KLOF Mag Regular + Mixtape
New Mixtape, Interviews with Marlon Williams, Josienne Clarke, William Tyler & Eli Winter. Our latest album reviews include Iona Lane, Quinie, Lael Neale, Steve Tilston, Annie A, Satomimagae & more.
Enjoy another KLOF Mag mixtape – A tranquil, soft ambient journey with pockets of energy to wake you from your summer garden slumber.
Featuring new tunes from Swimming Bell, Avery Friedman, Sacred Paws, Friendship, Herman Düne, The Owl Service, Quinie, Poor Creature, Brown Wimpenny, Donald WG Lindsay, Geir Sundstøl, Iona Lane, Bells Larsen, Marc Ribot, Joseph Allred, Lady Queen Paradise, Hayden Pedigo, William Tyler, Loose Diamonds.
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Highlights
Due to the length of our album reviews and articles, the highlights below serve as a shorter taster. To read in full, click on a title, which will take you to the full article on KLOF Mag.
Artist of the Month: Iona Lane
Taken alone, Swilkie is a masterful album full of heartfelt emotion and breathtaking songwriting, but there is an added bonus for those who buy the physical or Bandcamp versions: an extra disc’s worth of live recordings that allow a glimpse behind the curtain and into Lane’s singular recording process. It casts the whole album as a journey from solo endeavour to collaboration, from the bud of an idea to a fully-realised work of art. These live takes contain a different kind of beauty, a ramshackle appeal that further enforces the importance of place in Lane’s work: you can almost feel the energy of the crofts, chapels, cabins and school halls where these versions were recorded, and it is a timely reminder that music – and folk music in particular – needs a community in order to thrive. For Lane, community and music are inextricably tied to ecology and landscape, and in Swilkie, she has created an album that celebrates that link and calls for us all to recognise its importance.
An interview with Iona will follow soon.
A Featured Album of the Month: Quinie – Forefowk, Mind Me
Forefowk, Mind Me is Quinie’s third full-length solo release, after her 2017 self-titled debut and 2018’s Buckie Prins (she also shared a split tape with Jacken Elswyth as part of Elswyth’s Betwixt & Between series). It is the most thoroughly researched of her releases to date, but also, perhaps unexpectedly, her most natural sounding. A normative reading of folk music history traces a line from the shared, accessible and democratic roots of the genre to the complex, virtuosic and exclusive nature of much contemporary folk. One of the most important aspects of Quinie’s work is her rejection of virtuosity and the boundaries it creates. This results in a music that is gloriously free of expectation, and which erodes considerations of class or gender. Songs like the unaccompanied Bonnie Udny – one of a handful from the collection of Lizzie Higgins – feel like they were recorded beyond the confines of time and technology: it feels like Quinie has a direct link to very first women to sing these songs, and it’s a thrilling thing to think about.
Interviews
To read in full, click on a title, which will take you to the full article on KLOF Mag.
Eli Winter: The KLOF Mag Interview
Eli Winter’s new Trick of the Light album is a cracker (reviewed here), a set of energy, creativity and focus. Although full of nuances and moods, it plays like a record that has been considered from the word go, which somewhat contradicts the actual creative process. “The music happened more organically and over time than the question suggests,” he tells me. “But I do get it, because it seems like such a pronounced step in a different direction from the last record. There’s more jazz elements there and a harder edge, but it progressed organically from playing shows with my trio, Sam Wagster on pedal steel and Tyler Damon on drums.”
Glenn Kimpton met up with Winter to discuss the project in finer detail.
Across The Evening Sky: Josienne Clarke Talks Sandy Denny
Josienne Clarke is currently touring “Across The Evening Sky: Josienne Clarke Sings The Songs Of Sandy Denny”. Danny Neill catches up with Josienne to chat about Sandy Denny and Josienne’s own solo journey.
