Reviews
Looking for the Thread
Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis & Karine Polwart
This unexpected but very welcome silver lining collection first came together as a pandemic lockdown writing experiment. US singer-songwriter Carpenter...
Reviewed by Kevin Bourke in issue: February/March/2025
Songs for the Trees
A rich and deeply mytho-poetic set of 13 songs drawing on Ogham (the Druidic ‘tree alphabet’) and evoking some of...
Reviewed by Tim Cumming in issue: July/2025
Live
A veteran of Mali’s oldest dance orchestra Super Biton de Ségou, Mama Sissoko became the band’s guitarist in 1972. When...
Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: April/2024
Songs for Nina and Johanna
Scottish singer-songwriter James Yorkston’s latest release doesn’t tinker with his winning formula of gently absorbing compositions set against lush, but...
Reviewed by Chris Wheatley in issue: December/2025
For the Night
Cool, hip, vibrant might alone be three words that sum up Elephant Sessions’ forth release, For the Night. Building on...
Reviewed by James Scott Rorison in issue: December/2022
A Tiempo
Hailing from Triana, Seville's one time Gypsy quartei and home of classic flamenco, Rosario Guerrero Hernández, aka ‘La Tremendita’, has...
Reviewed by Jan Fairley in issue: Apr/May/2011
Nostalgique Porto Rico: Plenas, Guarachas, Boléros et Chansons Jibaras 1940-1960
Long before Ricky Martin and Daddy Yankee seduced the diaspora with their very different hybrid pop rhythms, the island of...
Reviewed by Chris Moss in issue: April/2019
Om Suite Ohm
The latest instalment of Harry Manx’s strange journey – his ninth solo album – is an engaging affair that will...
Reviewed by Peter Culshaw in issue: July/2013
Polka for Punks
Thirty-five years on, the anarchic spirit of punk keeps emerging in unlikely places, from the Beijing underground to R.U.T.A, the...
Reviewed by Peter Culshaw in issue: March/2013
Howl For More
Evolving from the introspective folk of his debut Quiet Rooms to a more ambitious, delicately electrified musical palette, Howl For...
Reviewed by Kevin Bourke in issue: October/2025
