Table of contents for October/November 2025 in Songlines

English folk musician and singer Emily Portman has spent the summer putting the finishing touches on an upcoming album, set for release in March. Her first solo record since 2015’s critically-acclaimed Coracle, she’d been looking forward to announcing the long-anticipated title. Yet, when fans started getting in touch to compliment her new material, she was puzzled – how could they be hearing the songs while she was still working on them? She clicked her profiles on Apple Music and Spotify, and was surprised to find a fulllength album, Orca, attributed to her. A few days later, another suspicious release, Hi Ocean, appeared on her accounts. When she listened to the music, she immediately knew it wasn’t an innocent mix-up, but a deliberate attempt to imitate her. Both records were AI-generated.…

“Before colonial intervention, these borders did not exist in the way we know them today,” says Moroccan electronic artist Abdellah M Hassack – AKA Guedra Guedra. “This is why social and musical experiences remain so intertwined across much of the continent.” Guedra Guedra’s second album, MUTANT, gives shape to Hassack’s pan-African vision, which saw him travel within his homeland and across West and East African countries. Immersing himself in local cultures, he embarked on a mission to identify the numerous commonalities through Africa’s vast and rich musical traditions. During his trips, he assembled a collection of field recordings – from traditional chants to busy street ambience – and used them as his base material, before transforming these organic sounds through synthesised textures, sculpting the album’s rhythmic structures and sonic palettes…

In a dimly lit interior, Irish folk musician Graham Sweeny picks and percussively plays his way through Glen Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman’, before punters slam their cold pints of stout down on sturdy mahogany tables and erupt into enthusiastic applause. The surrounding walls are adorned with signs reading: “More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish,” and pewter knick-knacks shine dully under bright green flags emblazoned with: “Erin Go Bragh”. You may think this is a scene from a local Irish boozer, but in fact, we’re in the middle of a Northamptonshire field at this summer’s Shambala festival (August 21–24). This level of escapism is exactly what Molly Mead had in mind when she created Sibín Beag – a new venue at this year’s festival which, designed like a pub, celebrates all (and…

Indian violinist, singer and composer Shankar Lakshminarayana, known as L Shankar or Shenkar, remains a striking and charismatic presence in his mid-70s. Born in Madras (now Chennai) in southern India, Shankar is a virtuoso musician who brought Indian sounds to Western ears for the first time as part of the groundbreaking 1970s fusion group, Shakti, which he founded alongside English guitarist John McLaughlin and Indian percussionists Zakir Hussain and Vikku Vinayakram. Over the decades, he has collaborated with artists from Talking Heads and Frank Zappa to Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. Despite his collaborations with high-profile Western rock stars, it is the ancient Carnatic music that has always formed the heart of his work. Originating in South India, Carnatic music is spiritual, a counterpart to the Hindustani classical tradition of…

Last year, I discovered two bands from İzmir in Türkiye: Patika Rebetika and Murmurrica. As a journalist interested in Greek rebetiko, I was fascinated to hear contemporary Turkish bands completely immersed in a style so closely associated with Greece. I needed to find out more, and before long, I found myself heading to İzmir, birthplace of rebetiko, to meet musicians reviving these urban folk songs. A BRIEF HISTORY Rebetiko primarily emerged in Smyrna, a city on the Aegean coast of Anatolia, around the cusp of the 20th century. It drew on diverse musical traditions of the Ottoman Empire, enveloping melodies from the many peoples who lived across its vast territories. Each community contributed its own particular tone, its own distinctive colour, its own breath. Smyrna was a port city and…

The growl of an electric guitar echoes through the Amazon, heard amid cries of ancestral chants and the patter of ceremonial drums, while birdsong and croaking amphibians add to the rich, unexpected sound. This is rock da floresta (forest rock), a new genre born from a collaboration between Kayatibu, formed by members of the Huni Kuin community of the Brazilian Amazon, and Minas Gerais producer LUIZGA (full name Luiz Gabriel Lopes). When they appear on Zoom, the young Huni Kuin musicians Byxku Yuraya and Shane Saite are midway through a European tour for their new album Ni Hui. Wearing sleeveless vests and sunglasses, they appear every inch the rock stars their psychedelic new sound denotes. When asked if they’re a fan of the term ‘forest rock’, they roar with laughter.…

