Category Archives: Music

Ruben Machtelinckx + Arve Henriksen’s A Short Story

Count this disc as yet another that is a balm in these extraordinary times. Now, Belgian guitarist and composer Ruben Machtelinckx couldn’t possibly have known that we’d be facing war in Europe as February faded into March of 2022, when … Continue reading

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Benedicte Maurseth’s Hárr

It’s doubly true that Benedicte Maurseth is a Hardanger fiddler. She plays the Hardanger fiddle, and she is from the western Norwegian district of Hardanger. Her latest album Hárr is an homage to the wildlife and mountain people of her … Continue reading

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An Odgers & Simmonds omnibus review

Odgers & Simmonds + Kent’s Live: Offenburg Spiltakeller 5th May 2000 Odgers & Simmonds’ Folk at The Fortress Liberty Cage’s Sleep of the Just On the bulletin board in my office at Green Man is this note from Swill, of … Continue reading

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The Men They Couldn’t Hang’s Demos & Rarities, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and Devil on the Wind EP

If there was any justice in this universe, The Men They Couldn’t Hang would be as well known as The Pogues; in some senses they are their English counterpart. Indeed, Demos & Rarities, Vol. 1 shows that this group, even … Continue reading

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The Men They Couldn’t Hang’s Night of a Thousand Candles, Silvertown, and The Domino Club

Chuck Lipsig wrote this review. In some alternate branch of history, there is a very successful Irish punk-folk band that was founded and fronted by Shane MacGowan, called The Men They Couldn’t Hang. However, Shanne Hasler, fellow member of a … Continue reading

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Andy Irvine & Paul Brady’s Andy Irvine / Paul Brady

From the first strains of the opening track “Plains Of Kildare” it’s clear that this is a special record. Dónal Lunny’s bouzouki, Andy Irvine’s mandolin and Paul Brady’s guitar lay down a rhythmic bed over which Irvine’s sturdy tenor vocals … Continue reading

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Brian McNeill & Iain MacKintosh’s Live and Kicking

First of all, I must thank the McNeills for sending this release as it took not one, but two mailings to get this to Green Man as the first copy got lost somewhere in the post. This means that this … Continue reading

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Slagr’s Linde

I last covered the music of the Norwegian trio Slagr on the occasion of their 2015 Ozella release Short Stories. Here’s what I said in the opening paragraph of that review: Slagr was founded in 2003 by hardanger fiddler Anne … Continue reading

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Shane Parish’s Liverpool

What do you think of when you hear the term “sea shanties?” A bunch of guys singing rhythmic songs unaccompanied or with one concertina or fiddle? Or maybe even Rogue’s Gallery, the late great Hal Willner’s superb four disc collection … Continue reading

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Annbjørg Lien’s Janus

Janus was the Roman god of beginnings, transitions, and endings, and that’s just what was on Annbjørg Lien’s heart when she prepared this album. As she says in the liner notes of this package of lovely words, pictures and music, … Continue reading

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