Scottish singer-songwriter Siobhan Miller’s fourth solo album sees her opting for a more stripped- back feel than 2018’s Mercury. In making this latest record, the singer – winner of a 2018 Radio 2 Folk Award and three ‘Singer of the Year’ titles at the Scots Trad Music Awards – made clear her aim: to create something “as raw and honest as possible”. In an effort to capture the atmosphere of her live shows, Miller settles on a mixture of original and traditional songs, recorded live in Glasgow’s Gloworm Studio with engineer Iain Hutchison. Her band consists of Lau’s Kris Drever on guitar & vocals, fiddler Megan Henderson, guitarist Innes White, John Lowrie on piano and Kim Carnie on backing vocals, with Miller’s husband Euan Burton joining on double bass.
New studio album Common Ground from the multi-award winning Big Big Train is the follow up to 2019’s acclaimed Grand Tour album and 2020’s Empire Live Blu-ray/2CD set. The nine tracks include the beautiful title track and first single Common Ground, dazzling instrumental Apollo, Zeitgeist capturing The Strangest Times and stunning 15 minute epic Atlantic Cable. In addition to Big Big Train songwriters and core members David Longdon (lead vocals), Gregory Spawton (bass), Rikard Sjöblom (guitars, keyboards, vocals) and Nick D’Virgilio (drums, vocals), the album also features Carly Bryant (keyboards, vocals) and Dave Foster (guitars) plus a guest appearance from violinist Aidan O’Rourke of highly rated Scottish folk pioneers Lau. Recorded during the worldwide pandemic, sees the band continue their tradition of dramatic narratives but also tackling issues much closer to home, such as the Covid lockdowns, the separation of loved ones, the passage of time, deaths of people close to the band and the hope that springs from a new love.
26 tracks recorded by Kalama's Quartet (in both its quartet and quintet phases) between 1927-1932, as well as a 1935 recording attributed to Mike Hanapi. Varying in approach from folk balladry to uptempo jazz and hillbilly-flavored numbers, it's ebullient music that's most distinctive when the steel guitars are to the fore. The group also varied their vocal arrangements, but are most noted for the numbers featuring sweet falsetto vocals, such as the Hawaiian standard "Wahine Ui." It not only embodies some of the best attributes of vintage Hawaiian music, but also contains clear seeds of a high, pining sound that would be echoed by such later country and pop singers as Roy Orbison and Marty Robbins.