In August of 2017 Shannon Lay’s life changed completely. She went from being a sometime musician to creating music full time when Kevin Morby asked her to open for him on an American tour. That life changing moment became the…
The gestation period for birds is 35 days, while elephants take almost two years! In the case of Carriers, Curt Kiser’s Cincinnati-based band, the gestation period took five years. Yet along the way the band has become very well known,…
When Broken Forest were invited to play The Old Church in Stoke Newington earlier this year, Luise London and her band took the opportunity to reimagine their songs to fit the setting. Stripped back, the songs lost their distinctive elements…
Even if you haven’t heard of S. T. Manville before, you might have heard his previous work as a songwriter working with artists such as Mø, Biffy Clyro, Digital Farm Animals, Little Mix and Becky Hill. Disenchanted with the pop…
“Let’s start a band.” With those words Seeker Lover Keeper was formed at a bar in Newtown, Australia nine years ago. Wild Seeds, their second album, finds Sarah Blasko, Sally Seltmann, and Holly Throsby reuniting for the first time in…
After picking up her trusty guitar from an antique market in 2006, the Good Graces’ Kim Ware went from notable Atlanta drummer to full-fledged singer-songwriter and frontwoman. Well-loved for their culmination of indie folk and Americana, the Good Graces are…
On Lillimure’s self-titled debut LP, up-tempo jazz-hop splits meet conscious lyricism and sheer vocal finesse. It’s a fine blend of influences spanning a multitude of subgenres, culminating into the dense filling that fulfills a folk-pop shell. Shifting into a palpable…
“I wrote ‘Wanna Be Like You’ during a period of my life where I felt stunted, stuck, and unable to create the change that I knew I needed,” says Charlie and the Rays’ Rebecca Stobbe. “The lyrics are seemingly directed…
Natalie Evans’ rather fine 2013 EP Houses will get its first ever vinyl release later this month, with added loveliness in the form of a flip side made up of stripped-back live recordings. Want to hear more? Good, you’re in…
Here at For Folk’s Sake, we’ve been fans of Gregory Ackerman’s from the get-go. Last year, our own Ian Parker laid out praise for the now 26-year-old singer-songwriter’s work, lauding the years of artistic culmination and hard work that his…
The heat index was topping out at 108 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) as Pitchfork began. Even hotter than the temperature was the performance of the Great Black Music Ensemble, a 13-piece band under the direction of AACM’s Ernest Dawkins.…
Varied in its themes as it is delivered like a warm embrace, Sharon Goldman’s songwriting is unvarnished folk-pop. Every Trip Around the Sun prides itself on humanity, and it seems to be that it does so with a “nothing more,…
A resident, and well-respected artist, in California, Eleni Mandell publishes what we can call her “prison album”. Even though not actually recorded in prison, the record is inspired by her participation in the “Jail With Guitars” program, bringing songwriting in…
This week we bring you another session track from Jeremy Tuplin (accompanied by Samuel Nicholson on guitar). ‘Gaia’ is taken from Jeremy’s recent album Pink Mirror and will be released as a digital single on 13th September, with the B-side…
Like many of today’s best Americana innovators, Trae Sheehan isn’t an artist who lets the traditional restrictions of a genre define him. Depending on the moment, the mostly self-taught singer-songwriter bounces between folk, rock, and country elements like a savant.…
Cambridge has always been much more than ‘just’ a music festival, and this year’s programme again demonstrates what has become their trademark: forward-thinking, confident belief in the potential of people gathered together around music and ideas. Throughout the weekend there’ll…
Rebekah Hawker is poised as the antithesis to modern pop music. Her art isn’t deemed by internet-era frivolities, but with emotive lyrics that can carry as much might as an incoming tempest betwixt wistful melodies that speak to the heart.…
