Features

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Folk Calendar 2025-26

Spencer Grady plots out the next twelve months of folk happenings, bringing you essential festivals from across the British Isles as well as a selection of some of our most unusual cultural traditions

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Taj Mahal: A Beginner's Guide

Nigel Williamson surveys the US musician whose career has long shown that the blues is a global musical movement

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Hajda Banda: “In the past years, the trend has been to accept our Slavic connections”

Poland’s prize-winning Hajda Banda are seeking out the sounds of their country’s eastern border regions. Simon Broughton reports…

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Music in Malawi

After receiving an invite to attend the annual Lake of Stars festival, Christopher Conder heads to Malawi, finding local musicians en route to international stardom and others proudly fulfilling roles as social historians and bearers of their nation’s richest traditions

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Rokia Traoré: “You cannot know how jail is if you have not been there. These people are human too”

Robin Denselow speaks to Malian singer and musician Rokia Traoré, who is finally able to return to performing after a custody battle that led to her imprisonment in several countries

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Essential 10 Global Obscurities (Selected by Tokyo’s Record Shops)

Erin Cobby heads to Japan in search of records that are well overdue some extra attention

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Maxine Peake's My World: "You can see why people look for other things, and music gives us answers"

The English actor chats about her musical side projects, her love of folk horror and the mysteries that only music can answer

Thursday, June 12, 2025

‘Dimming of the Day’: the story behind one of Richard Thompson's most popular songs

Russ Slater Johnson speaks to Richard Thompson about one of his most covered songs, a spiritual composition which arose from a period of surrender

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Tracy Chapman on the show that changed her life

Tracy Chapman recalls how Stevie Wonder’s lost hard drive inadvertently gave her debut album the extra exposure it needed to kickstart her career and become a still-loved classic

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Quinie: “I initially felt like I shouldn’t sing these songs”

Thomas Newell speaks to a Scottish singer threading Scots Traveller songs with a grassroots DIY aesthetic

Thursday, June 12, 2025

The Gentle Good: “I’m a city boy, but I’ve always been fascinated by nature”

Elliw Iwan talks to the Welsh singer and musician whose latest album goes from protest songs about lost valleys to a collaboration with one of Rajasthan’s finest folk groups

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Varo: “We needed to do something and feel good about it… And have a purpose”

Emma Rycroft talks to the Dublin duo about a project that saw them work with some of the city’s finest musicians to alleviate the pain of lockdown

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Remorae: “You’re part of an intergenerational community by singing and learning folksongs”

Sophie Parkes sits down with a collective intent on finding different ways to approach and interpret traditional music. They still don’t have a formula worked out, nor do they want one