Reviews

Lady Sings the Balkan Blues

Mostar Sevdah Reunion

Mostar Sevdah Reunion are a Bosnian institution. Emerging out of the ruins of war-torn Bosnia in 1998, tending the traditions...

Reviewed in issue March/2023

Let Me Out

Balaklava Blues

War is not always amenable to great art. Feelings of horror, loss and grief give rise to a sense that...

Reviewed in issue March/2023

All of This Is Chance

Lisa O’Neill

Fresh from signing off Peaky Blinders with a cover of Bob Dylan's ‘All the Tired Horses’, O’Neill returns to her...

Reviewed in issue March/2023

Ahol az Ökör is Bort Iszik!

Magos | Magos & Limón

Magos are a fine Hungarian folk band playing authentic village music, mostly from Romanian Transylvania. They and their violinist Csaba...

Reviewed in issue March/2023

The Playhouse Sessions

Bjarte Eike & Barokksolistene

‘How should I behave when I have a violin in my hand?’ asks the dazzling Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike in...

Reviewed in issue January/February/2023

Murmuration

Coracle

Coracle are accordionist Paul Hutchinson, formerly of the beloved Belshazzar’s Feast with the late Paul Sartin, plus singer and multi-instrumentalist...

Reviewed in issue January/February/2023

Waterways

JR Coote

J R Coote trained as a classical guitarist at Cambridge University, and spent time in southern Spain studying flamenco. These...

Reviewed in issue January/February/2023

Wurdiz

Sowulo

Dutch Nordic dark folk band Sowulo harks back to the times of gods where the stories and beliefs of our...

Reviewed in issue January/February/2023

Time Was Away

Emily Portman & Rob Harbron

Portman and Harbron are, in their different ways, leading lights of contemporary English folk – Portman as a singer, songwriter...

Reviewed in issue January/February/2023

Sand, Silt, Flint

Fiona Soe Paing

Avant-garde folk doesn’t get much better than this. Fiona Soe Paing’s second solo album provides a brooding soundtrack to the...

Reviewed in issue January/February/2023