CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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What folk music is all about
A trio of new releases moves body and soul
LIKE NOBODY ELSE: Headsticks
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
BY SHEER coincidence, three wonderful albums have just come out, all of which take folk music by the scruff of the neck, stick it through a proper amplifier and get your brain cells and feet moving, which is what such music is for.
Two of them feature brand new material from a brace of our finest and most popular outfits. The third is a valedictory blast from the co-leader of one of the finest bands this country has ever produced.
Let’s start with Stefan Cush, who so sadly died of a heart attack aged just 60 on February 4. Along with Swill Odgers he was the heart and soul of The Men They Couldn’t Hang, whose anthemic, rousing and politically inspirational songs have provided me with a soundtrack to my life and many stage-sharing moments for nearly four decades.
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