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fRoots 70 : free album!
Our pick of the very best new stuff. Download it to play on your device or burn it to CD. Go get it!
H
ere’s the latest in our long series of carefully crafted and sought-after compilations that are designed to let you hear the best music –mostly on
small independent labels – that our writers get enthusiastic about in the pages of fRoots. Listen, then buy the original CDs!
If you were wondering why an indis- putably striking-looking woman who you’ve never heard of is on the cover of the world’s longest continually published English language folky-rootsy-worldy parish magazine, you didn’t catch Moonlight Benjamin at WOMAD. So read and listen!
“What sets Kitty Macfarlane apart from other singer-songwriters?” somebody asked the other day. Well, there’s her affinity with her Somerset roots, intelligent writing and respect for tradition, not to mention her obvious singing and playing ability. Hence her debut was picked up by Navigator.
Andrew Cronshaw’s Anglo/ Finnish/ Armenian multi-instrumental wondergroup SANS have really gelled on their second album, with the twin Finnish vocal attack of Sanna Kurki-Suonio and Erika Hammarberg to the fore. Produced by Jim Sutherland, this is a world-class record.
There’s something about duos on the
folk scene – often much more satisfying music packed into a small space than seems possible. Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Gold- smith are poised to fill the shoes of past occupants like the Dransfields or Spiers & Boden in their yesteryear heydays.
Northern Flyway began as an audio- visual project written and created by multi- instrumentalists Jenny Sturgeon (Salt House) and Inge Thomson (Karine Polwart
Trio) and using the birdsong field recordings of Magnus Robb. Also on the record, Sarah Hayes and Jason Singh. Intriguing!
FLO! What to say? Her third album showed up and blew us away. This Italian singer, songwriter and actress is a force of nature: influenced by Italian traditions and many great past women artists from Chavela Vargas to Lhasa. Think Eliza Carthy meets Amparo Sanchez in Napoli!
Rachel Newton’s new CD is a com- pletely solo harp/ voice album, recorded in the intimate setting of her grandparents’ old croft house in Achnahaird, Western Ross. The press release quotes fRoots as pre- viously saying “Newton delivers a thing of great beauty”: we can say it again!
Istanbul’s Fulya Özlem was brought up on Britfolk and spent some time here in her twenties, but with her two Greek women instrumentalists in Akustik Kabare she’s made a great “back to the roots” album of old-style Ottoman Turkish makam music, but with a modern lyrical twist.
What do you do after a decade on the road in a behemoth like Bellowhead? Well, after no doubt having a good lie down, Rachael McShane has assembled her own (small!) band The Cartographers and set to recording her first solo album since 2009, her fine original take on traditional songs.
Tom Rush was always one of the most unmistakeable voices of the 1960s American folk boom, first to showcase the work of some later celebrated writers and no slouch himself with the pen either (think No Regrets). Here he is at 77 years old, still sounding just as recognisable and relaxed.
55 years younger – but already a sea- soned performer – Anandi Bhattacharya
has made her mark with international audi- ences in recent years singing with her cele- brated Hindustani slide guitarist father Debashish Bhattacharya’s group. Her debut solo album is bewitching.
UK audiences will be more familiar with
guitarist Nathan Salsburg accompanying his partner Joan Shelley (they’re about to tour with Richard Thompson) but his solo albums, as influenced by UK giants like Nic Jones or Dave Evans as American roots, are highly recommended masterpieces.
Over five decades of writing and per-
forming, Steve Tilston has created a huge repertoire of great songs. His new album finds him revisiting his and his fans’ favourites in solo acoustic form, including a couple like this one which first appeared on his 1971 debut An Acoustic Confusion.
For a music which was once almost
banned, maloya from La Reunion has sur- vived, thrived and evolved strongly in recent times. Anne-Gaëlle Hoarau, or Ann O’aro as she’s known, is a fiery performer from the new generation making subtle revolutions in the music for the 21st century.
Right, on yer feet! Cumbiaaaa! The multi-cultured London-based Malphino collective (Japan, Malaysia, Colombia, France, Philippines, UK) have new twists on the traditional cumbia form, and have cre- ated a fantasy island on which to base it. A tropical Szegerely of the modern age!
12-string guitarist Toby Hay has lived all his life in mid-Wales and its landscape, inhabitants and environment – dark skies, wild heather, slower rhythm of life – perme- ate everything he writes. His new one The Longest Day is tempered with his recent travels to perform further afield.
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