Albums of the Year 2023: PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying

AOTY 2023: PJ HARVEY - I INSIDE THE OLD YEAR DYING Diggin' up the Dorset soil with the musical sorceress

Diggin' up the Dorset soil with the musical sorceress

PJ Harvey never fails to deliver – much as I hate that over-used word, the go-to assurance from politicians who promise the earth and dump nothing but shit. With Polly Harvey, she reaches into the unknown, true to her creative impulses, and oblivious to fashion.

Lankum, Roundhouse review - a warm evening of folk mastery

★★★★ LANKUM, ROUNDHOUSE A warm evening of folk mastery

Dublin comes to London in a rousing, carousing performance

The folk band Lankum are (for want of a less cliched phrase) at the height of their power. Their gig at the Roundhouse, as they said themselves, was the biggest audience they had ever played for – and everyone was loving it.
 
The Roundhouse, surely one of the most beautiful venues for gigs, felt completely packed by the end of the support act, Rachael Lavelle. Lavelle’s sound was entrancing in its own right, somewhere between Weyes Blood and Angel Olsen, ethereal but not without nods to the slightly absurd.

Hozier, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - sublime voice and a super-sized sound

★★★ HOZIER, OVO HYDRO, GLASGOW Sublime voice and a super-sized sound

The Irish singer was enjoyable, but occasionally submerged under his own songs.

There was something misleading about the opening of this concert. As Andrew John Hozier-Byrne and his band stepped onstage, the stage was lit up by a single spotlight, focused around the microphone that the singer stepped up to. Yet the following two hours were anything but a one-man band, with the collective of musicians assembled behind him given ample room to shine, to mostly positive but occasionally negative effect.

Gogol Bordello, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - an incendiary performance by Eugene Hütz’ gang

★★★★★ GOGOL BORDELLO, BIRMINGHAM Incendiary performance by Eugene Hütz’ gang

Multi-cultural gypsy punks let rip in Birmingham

Gogol Bordello’s gig in Birmingham this week took place on the evening of Shane MacGowan’s funeral and inevitably turned into something of a celebration of that great poet and songwriter’s life. But then, with the raucous folk music on offer, it was hardly going to be any different.

Album: Kate Rusby - Light Years

★★ KATE RUSBY - LIGHT YEARS Another rosy-cheeked Xmas disc from Yorkshire’s Queen Folkie

Another rosy-cheeked Christmas disc from Yorkshire’s Queen Folkie

The regular appearance of Kate Rusby’s folkie Christmas albums have almost become a Yuletide tradition in themselves at this time of the year. 2023’s Light Years being, somewhat incredibly, the seventh in the series.

Music Reissues Weekly: Myriam Gendron - Not So Deep As A Well

The surprise reappearance of the Canadian stylist’s interpretations of Dorothy Parker’s poems

Myriam Gendron's debut album Not So Deep As A Well was originally released in 2014 by Feeding Tube, a US label run by the prominent music writer Byron Coley. When it came out, he wrote that she was a “wonderful if spectral guitarist and singer, whose signature sound was as light as it was intoxicating. This album glows with holism and is one of the most beautiful evocations of times past and present and future you will hear this year.”

Album: Shirley Hurt - Shirley Hurt

★★★★ SHIRLEY HURT - SHIRLEY HURT Canadian singer-songwriter’s enigmatic debut

Canadian singer-songwriter’s enigmatic debut

The realisation that Shirley Hurt is the name assumed by Canada’s Sophia Ruby Katz for recording helps explain why her debut album is so oblique. As well as the cloaked identity, what seem initially to be direct songs cleaving to familiar musical forms have winding structures which don’t end up where they seem to be heading. Similarly, the lyrics are tough to parse.

Album: Catrin Finch & Aoife Ni Bhriain - Double You

★★★★ CATRIN FINCH & AOIFE NI BHRIAIN - DOUBLE YOU Divine harp-and-violin duets

Divine harp-and-violin duets focused on the folklore of bees

Two weeks ago, Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Irish fiddler, violinist and Hardanger fiddle player Aoife Ni Bhriain entranced their audience at the Union Chapel in North London, playing from their new album, Double You, as part of the London Jazz Festival, with guest singer Angeline Morrison joining them at the end of a glorious 90-minute set of dazzling instrumental duets.