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.

‘The compilation that started the renaissance… twelve tracks of Buddhist Bubblegum Alt Disco Pop recorded during Arthur’s prime years 1985-90.’

Twenty-one songs, running right back to 1971: assured, lovely, intelligent, good-humoured singer-songwriting, mixing up Americana, folk, pop, art rock, and gentle experimentalism.

‘The most vivid rhythmic reality’: cello, voice, echoes. Drumless versions of Let’s Go Swimming, Tree House, Wax The Van; four previously unreleased tracks from Sketches From World Of Echo.

A collection of EPs recorded at home, most Decembers since 2001, and given to friends as Christmas cards. Traditional carols and many originals, with stickers, stories, a songbook, and a bunch of stocking fillers.