Yasmine Hamdan I remember I forget Crammed Discs On her 2001 album as half of Beirut-based synth-pop duo Soapkills, Yasmine Hamdan captured the destruction and rebirth of her city in the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war. Twenty-five years later, Hamdan continues to hold up a mirror to her homeland’s political and social tribulations. I remember I forget hears Hamdan blending Arabic motifs with all manner of genres. There are nods to electro (‘I Remember, I Forget’), ambient (‘Reminiscence’) and even snatches of doo-wop (‘Shadia’). Hamdan’s voice provides the album’s anchor – rich, clear and unwaveringly evocative. Most affecting is her collaboration with Palestinian poet Anas Alaili. ‘Hon’ narrates Hamdan’s experience of helplessly watching the 2020 Beirut port explosion happen from afar. Amid warm, synth washes, Hamdan sings of ‘A…

In the summer of 2003, I travelled to Poland for the first time to present five organ recitals. In contrast to concert attendances at such recitals in the US or Canada, the Polish churches were full of people who had a deep appreciation and wide knowledge of classical music. These experiences sparked my curiosity about organ music in Eastern Europe. Was there new music being written by native composers? How did hymns and the rhythms and melodies of folk culture influence the composition of new music for the organ? Since that first tour, I have returned to Eastern Europe annually for concerts, and have recorded four albums of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Bulgarian organ music, performing pieces from Hymnody and Gregorian Chant traditions. A notable example is ‘Improvisations on a…

One of the great Irish love songs, ‘The Galway Girl’ has become so popular since its release in 2000 that one day it will surely be regarded as a folk song. Which is only right, for like many folk songs, it has a strange and rather wonderful history. It was written by a US singer-songwriter who grew up in Texas – but its success was down to an Irish DJ who boosted a spirited version of the song into the charts five years after its original release. The songwriter was Steve Earle, an inventive country-rock pioneer with a great love of Ireland – who favoured Galway particularly as a place to write and relax. It was here that he wrote ‘The Galway Girl’ after meeting a young woman whose ‘hair…

Julian May Julian is a freelance radio producer of programmes related to folk and global music. This issue he speaks to Spafford Campbell (p52) and enjoys the relocated FolkEast (p22) DJ Ritu MBE Ritu is an international turntablist, former BBC Radio presenter and host of global music show, A World in London. A key catalyst of the UK Asian underground and bhangra scenes, she chats to Malkit Singh on p32 Zakhar Davydenko Zakhar is a folklorist from Kyiv, Ukraine. He’s a host/producer at Radio Kultura, a fiddler in the folk band DvaTry, and loves it when rave culture and folk collides (p20) Songlines was launched in 1999 and is the definitive magazine for world music – music that has its roots in all parts of the globe, from Mali to…

To many, it would seem that Merlyn Driver had a storybook upbringing. Born and raised in on an off-grid smallholding in Orkney, the songwriter and field recordist’s childhood was spent scrabbling about in bogs and fields with his brothers and sisters. It was idyllic in many ways but challenging in so many others. Growing up home-educated in a house with no electricity, Driver’s early years were shadowed by isolation and often intense family dynamics. Immersed in nature, the young Driver developed an avid interest in his environment. “I was always upside down in ditches, studying caddisfly larvae and things,” Driver recalls. “I used to watch ducks and time how long it took them to dive and then write out the average dive time per species.” It’s no surprise that Driver’s…

James Brown Sex Machine (King Records, 1970) I first heard this record when I was touring with the band Fuzi 9; we were travelling across the world, so I was buying a lot of records. I bought Sex Machine at a stop in Puerto Rico. I first listened to it when I got home with my friends Tim Maia, Oberdan Magalhães and Luís Carlos Batera. The energy, rhythm and bass of the title song, specifically, was something we had never felt before. This has been a big influence on my career. It was also a key album for the funk balls in Brazil, a scene popular among young Black Brazilian youth that inspired artists like Cassiano, Tim Maia and Hyldon. Arthur Verocai Arthur Verocai (Continental, 1972) I’m incredibly proud to…

