Hear the Best New Folk Music with Fresh Cuts Friday
Ready for some of the best new music we’ve heard this week? It’s a great list as you’ll see below — and as you’ll hear when you join me for my “Fresh Cuts” radio hour! Listen every Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific via the 24/7 stream on our website, app, or your smart speaker.
Or, just click on the Fresh Cuts stream whenever it’s convenient for you.
In the meantime, check out some of the best new music we’ve been listening to this week.
Aoife O’Donovan – “All My Friends”
Aoife O’Donovan’s first self-produced LP (out March 22) is inspired by the passage of the 19th amendment and the evolving landscape of women’s rights in America over the past century. O’Donovan artfully draws on speeches and letters by suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt to write intricately filigreed new, original songs infused with a modern perspective and her own experiences as a woman and mother.
John Craigie – “Where It’s From”
John Craigie’s new album Where It’s From sees him joining forces with some local Portland, OR friends: TK & The Holy Know-Nothings. “The music is always evolving and devolving with each new record,” he observes. “With my last album Mermaid Salt, I really wanted to explore the sound of isolation and solitude as everyone was heading inside. With this record, I wanted to record the sound of everyone coming back out.”
“The Internet” encapsulates the digital manipulation of our modern digital age. Inspired in part by Kate Bush‘s song “Watching You Without Me,” in the chorus Kaia riffs on old broadband modem sounds by rendering some of the lyrics barely intelligible and slightly garbled.
“Folding” is an emotional song from the Welsh folk singer-songwriter’s 27th album — it’s the opening track, in fact, a song of surrender and resilience, and where else would you find an album calling for the elimination of a tyrant alongside a call for greater love and empathy? Embracing contradictions and beauty with a fearless pen, Joseph continues to cut an impressive path. If you’re looking for truth, these songs will anchor you to a horizon of hope.
