Harvest of Highlights

  • Ely Folk Festival 2026 Review

    Ely Folk Festival 2026 Review

    This is not your average festival, not by a long stretch, which is why having tasted the thrill and ambience of Ely Folk Festival for the first time last year I have returned for more. And the mood in the summer heatwave air is one of justifiable celebration as this is their 40th festival, having… Read more

  • Fresh Juice 13th July 2026

    Fresh Juice 13th July 2026

    ANYX – Ladybirds Spine ‘Ladybirds Spine’ is a striking first glimpse of ANYX’s forthcoming debut ‘Starlink,’ a song that opens with overwhelming magnitude, wrapping the listener in guitars that surge in great, engulfing waves before the drums lock us into a lurching Velvets-like menace. Into that force steps a voice carrying a command that grabs… Read more

  • Almost Friends – Again, Not Again

    Almost Friends – Again, Not Again

    I have found such delight in the discovery of this superb debut album by an act I had previously never heard of, that it prompted me to ponder with some frustration the crowded field they are about to occupy. There has to be a space for quieter music, for sounds that do not demand much,… Read more

  • Andrew Sa – American Rough

    Andrew Sa – American Rough

    It might seem like country music has done all its evolving by this point, that the end game has been arrived at with its current mainstream pop sheen success. Where can it go from here other than reach back and try to recapture that western grit and sawdust authenticity that made it such a vital… Read more

  • Fresh Juice 6th July 2026

    Fresh Juice 6th July 2026

    Dent May – I Remember Dent May’s latest release ‘I Remember’ is much like a postcard from the wide‑open creative world he built while making ‘The Big One,’ his seventh LP and the first to fully abandon the bedroom for the communal hum of the Honeymoon Suite, a Los Angeles based studio he runs with… Read more

  • July 2026 Playlist

    July 2026 Playlist

    This months playlist is accompanied by a photo feature. If you read my review of the latest Tift Merritt album you will have seen my referring to the first time I saw her at a festival about twenty years ago. Well, that was actually the 2006 Cambridge Folk Festival, I was taking photos to go… Read more