Every year WOMEX hand out two awards, one to an artist and one to someone working in the industry. This year, Noura Mint Seymali was the winner of the WOMEX 25 Artist Award. The Mauritanian singer has been active since the 1990s, gaining international acclaim for albums such as Arbina (2016) and Tzenni (2014). This year, she will release a new album, Yenbett, on Glitterbeat. Explaining why they gave the award to Noura, WOMEX say: “Walking in the footsteps of her stepmother, the renowned Dimi Mint Abba, Noura continues a powerful female lineage – both familial and spiritual – of musicians who bear the awesome tradition of Mauritanian classical music, take it in exciting new directions, and open it up to whole new audiences around the world.” The WOMEX 25…

Have you ever raved like your great-grandparents? Because in modern-day Kyiv, young people are turning to old-time tradition to get their dancefloor kicks. Since March 2024, Kyiv has been hosting a new phenomenon: CMYK (literally “bow” in Ukrainian, referring to a fiddle bow), a series of ethno-raves where traditional folk music meets electronic beats. The idea for the party came from Kyiv-based instrumental folk bands Zbyten and DvaTry, who saw parallels between traditional folk parties and rave culture. Both were bound together by the same force: the shared experience of dance, created in real time by those who play and those who move. In 2024, they finally decided to blend these two styles of music and joined forces with cultural manager Liza Stuzhuk to create CMYK. The first CMYK event…

A few steps uphill from the main street, which runs east to west through Sarajevo, is a handsome yellow building on a corner. It’s the city’s Music Academy and I’m heading there with Neven Tunjić, bandleader, composer and piano-keyboard player of Divanhana, one of Bosnia’s leading sevdah groups. He takes me into a narrow room with an upright piano, a saz-like šargija – a traditional accompaniment for sevdah in its early days – and shelves of scholarly publications and archive photos. It’s the ethnomusicology room which he describes as their divanhana, the space that inspired their name. He reflects on how the five-piece formed in 2009: “It began here in this classroom in the Music Academy where we studied 20 years ago,” says Tunjić, who was a pupil of Bosnia’s…

The Songlines Top of the World compilation, featuring tracks from our favourite albums each issue, can be downloaded by visiting https://linktr.ee/SL212 Guitari Baro Guitari Baro Chrysalis Global It’s always good to welcome a new label specialising in the kind of music Songlines covers and Chrysalis Global gets off to a stellar start with this instrumental album by three outstanding Malian and Guinean griots. Co-produced by Dudu Sarr, Lucy Durán and Pape Armand Boye, and recorded in a single session in Dakar, guitarists Gaoussou Kouyaté and Kerfala Diabaté are brilliantly underpinned by the subtle rhythmic patterns of Lassana Diabaté’s balafon. In places such as the opening title-track, the rippling strings evoke a contemplative mood not dissimilar to Toumani Diabaté’s masterful solo kora recording Made Variations. Elsewhere, as on ‘Mamales’ and ‘Bambougou’,…

Simply put, The Onlies are the best old-time stringband out there. I can hardly believe how amazing their new album, You Climb the Mountain (The Onlies ★★★★) sounds. They tear out the gate on the title-track from the great old-time fiddler Gaither Carlton (Doc Watson’s father-inl-aw) practically slavering as they bolt down the racetrack. This is high-octane old-time fiddling and picking, but they know how to slow it down too, focusing on the beautiful vocals of Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno (who also perform as Viv & Riley). And I’m not the only one noticing. Fiddler Sami Braman is touring with Willie Watson now, and fiddler Leo Shannon just joined up with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. This is Gen Z trad, full of spit and vinegar, eager to leave their mark…

