Lau are my favourite folk band during the last couple years. I’m listening to them a lot at the moment and really missing playing the violin. If you ever have the chance to see them live, they are incredible and not to miss. 

Dory Previn - Lady With the Braid

Detektivbyrån, a Swedish trio, and their song Nattöppet. A band better found late than never.

Every now and then, we take over a lovely little shop called Bermondsay Fayre in South London, and put on a pop-up folk night where artists and friends perform their poetry and songs. It’s cosy, very intimate and fun!

This was our second pop-up folk event, organized by the Borough Common Church, raising money for Macmillan. The video above is Ali Mackenzie. I’ve also uploaded a bunch of photos on Flickr from the event.

I feel free. I pulled my head out of my laptop and printed out four months of work for my university. And now I can rest. It’s over.

And so I start to wonder, when will Emmy the Great’s album be out. Perhaps someone knows? She’s released a single and an e.p and I met a chap at Greenman who said he had some other bits and bobs of hers. The single is out on vinyl which is good to see. Keeping it alive. She has the most beautiful folky voice, and her songs are so gentle and warming.

I saw Jeffrey Lewis and his band last night the Scala Club in London, a chap I have wanted to see for quite some time. Only a few days before a friend had given me one of Jeffrey Lewis’s comic books. He had swapped it with the man himself at Bestival for a Lonely Planet picture book (which my friend had won). Good deal. The gig was top notch. He is great with the crowd – makes you feel at home. He played a varied set of folk songs, some heavier punk songs, and some of his poetry-spoken word stuff accompanied with picture books - or low budget videos as he calls them. One of these picture books included part three of his history of communism. Cracking stuff! He is a unique, lyrical genius and musician and will no doubt have a cult following for many years to come. He is also underappreciated. I will never understand why there are so many dull generic pop bands around and on the radio playing the same driving 4/4 rhythms and rounds of soulless lyrics examining the tragedy and greatness of love.

Talking of love, or perhaps a lack of it, JL played the wonderfully tragic song ‘East River’ where he eventually throws himself into the East river to decompose into ‘putrid rotten scum’ after not finding any girls in the city that take a fancy to him. Towards the end of the gig, he rolled out some of the more faster, raw, punk-like songs. This was with the band which included his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. I had forgotten about this side of Jeffery Lewis, but I like it. It had been a while since I had listened to this kind of thing, but the energy and intensity was good. Although I still prefer the acoustic stuff. Getting old you see. For the encore he did a couple of his spoken word acapellas. A good way too polish off the night. One was on the subject of his love of the English pound and the other about a cheap American noodle snack that he is quite fond of. And with that he toddled off, leaving me amused, happy and cheerfully content.