Streaming Memory Forward Listening Post 388. Cuimhne means “memory” in both Scottish Gaelic and Irish, and as the title track of Allt, Vol. II, it evokes calm mornings, warm afternoons and tranquil evenings (see videos). And like the human forces that shape our world,...
Dig Deep, Fly High Listening Post 373. Every nation’s history has joyful and mournful chapters, and the Welsh folk/chamber music trio VRï—Patrick Rimes, Jordan Price Williams and Aneirin Jones—uses artistic flair and research rigor to spin their homeland’s ups and...
Bengal on the Thames Listening Post 360. Khiyo emerged when Sohini Alam, a singer born in London to Bangladeshi parents, met Oliver Weeks, a Gloucester-born musician-composer steeped in Bengali culture. Their work together reflects nothing less than the laws of...
Lost and Found Listening Post 313. Hireth is Cornish for a species of nostalgia, akin to the Portuguese saudade, that expresses insatiable yearning. On her first solo album, singer-songwriter Tanya Brittain comes magnificently close to quenching this singular thirst....
A Way With, And Without, Words Listening Post 302. The Teacups have etched a high profile on the United Kingdom’s folk landscape these past ten years and the a cappella quartet’s third album is an epic journey that adds to their stellar reputation. The collection’s 19...
Musicalité, Égalité, Sororité Listening Post 274. Music is a leading indicator of equality—or at least it offers a taste of what a better world might be like. Jazz, rock & roll, flamenco and cumbia are just a few examples of sounds that integrated cultures, even...
Digging for Treasure Listening Post 265. Malinky’s sixth album is a 20th anniversary gift—or handsel—to the award-winning ensemble’s legions of fans and to the Scots-language folk tradition its members faithfully serve. Co-founder Steve Byrne sums up the band’s ethos:...
A Hard Day’s Right Listening Post 242. Events buried in history can shape society long after they have faded from view. Many Britons have recently become reacquainted with a seminal chapter in their national story—the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. Notwithstanding the...
Yorkshire Nightingale Listening Post 238. There’s an exquisite equilibrium to Kate Rusby’s voice, at once celestial and cozy, planting a wistful note in the most comical saga and a vein of comfort in the most tragic. On Philosophers, Poets & Kings, her seventeenth...
Streaming Tradition Listening Post 216. Ireland and Scotland may be separated by the North Channel but they are also linked by a stream of inter-Celtic partnerships, leagues, festivals and initiatives. Allt, a collaborative album by two Celtic music power couples, is...
Rolling on the River Listening Post 215. The base camp for Mystic Dance (رقصة سحرية), Amira Kheir’s third album, appears on the cover: The pyramids of Meroë, 200 kilometers (125 miles) down the Nile from Khartoum. The locale is an identity marker for the...
Tradition Most Modern Listening Post 207. When Robyn Stapleton sings Robert Burns we are suspended between the centuries. So captivating are her lilting voice and warm presence that temporal cues—like a fine and equally light classical-folk-jazz accompaniment—can wash...
Gaelopolis Listening Post 200. When Mary Ann Kennedy was artist-in-residence at the Gaelic College on Skye, in the Inner Hebrides, it occurred to her that Gaels love to sing about home, which usually means Scotland’s Highlands and Islands—their mountain mists and...
Angels & Demons Listening Post 199. There’s magic in Olivia Chaney’s second solo album, the how of it defying explanation but the where instructive: An eighteenth-century cottage on the North Yorkshire moors, no electricity, plumbing or running water; a refuge...
Magnificent Transgression Listening Post 179. Sex, death and rebellion are the stuff of tavern gossip and folk music, and they reach their fullest resonance when delivered with a healthy dose of irreverence. This is the payload of When All Is Still, a rollicking album...
Places in the Heart Listening Post 153. The difference between Namvula Rennie’s 2014 debut album and her new release Quiet Revolutions mirrors the distinction between a short story anthology and a novel—on one hand a lovely collection in which each song reflects a...
Angel and Siren Listening Post 147. The starting point is harmony between Scottish Gaelic—“spoken for over a thousand years,” Julie Fowlis observes, “yet considered otherworldly on its own shores”—and her enchanting, heaven-to-earth voice. On Alterum, she approaches...
Turn, Turn, Turn Listening Post 139. Gwyneth Glyn’s elegant songs have more layers than a mille-feuille. Her images and subtexts rotate clear and dreamlike, overlaid with lyric tones of light and shadow. She touches on homecoming, remembrance, insomnia, protection and...
All the Right Notes for Building Listening Post 126. Just as construction cranes on a city landscape signal renewal, so do new songs indicate the vitality of a language. Mary Ann Kennedy, an architect of the Scottish Gaelic Renaissance, builds toward the heavens not...
A Monument of Songs Listening Post 93. World War I hostilities began in Europe on August 4, 1914—and 976 days later the United States joined the conflict. On August 4, 2014, the English a cappella trio Coope Boyes and Simpson released a sweeping 50-track homage to the...
Feel the Burns Listening Post 72. No single album can capture the entire arc of Scotland’s musical culture, but there is a breathtaking sweep to what Claire Hastings accomplishes in the 10 tracks of her debut effort. She gambols across time and space (from...
Master Stroke for Bygone Folk Listening Post 31. The English Folk Dance and Song Society commissioned the singer-scholar Fay Hield to gather an ensemble of musicians to explore the society’s newly launched web archive in 2013 and produce a concert of some of the...
Entwined Affinities Listening Post 24. Gwyneth Glyn sings and writes Welsh folk music. Tauseef Akhtar is a singer-composer from Mumbai and master of Indian ghazal, a traditional form of love poetry. Neither is the sort to compromise cultural integrity; nonetheless,...
Fresh Gael Listening Post 5. If you’ve heard that Scottish Gaelic is an endangered language, then listening to Julie Fowlis might cause some cognitive dissonance. Her voice is so angelic it seems more likely that people would be studying just to be able to understand...
