Features

Friday, May 10, 2024

National Youth Folk Ensemble: Melodious Beginnings

Izzy Felton visits an inclusive training ground for the next generation of England’s folk musicians

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Sväng: A Beginner's Guide

Fiona Talkington unpacks the harmonica quartet’s trajectory, from the mind of Finland’s first mouth-harp graduate to an internationally acclaimed troupe with a repertoire ranging from Radiohead and Harry Potter to tango and Chopin

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Bagpipe Albums | Essential 10

Criminally castigated and distinctly uncool, bagpipes are a mainstay of many traditional musics and are also increasingly finding favour as an experimental instrument of choice. Chris Wheatley picks out ten albums filled with more than just hot air

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Introducing... Ana Lua Caiano

After years of listening to traditional music and protest songs, Björk and Portishead, one of Portugal’s most exciting new singers tells Gonçalo Frota how she created a world all her own

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Holy Cowley: the return of the Cowley Road Carnival

With Cowley Road Carnival returning for the first time in five years, Fred Waine takes a trip to Oxford’s melting pot

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Spotlight: Sara Curruchich

The Guatemalan singer-songwriter tells Catalina Maria Johnson about her determination to represent women and carry the knowledge of her Indigenous heritage through music. “It’s a revolutionary act,” she confides

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Laura Cannell: “I take my instruments and I drive off to a church and, if it’s empty, I just sneak in and play”

Olivia Cheves speaks to composer and musician Laura Cannell about her compulsion to make music, why she had to find her own traditions and why she’d love to record an album in an aircraft hangar

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Meeting Avalanche Kaito: “There is rhythm, there is noise, the sound of the texture is crazy”

Belgian trio Avalanche Kaito, led by Burkinabé griot Kaito Winse, have driven their post-punk assaults to combustible extremes on their latest album

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Frank Cottrell-Boyce's My World Interview

Russ Slater Johnson speaks to the screenwriter and author about Irish jigs, anti-recruiting songs and how a scouser gave Manchester a city motto

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Landless: “We don’t spend time trying to sound the same as each other… we each have our own accents”

Irish vocal group Landless follow-up their much-loved debut album with a new set of songs focused on female protagonists. Emma Rycroft finds out its harmonious story

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Seabird, Fly Home: Garefowl Take Flight to St Kilda

Russ Slater Johnson hears from Garefowl’s Ewan Macdonald about his connections to the last British seabird made extinct and why he will soon be recording on the Scottish isle where the bird was killed

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Speaker's Corner: MacDara Yeates on Joe Mulheron

Macdara Yeates pays tribute to one of Belfast’s most beloved singers, songwriters and cultural agitators, known for his generosity as much as his radical politics

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Still Life: Celebrating 100 Years of Emahoy

Robin Denselow celebrates the remarkable Ethiopian nun and musician Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru who would have been 100 on December 12

Friday, May 3, 2024

Sarāb: “We try to find harmony and balance in the songs, and between us as human beings”

Megan Iacobini de Fazio meets the France-based collective Sarāb – uniting Middle Eastern traditions with contemporary jazz, climate activism and intense live shows