Abel Selaocoe Four Spirits Warner Classics Is Abel Selaocoe the most exciting musician in the world right now? Adding to the growing case is his third album, which presents his 2023 cello concerto, recorded live in London this year with the Aurora Orchestra. Here the prodigious Selaocoe, classically trained in Soweto and Manchester, interweaves South African ancestral and hymnal traditions with Western classical music, to inimitable effect. Opening with a cascade of percussion, the first three movements are propelled by rhythm and energy, enhanced by regular collaborator Bernhard Schimpelsberger. It’s richly varied, with angular strings, guttural throatsinging, explosions of brass, and even a vocal percussion battle. He makes sparing use of the orchestra, and the cadenzas explore his extraordinary voice even more than his virtuoso bowing, plucking and slapping. Ultimately,…

UPCOMING UK & IRELAND The Glasshouse An internationally acclaimed venue in Gateshead is collaborating with Gem Arts to programme a series of exciting South Asian music, including the Orchestral Qawwali Project featuring Rushil Ranjan & Abi Sampa (27 SEP) and the hypnotic melodies from the Ghazal Lounge ensemble (10 OCT). Frankie Archer Feminist electro-folk musician who uses a combination of synths, drum tracks, voice and Northumbrian fiddle. 1 OCT, Green Note, London; 3 OCT Horse and Farrier, Otley; 4 OCT Low Four Studio, Manchester; 5 OCT Liverpool Philharmonic; 6 OCT St Mary’s Creative Space, Chester; 8 OCT The Grove, Nottingham; 10 OCT The Loft, Forres; 11 OCT Upstairs, Inverness; 12 OCT The Old Cinema Launderette, Durham; 14 OCT The Beacon, Bristol; 17 OCT Village Hall, Northumberland; 18 OCT Settle Victoria…

The Baltic psaltery is a plucked box zither. No one is sure of its exact origins, though it’s believed to have emerged as early as the 11th century. It is thought to be derived from the lyre though, unlike a lyre, a psaltery has strings stretched across a resonant wooden box. It can be found across the eastern Baltic Sea region, where each country has their own name for it: kantele (Finland), kannel (Estonia), kokles (Latvia), kanklės (Lithuania) and gusli (Russia). There’s an amazing amount of variety within the world of Baltic psalteries, with histories varying from country to country. The earliest versions were made out of a single piece of wood that was hollowed out, and they had five horsehair strings. In Finland, the five-string kantele fell out of…

I was going to villages in Bogia, a subprovince of Madang, to record windim mambu, sacred flute music,” writes Ragnar Johnson in his recently published manuscript, A New Guinea Journey, which documents his 1979 field recording trip to Papua New Guinea. He continues: “This flute music was still played although the male initiations in which young boys were taught to play the instruments had been pretty well discontinued. Few men remained who knew how to play the flutes really well, and most of them were in their seventies, sixties or, at least, fifties. A fair number of them would die soon, and if the flute music was not recorded, there would be no trace left of their skill.” A social anthropologist, Johnson undertook field research in Papua New Guinea for…

TOP OF THE WORLD TRACKS 01 Yasmine Hamdan ‘Hon هون’ From I remember I forget, وبتذكر بنسى on Crammed Discs Co-written with Palestinian poet Anas Alaili, Hamdan’s poignant eyewitness reflection on the 2020 Beirut port explosion declaims the violence with chilling lyricism and haunting synths. See p80 02 Mulatu Astatke ‘Yèkatit’ From Mulatu Plays Mulatu on Strut Records Ethio-jazz pioneer dusts down an old classic, recasting it with deliciously dynamic arrangements, hot vamping keyboard grooves and plenty of agedefying pep. See p61 03 Cerys Hafana ‘350 Mlynedd’ From Angel on Glitterbeat Records Suitably ethereal clusters from Hafana’s triple-harp conjure a Welsh folk tale concerning the album’s titular messenger, busily bestowing celestial shut-eye sessions upon mankind. See p67 04 Abel Selaocoe ‘Simunye – Malibongwe’ From Four Spirits on Warner Classics Ancestral…

Mississippi Records are going to reissue Inzovu Y’Imirindi by Rwandan singer Bizimungu Dieudonné. In the late 1980s, Dieudonné and his wife, Agnes Umbibizi, self-released a visionary cassette with a backing band of family and friends, blending traditional praise songs with electric instrumentation. Their lyrics called for unity in a divided Rwanda. Tragically, the genocide claimed the lives of the group only a few years later. Their daughter Noella, who survived, was left with a CD containing the master recordings, which has now been remastered for release on November 14. Awesome Tapes from Africa has long established its cult status for unearthing rare gems to a global fanbase of eager listeners, and Ata Kak was the man who started it all; his debut 1994 album Obaa Sima appeared on Awesome Tapes’…

