Beyond The 45
Singles, EPs, Downloads
The Fatea office also serves as a home for our weekly Along The Tracks show on Folk Friday Radio and as a rule singles and Eps have generally gone in that direction whilst Fatea generally concentrates on albums and live reviews for our full length feature, but with more artists going back down the single route to keep themselves in the public eye, we thought it was time to reflect that in our offerings and as rules are made to be broken or at the very least adapted, welcome to the Singles Round Up.
Marina Florance - Faith
www.marinaflorance.com
A circling strummed encouragement for those who feel life throws too many obstacles in their path as the years creep on, she sings "climb like you will not fall/look down as if you can see the floor/live like you're not afraid/leap as if you have the faith", calls for self-love ("look in the mirror like you like what you see pretend as if I never hurt me") and closes with the defiant "I'll grow old like it's not too late/love as if I've never known hate/believe in something like it has a worth". MD
Ben Allman - Tideborn
www.vecta music.co.uk
The Isle of Wight based Allman takes inspiration from its landscapes and people for a self-released 3-track EP that explores themes of nature, change, and the human condition. The shortest, 'A3055', is titled for a road on the island used to connect coastal barracks and forts at the 'back of the wight' and was near where hippies congregated during the 1970 IoW Festival. With its steep cliff edge supported by pillars and closed during high wind, it's also known as Desolation Row, the spectacular views also being a suicide hotspot. The other two are both five and a half minutes, the atmospheric 'Blind Eye' conjuring Roy Harper as he sings about marine pollution ("Southern tides bring strange gifts/To the sea/Red flags by the shoreline/Warning me/Dark and lonely water… Rockpools rust in silence") as the waters themselves call "I'm choking/Let me breathe again". The third, a summery fingerpicked acoustic blues, 'Landslide' tells of an outcast's redemption under nature's healing powers ("Take your time and find your way/Build again, don't slide again…Light returns in Spring/The gift of medicine/The siren's song, fades into the dawn/It starts to thaw, his body warms again…Cleanse yourself in the tide/Leave the landslip behind"). MD
Tim Jones and Ben Morgan-Brown - Strange Greeting
www.timjonesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/strange-greeting
Respectively on vocals.acoustic and electric guitar, this self-released EP features two original and two traditional songs, the meditative, fingerpicked, deep voiced title track, opening with the sound of the sea, inspired by walking on the beach at night with the shifting tides, the darkness and the slow process by which sea glass is formed. Looking for meaning and strangeness in the British folk tradition, the second original, the lightly picked 'Telling the Bees', draws on the ancient rural tradition of informing a household's bees of significant life events such as births, deaths and marriages, a ritual that symbolises the relationship between people and the land they inhabit. Alongside these, the ruminative 'Souls On The Wind' is a rare Devon folksong collected by the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould here reimagined as a contemporary work and given a chiming new melody and, finally,a more familiar number about a faithless lover deserting his pregnant conquest, 'Ramble Away' (here locally restyled with Tavistock Street as opposed to Birmingham) gets a chugging bluesy electric guitar-led arrangement. MD
Jessica Dives - The Wind Phone
www.jessicadives.com
It will probably come as no surprise to learn that the practice of using disconnected dial telephones situated in booths or somewhere outside in order to 'speak' to deceased loved ones and channel grief, originated in Japan. From Liverpool, Dives offers a light and airy track with cello accompaniment about the concept ("Where the wind blows/And pine trees grow/Dialling on the wind/Longing for voice/A crackle, a noise/Words lost out to the wind/ I'll call again next spring"). It won the Lichfield Songwriting Contest 2025 and accompanies her hometown project of building an actual Wind Phone in Calderstones Park, Liverpool with free access for anyone wishing to 'call' someone they have lost. MD
Bity Booker -Love is Like a Swallow In The Spring
www.bitybooker.com
In advance of her new album, this circling fingerpicked, track was inspired by the swallows that every year build a nest in the downstairs beams of her parents' house in Umbria here serving as a metaphor for fleeting romance ("Love is like a swallow in the spring/Comes and goes, like a swallow in the spring") though her ululations sound more like a crow's caw than a sparrow's chirp.MD
Jo Bartlett & Neil Haydock - Summer Rain
indiethroughthelookingglass.com
The alt folk duo describe the breathily sung and strummed (with twang solo) taster for the upcoming album 'as the feeling you get after finishing a good book or a great walk. Albeit without having to make the same effort. MD
Joshua Arnold and Therine - The Hungry Child
www.joshuaarnoldandtherine.bandcamp.com
The first release from their upcoming self-released second collection of folk music of the British Isles showcasing themes of the dark and macabre, the duo offer up a version of 'The Hungry Child', drawing on the Young Tradition arrangement here driven by hurdy gurdy and vocal with a steady handclap marching rhythm and unaccompanied coda. MD
Hannah Scott - Sitting In The Dark
www.hannahscott.co.uk
Taken from next month's EP, Scott reflects back on her experience of renting in London. Cast in a folk rock vein the song, the vocals recorded in a makeshift wardrobe, was inspired by the final weeks spent in a studio flat in Ealing without working lights despite a six-figure annual rental, and highlights the underlying issues many face living in flats riddled with, as she sings, mould and damp while rents continue to soar. MD
Fatea Showcase Sessions
The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.
Pirate is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy
www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk for all the artist information.
Folk Friday Radio
Check out our shows and many other great shows on: