Reviews
Yn Rio
Welsh-Brazilian samba might seem an unlikely musical match; even less so with the addition of the BBC National Orchestra of...
Reviewed by Huw Hennessy in issue: January/February/2022
Live at Café Oto
OKI is the tonkori-wielding bard famed for bringing the endangered music of the Ainu people of Hokkaido, one of Japan’s...
Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: November/2023
Away Beyond the Fret
East Anglian husband and wife duo Lucy and Jon Hart have coincided their third album with the birth of their...
Reviewed by Glenn Kimpton in issue: March/2024
Are Possible
Six years after the release of Plainly Mistaken, banjo maestro Nathan Bowles has once again partnered with double-bassist Casey Toll...
Reviewed by Doug Deloach in issue: September/2024
Chronika
Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars
After nearly 15 years playing trumpet in America’s seminal klezmer band The Klezmatics (with whom he is still active), Frank...
Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: May/2024
Still + Bright
Tennessee singer, guitarist, banjo player and songwriter Amythyst Kiah has come a long way from her early roots singing Appalachian...
Reviewed by Devon Léger in issue: December/2024
Arcs & Rivers
Joel Lyssarides & Georgios Prokopiou
I’ve encountered the bouzouki in a number of different contexts: rebetika, laïko, Irish traditional music and various eastern-Mediterranean crossover ensembles,...
Reviewed by Maria Lord in issue: December/2024
Niepraudzivaya
Hajda Banda are one of the best traditional bands to have emerged in Poland in recent years. Led by Belarusian...
Reviewed by Simon Broughton in issue: May/2025
Masters of Our Roots
A masterclass of 20th century Cuban-American showbiz, this has all the vintage allure of a night at Havana's Tropicana, or...
Reviewed by Philip Sweeney in issue: September/2025
Chigiyo Music Kings 1987–1998
Way back at the dawn of the 1980s, the slow’n’rootsy style of Zimbabwean chimurenga, as played by the mighty Thomas...
Reviewed by Martin Longley in issue: January/2026
