Mike Harding Plays Bellowhead and Bellowhead beer…

Mike Harding

Mike Harding played a track from the new Bellowhead album on his show last night, featuring Cold Blows The Wind from the excellent, forthcoming Hedonism album. He also introduces this year’s Young Folk Award competition, so any budding musicians out there should definitely make a point of listening in. You’ll find the i-player link here and click on Mike’s picture for the show page to see the track list from the show. As usual it’s a great hour’s worth including Somedays You Write The Song, the title track from Guy Clark’s superb album of  dreamy, Texan country. There’s also a fantastic track from Karan Casey & John Doyle, The Little Drummer Girl, from the gorgeous Exiles Return CD. That’s four great reasons for tuning in already. If you really must, the Bellowhead track starts at 43.59, although I’m sure you won’t regret the hor spent.

Right, some of you festival goers will have bumped into Hedonism Ale a collaboration between the mighty Bellowhead and The Pot Belly Brewery in Kettering…

 

It’s A Birds Life

David Rotheray releases his first solo album ‘A Life Of Birds’ on the 16th August. It features some of the most exciting artists on the UK Folk scene including Eliza Carthy, Jim Causley, Kathryn Williams, Bella Hardy, Alasdair Roberts and more. Check out the track ‘Living Before The War’ which features Bella Hardy by clicking the Play button on the left.

Watch the videos below of the tracks ‘The Sparrow, The Thrush & The Nightingale’ Part 1 & Part 2 which both feature Jim Causley.

 

New Releases – 26th July

Various Artists
Larkin’s Jazz
(Proper Records)

Larkin’s Jazz, commissioned by the Philip Larkin Society, is part of the “Larkin 25″ celebrations. Larkin wrote that: “Few things in life have given me more pleasure in life than listening to jazz.” This collection offers fresh perspectives on both Larkin and the jazz he actually liked. His writings and opinions on jazz have been as controversial as they have been astute.

Brian Kennedy
The Very Best Of
(Borough Music)

The release of the Very Best Of Brian Kennedy celebrates Brian’s 20 years in the music business with this definitive compilation which showcases the key tracks from his early RCA albums together with 8 tracks from his later years on Curb Records. These include ‘Get On With Your Short Life’ (Radio 2 single of the week on its release) and ‘Curragh of Kildare’ featuring actor Adrian Dunbar from Brian’s BBC TV series ‘On Song’.

 

 

I’m The Firestarter

Istartedthefire Records hosted a label night at Brixton’s Windmill on Tuesday night.
The line up included Joe Summers who opened proceedings [and then became the lynch pin for the whole event as he contributed to each of the other performances], Ruth Bewsey, Midnight Mile and headliners Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun. The Cheltenham based collective were fresh from all appearing at the 2000 Trees Festival over the previous weekend. Joe performed songs from his self-titled EP (left) available from both Amazon and iTunes whilst Ruth showcased a mixture of yet to be released material and covers, more details available on her Myspace page.

Midnight Mile played tracks from their Silence Brings The Morning EP, currently available as a free download from their MySpace page. Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun rounded off the evening with a storming set of songs from Atlases (Available on Amazon and iTunes) which saw not only Jim venture into the crowd at one point but the whole band end up in the audience for the final song.

Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun – Mothers and Fathers

 

Coope Boyes and Simpson at Shepley Spring Festival 2010

Here’s a nice video of Coope Boyes and Simpson performing at the Shepley Spring Festival. Their new album ‘As if…’ was released recently and they’ll be appearing at Sidmouth Folk week on the 2nd and 3rd of August, visit their website for more details.

 

Mike Harding listen again on i-player + Karine Polwart & Lau audio

Mike Harding

A quick link back to Mike Harding for you again, as he has Karine Polwart in as studio guest.  Amongst the other things you’ll hear are a track from the forthcoming Richard Thompson album, Dream Attic, and a track from Alasdair Roberts’, Too Long In This Condition. You’ll be able to read about both of these and a whole heap more in the new Properganda, which has started to arrive in the building as I type. We’ll have copies of issue 17 available at Womad and then they should be generally available through the usual outlets starting next week. Anyway, here’s your i-player link and read on for more about Karine’s collaboration with Lau and the Burns Unit and for an audio of January Man from that collaboration with Lau…

 

The Burns Unit: Trouble

Check out this track from The Burns Unit album ‘Side Show’ which is released on the 2nd of August.

The Burns Unit are an 8-piece Scottish-Canadian “supergroup” whose multi-faceted sound can be described as “indie pop meets carnival rock.”