ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
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Folk album reviews with STEVE JOHNSON: March 18, 2024
Sunderland community soup kitchen, sea mists over East Anglia, and unique north English folk fusion: reviews of Martyn Joseph, Honey and the Bear and Hirondelle
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
Martyn Joseph
This is What I Want to Say
(Pipe Records)
★★★
THIS latest album by Welsh singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph takes him on a reflective journey of the last two years since his previous album 1960. Having lost his father and becoming a grandfather and father again, the 11 songs deal with aspects of his own history and the world outside.
The opening song, Folding, uses the Welsh word hiraeth to reflect the sense of longing for a place of home. This theme of welcome runs throughout with Waiting for the Rain that imagines a new kind of home in Wales for those forced to flee conflict in Syria.
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