Terrific new folk music from Dublin. Try the opener, the travellers’ song What Will We Do When We Have No Money? And the centre-piece, the furiously inward-turned immigrant song, Déanta in Éireann. The Granite Gaze… killer.
Hotly recommended.

Another tremendous album from Dublin. It kicks off with a devastating reclamation of The Wild Rover — waste, shame and regret restored — and closes with a compelling original, about a community of women living rough (in nests) on the plains of the Curragh, County Kildare, in the nineteenth century. The centrepiece is a dread version of the Appalachian song Katie Cruel, about a sex worker, by way of Karen Dalton. There are revivals of old-time fiddle music from Montana and Missouri; moments of heavy metal hornpipe.
“Drone is a big part of traditional music because the Uilleann pipes are indigenous to Ireland, so we’re ramping up that history and taking it as far as we can.”
Hotly recommended.

‘one of the most charming idiosyncrasies I have heard all year… where truth is seized accidentally and musical shambles are sweet, virtuous and silly… like watching early Bunuel without subtitles’ (Plan B).

‘... deliciously haunting… rekindles the spirit of DIY that their British counterparts have so patently forgotten’, The Times; ‘startlingly poignant’, Metro.

‘The bad influences’, from Bogota, with their third album for us: twenty-eight gorgeous variations of saudade, in a warmly acoustic, post-punk take on Tropicalismo — impromptu, snapshot and sublime.

An intimate, profound documentary about buckdancing legend Thomas Maupin. Here’s a little ole trailer: http://vimeo.com/6434834.

‘To hear fully the subtlety in Furry’s singing is to gain an insight not only into the singer, but into the creative process of the blues itself,’ wrote Sam Charters. Vocalions and Victors by the Memphis legend.

‘Lovely… another gem from Nashville’s underground’, Word; ‘one of the finest pop records ever made by a Nashville band’, Nashville Scene.

‘Committed to tape on February 20, 1979… a real declaration of identity for Loren. He was introducing himself publicly as a guitar player, although his approach was still very much dictated by the influence of the painter, Mark Rothko, who Loren once described as using a minimal palette to create vital art… The feel to this session is bluesy, in as much as Loren’s wordless vocals have a surface similarity to a hellhound’s, and while he was not using a slide, most of the notes he plays are bent to the edges of their known range. Fahey always said blues was ‘about’ anger, though there’s not really any of that here. I am more reminded of this Rothko quote. ‘You’ve got sadness in you, I’ve got sadness in me ... and my works of art are places where the two sadnesses can meet, and therefore both of us need to feel less sad.’ The first side is solo. On the second Loren is joined for a bit by Kath on hums and recorder. The music brims with sorrow more than anything else. And while it’s clear Loren was embracing an abstract avant garde aesthetic vis-a-vis his playing, the urge to communicate seems to lie at its roots. Whatever you choose to call it, this is the beginning of something quite beautiful’ (Byron Coley).

Previously unrecorded Hank Williams lyrics set to music and performed for the first time by Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, Merle Haggard and co.

Fifties and sixties recordings by the great Irish singer, including many rarities.

The classic 1970 debut with Beverley Martyn. Rehearsed in Woodstock, with Levon Helm guesting on a couple, Joe Boyd producing. Lovely.