folk Archive
13 Mar 2020
Marinho’s Emotional Openness is on Display on ’tilde’ (Part Two)
Continued from Part One … Even with herds of creative artists endeavoring to make music, those cities have at least some sort of infrastructure for all of it. “Whereas in […]
12 Mar 2020
Marinho’s Emotional Openness is on Display on ’tilde’ (Part One)
Serendipity is a beautiful thing. In September of 2019 I received a press release announcing the impending release of a new album called ~ (that’s pronounced tilde), the debut release […]
25 Feb 2020
Wesley Stace: It Happens One Night
This story was published previously in Chicago’s New City. For a long time, the man born Wesley Stace was John Wesley Harding. Taking his stage name from the title Bob […]
10 Jan 2020
Life Like Water’s Trance-folk
Songwriter and musician David Matters has a background playing bluegrass and old-time music. And while he maintains a love for those styles, the music he started writing a few years […]
20 Dec 2019
Album Review: The Black Tones — Cobain & Cornbread
Ice-T (among many others) has long made the point that African Americans’ role in the creation of rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. While I agree, I […]
18 Dec 2019
Album Review: Rachid Taha — Je Suis Africain
Are you familiar with a musical genre called Chaâbi? Me neither. Put simply (and reductively), it’s North African folk music, sort of a cousin to another style, raï. One of […]
10 Nov 2019
Album Review: Abraham Jam — White Moon
Customarily, when multiple artists each having his or her own successful career come together, it’s for one of two reasons. They might collaborate simply because it’s fun, because it gives […]
09 Nov 2019
Ben Phan Follows His Creative Path
Singer, songwriter and guitarist Ben Phan has been making music for most of his life. Through formal and informal study, he has immersed himself in classical, jazz, funk, African dance […]
02 Nov 2019
Album Review: Zoe & Cloyd — I Am Your Neighbor
The student and feminism movements that came to prominence in the late 20th century both made use of the slogan, “the personal is political.” And whatever side of an issue […]
28 Oct 2019
Blu-ray Review: Echo in the Canyon
The creatively fertile and incalculably influential Laurel Canyon scene if the middle 1960s is explored in Echo In the Canyon. It’s not quite a documentary in the sense that it […]