The music of Sandy Denny came into the world of Josienne Clarke early when, aged seventeen, she was performing ‘Lily Of The West’ on the folk sing-around circuit and someone told her “you sound a bit like Sandy Denny.” As she recalls during this KLOF Mag interview about her current show performing Sandy Denny music, the comparison prompted her to go and find “my spirit music basically. Everything from that, The Strawbs, Fairport Convention, Sandy’s solo records and her contemporaries at the time like Pentangle, was a thick vein of great music. Sandy was weirdly contemporary and old fashioned at the same time; she plays with time weirdly. Even now it still sounds contemporary and old-fashioned and that kind of appealed to me, like she’s stranded in the wrong century, and I feel a bit like that myself.”
William Tyler: the KLOF Mag Interview
Nashville guitar wizard William Tyler’s new album, Time Indefinite, is a pretty special effort; Glenn Kimpton met up with him to dig a little bit deeper…”It’s definitely the most personal record I’ve ever made”.
William Tyler’s 2019 album Goes West feels like something of a turning point in his career, almost like a swansong to traditional guitar music. “That was a conscious attempt to make a record for the mainstream folk audience,” William explains. “It’s a good record and I’m really proud of the compositions, but it didn’t really cross over into that crowd. That was a big reason why, with this new stuff, I was just like, fuck it, I’ll go completely in the other direction.”
Marlon Williams: The KLOF Mag Interview
Gareth caught-up with Marlon Williams to chat about his remarkable new record ‘Te Whare Tīwekaweka’, the first album sung in Māori by a solo artist to chart at number one in his native New Zealand.
One dominant aspect of the new album (reviewed here) is its focus on vocal arrangements, lending a timeless gospel vibe to the contemporary elements. “Well, there’s my own background in a catholic choir, plus the traditional Māori kapa haka element,” says Williams. “Before the European colonisation, things were very microtonal in Māori song, there was no western harmony. When colonisation came along, the diatonic scale came too and Māori latched onto block harmony with ruthless force. Part of my desire and excitement on this record came from wanting to access that world. I’ve long thought about composing classical or choral music in Māori too.”
Review Highlights
To read in full, click on a title, which will take you to the full article on KLOF Mag.
Eli Winter – A Trick of the Light
Man, this is a good album, it really is. Eli has never put out a bad record, but his music seems to grow in confidence and prowess with each release. A Trick of the Light is a barnstormer, a real I don’t give a fuck, this is me and my band set of songs that are sharp, vital and pretty damn thrilling. Oh yes.
Milkweed – Remscéla
For their latest project, Remscéla, Milkweed engage in vibrant and vital ways with the Táin Bó Cúailnge, a foundational myth of Irish literary and historical tradition. They remain the most exciting band in folk music.
Steve Tilston – Last Call
Some 54 years after his 1971 debut, Steve Tilston releases his final album, Last Call. As valuable and worthy as any of his previous recordings, it secures his place as a stellar member of the folk music elite.
Lael Neale – Altogether Stranger
With Altogether Stranger, Lael Neale has cooked up a concoction of her own that will be ripe for inspiration to many: an exquisitely crafted masterclass in retro minimalism and free expression.
Annie A – The Wind That Had Not Touched Land
On Annie A’s ‘The Wind That Had Not Touched Land’, the boundaries between song, sound art and poetry disappear in a flicker or a haze, and the results are quietly mesmerising.
Kassi Valazza – From Newman Street
‘From Newman Street’ is further evidence of Kassi Valazza’s ability to vividly convey emotion through her melodic sensibilities, with its strong musical accompaniment standing in marked contrast to her crystal clear vocal – pleasantly wrong-footing the listener throughout.
Paul Armfield – Between The Covers
Thematically and musically, Between The Covers is unlike anything Paul Armfield’s done before; it’s a literary and literally gorgeous listen that deserves the musical equivalent of a Booker prize.
Satomimagae – Taba
With Taba, Satomimagae has created a work of art full of wonder and mystery that builds upon itself in the most surprising ways. It speaks a different musical language, but learning that language is a joy and a reward in itself.
More soon…