditch is not actually underground. What misleading times we live in. The renovated warehouse with its vaulted bricked arches is, though, objectively sold out for what…
Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou don’t follow the rules. Their last album, 2015’s Expatriot produced by Ethan Johns, found them in a real studio – an experience that wasn’t exactly what Moss had in mind. “I like to limit the possibilities,”…
Rarely does it seem that even contemporary folk releases on the indie scene wear their hearts on their sleeves as wholly and evidently as Twisted Oak’s Cold Coffee and Half Smoked Cigarettes. Its influences and central themes are presented right on…
The titular opener of Steve Wheeler’s Stormseeker wouldn’t feel unfit in a cinematic score. As raucous strings soar with abandon, pounding percussion drives the track forward as it continuously builds in tempo. An operatic section liberates itself as bombastic horns sound…
Basking in understated poignancy, Geoff Gibbons’ Shadow of a Stone EP is a potential sleeper hit on the indie folk scene. Inundated by lush production and lyric-focused arrangements, the Vancouver singer-songwriter’s intimate knowledge of what makes contemporary folk shimmer stands to…
Unlike many acts who bill themselves as a cross between pop, folk, rock, and soul, Julia King has synthesized these genres into something cohesive and trained. Moreover, it’s undeniably her, representing a ‘Julia’ state of mind more than anything. Each…
If ever you were going to look for the most unlikely array of instruments the combination of mandolin, bouzouki, and guitar would finish high on the list. Yet using these instruments along with a tenor banjo, The Trials of Cato…