Buy Online Various Artists - Folk & Honey, Sonic Blooms: UK Alt-Folk & New Roots Rising *product may differ to image displayed

Various Artists

Folk & Honey, Sonic Blooms: UK Alt-Folk & New Roots Rising 2CD Album

$15.99

Release Date: Dec 1, 2017

Discs: 2

FEATURING TRACKS BY BROOKE SHARKEY, LEONIE EVANS, THE NIGHTJAR, LOW CHIMES, NED ROBERTS, JINWOO AND MANY MORE

‘Sonic Blooms’ is a double album compilation of the UK's finest emerging alt-folk and new roots music, on Folk & Honey, a new label created by the UK's leading folk gig listing site. ‘Sonic Blooms’ has been curated by leading alt-folk promoters New Roots and features the scene’s most exciting talent, including Brooke Sharkey, Leonie Evans, The Nightjar, Low Chimes, Jinwoo, Ned Roberts and many more.

‘Sonic Blooms’ shines a light on a wonderfully diverse, vibrant scene that is happening right now, on it's own terms, mostly without the backing of the media, the music industry, or the folk music establishment. Call it alternative folk, call it new roots, it pulses under the surface with word of mouth gigs in perfectly intimate venues, put together by dedicated owners and promoters - everyone there for the music, everyone there to listen intently to what these young, innovative artists are creating.

Though built from the ashes of a folk awareness, the flame for most of the work on this album was lit in a city setting. For many of these musicians their sound is the result of soaking up everything the metropolis throws at them. You can hear it in the easy cultural mix of English and French in Brooke Sharkey's 'Faces', Robert Chaney's noir city tales, the urban electronics that underpin Sisika's 'Routes', Adam Beattie's story of what it is to be an immigrant in the city.

This music is fearless and fiercely intelligent, led neither by fast changing fashion nor the rules of tradition; these are independent artists with independent voices. It's curious and open-minded - you can hear the hunger for pushing boundaries in the progressive jazz spices that flavour Leonie Evans and Low Chimes, the anthemic pop choruses that lift Ferris & Sylvester and Tobias Ben Jacob, the repetitive rhythms that subtly echo Detroit techno and systems music in Firefly Burning and Mishaped Pearls, and the uncategorisable post-folk of Jinnwoo and The Nightjar.

These artists are deeply linked, many play on each others songs, share a producer, a studio, a stage, shared experience. Each has their own strength of vision, a DIY ethic that links back to traditional folk music. They're the children of the original indie generation, the first flowerings of punk and independent culture that shook up the late 70s & 80s.

This musical movement is not just limited to the twenty artists on this album, there are many more British musicians performing and recording boundary-pushing alt-folk. Rather, ‘Sonic Blooms’ is a snapshot of an emerging scene that merits a little time in the spotlight

CD1

1. Firefly Burning - Beloved
2. Ma Polaine's Great Decline - Been Loved Too Much
3. Brooke Sharkey - Faces
4. The Nightjar - Cockleshell
5. Mishaped Pearls - Six Dukes
6. Low Chimes - Blood Orange
7. Jinnwoo - Waiting For P To Have A Vision
8. Leonie Evans - Freya
9. Sisika ‘Routes
10. Robert Chaney & Laura Tenschert - Corozones Amarillos (Exclusive Recording For This Release)

CD2

1. Whiskey Moonface - Dictionaries
2. Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker - I Never Learned French
3. Adam Beattie & The Consultants - The Same Sea
4. Ned Roberts - Drifting Down
5. Samantha Whates - Icicle
6. Benedict Benjamin - My Feet Have No Need For The Ground
7. MG Boulter - Clifftown (Exclusive Recording For This Release)
8. Ferris & Sylvester - Save Yourself
9. Sailing Stones - Blazing Sun
10. Tobias Ben Jacob - Parallel (Currenty Unreleased)