Author: Jeremy Searle

One of the stars of the folk scene, Seth Lakeman remains for many synonymous with thumping beats, high volume and a driving, pin your ears back sound that lacks subtlety.  But this is to do him a grave injustice.  He may not be an obvious innovator like Jim Moray or possess as broad a brush as the one that Jon Boden wields but he is an explorer, a treader of paths that, if not exactly untrodden, are certainly not ruts.  Continue reading “Seth Lakeman “Ballads Of The Broken Few” (Cooking Vinyl, 2016)”

Best known as one half of the acclaimed and much missed Havenots, Leicester’s Sophia Marshall has been absent from the music scene for some time.  She’s recently dipped her toe back in and the results are a few gigs and this five track EP.  Live, her delightfully delicate and fragile vocals, shown to such good effect in the Havenots, sometimes struggle to be heard above the full band she gigs with.  In the studio of course such things aren’t an issue and the light, summery pop feel of her music whirls the listener along on a gossamer trail that delights and entrances. Continue reading “Sophia Marshall “The Paper Thin EP” (Independent, 2016)”

Folk superstar Jon Boden has always had itchy feet. Not content with an acclaimed partnership with box ace John Spiers and fronting Bellowhead, the eleven piece big band that he founded with Spiers which went on to become probably the biggest star in the UK folk firmament, he also released a concept album “Song From The Floodplain”, that he toured with his band the Remnant Kings and before that, he put out his solo debut, “Painted Lady”. Continue reading “Jon Boden “Painted Lady” (Navigator Records, 2016)”