Travels With Nate

Chris Helme is a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist who first rose to prominence as the front man of John Squire’s post-Stone Roses band The Seahorses. His new solo album, The Rookery , was impressively recorded in just 9 days at a place called The Rookery, funnily enough.

Anna MacDonald is a singer and songwriter of folk songs which reflect the stronginfluence that different strands of Scotland ’s traditional musichave had upon her. A multi-instrumentalist, she is able to play the piano,guitar and clarsach which she beautifully intertwines with Scots, English andGaelic songs. As well as performing regularly at folk clubs and festivals, inMay 2011 Anna began work with Fraser Fifield on her second EP, Paper Flowers. The first track is the title track, Paper Flowers which opens with beautiful pianos before Anna Macdonald’s beautiful voice kicks in along with some pipes. It’s a slow and enchantingly sad song. Absolutely beautiful. The next song, Matty Groves is a lot faster, more upbeat and features an acoustic guitar too; this one is more Gaelic in style and her voice definitely sounds Scottish on this one. You’d think that’s not something that needs to be pointed out but hearing the album, it’s definitely worth mentioning. This is more my kind...

Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman are a husband and wife team who – despite the very apt album title of Hidden People – have been lynchpins of the UK’s burgeoning folk-acoustic revival over the last two decades. Finally they have released an album together. The album opens with Kathryn’s beautiful voice sans music on Huldra. This song has some background guitar and organ through some parts but it is focused on Kathryn which I cannot argue with it. It’s an absolutely beautiful song. Oxford, NY comes next and is a lot more upbeat with Sean’s excellent guitar playing throughout. This guy is seriously skilled and his style works incredibly well with Kathryn’s voice.