For Tapio Korjus, owner of Finnish label Rockadillo, music has long been an integral part of his life. “I’m lucky to have been born in 1950,” he says, “which means that when The Beatles, The Stones, Jimi Hendrix and all those great bands happened, I was just the right age to appreciate them.” It was The Beatles, in a way, which started Korjus’ journey into music as a career. “My father was a journalist. He gave me a book by John Lennon – translated to Finnish – and said, ‘Why don’t you review that for the local newspaper?’” Korjus began writing regularly for the paper about youth culture and became a DJ at a local disco. At university in Tampere, he ran the student venue, where he would DJ and…

On a glorious summer afternoon, several hundred people sit, entranced, by Wakefire – an incantation to the summertime performed by English folk trio Lady Maisery alongside Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith. It’s a triumphant manifestation of the ambition and innovation of FolkEast, the festival founded in 2012 by Becky and John Marshall-Potter. The festival commissioned the piece, which celebrates midsummer customs and celebrations – it’s one of several performances where music is composed exclusively for this festival, in this setting. Another original piece premiering at the festival is Earth: The Silent Planet by Delia Stevens, Will Pound and Robert Macfarlane. Stevens and Pound reimagine Gustav Holst’s suite The Planets, Stevens flying like a dragonfly above her battery of percussion instruments, Pound sitting almost motionless, wrangling grunts and runs from mouth…

It isn’t just that it’s organised in a winery that makes Krems’ Glatt & Verkehrt such a special festival. Sure, the vines above the stage, the chirping cicadas and strolling through vineyards holding a glass of Grüner Veltliner during intervals are all crucial parts of it, but it’s the focus on emerging talent and less obvious artists that make the event stand out. Its approach to programming has helped Glatt & Verkehrt – the festival’s name translates as ‘smooth and inverted’, a reference to a type of knitting pattern – build a loyal following over its nearly 30-year history. I was delighted to see young folk singer Fatima Szalay, a fresh new voice on the Hungarian folk scene, performing her first big concert outside Hungary. She possesses a natural warmth…

Cerys Hafana named their new album Angel ironically. “I often get told I’m angelic, because I’m singing with a harp… Not going to lie, it started to grate a bit,” their laughter cut short with a thought: “Sometimes angels are quite cool though – there are the freaky ones that are just a bunch of eyeballs floating in the sky.” Hafana – who uses they/them pronouns – is a young, queer harpist and multi-instrumentalist who is challenging traditions and long-held beliefs about what folk music can be and what the Welsh triple harp can do. Their work often centres around uncovering alternative narratives and bringing unusual and unexpected emotions to the forefront. On Angel, they aimed to unearth a specific type of emotion rarely found in the Welsh ballads from…

Meklit Hadero would like to make something clear: she is not – and has never been – a spokesperson for Ethiopia. Sure, her new studio album, A Piece of Infinity, celebrates the rich musical traditions of her birthplace by reframing a clutch of traditional tunes – songs of love, longing, innocence and the Cosmos – with jazzy arrangements. Yet, despite her closeness to Ethiopian music and culture – she even sings in national languages Amharic, Kambaata and Oromo, as well as English – she has learned to question and evaluate her understanding of the East African nation. “I have this experience of breaking through what my parents’ experience of Ethiopian culture was and realising that the stories we had inherited were true, but only partially true,” says the longtime San…

Where are you based, and how long have you been there? I was born and raised in London to Brazilian immigrant parents. I’ve been here my whole life. Where is home? For me, the idea of home has always been layered. I grew up in London within a Brazilian household, constantly moving between two cultures. From an early age I was surrounded by immigrants, not just Brazilians but people from across Latin America. I saw how they built lives here, how they created homes, yet were often reminded that this wasn’t truly theirs. They were marked as different – and I felt that difference too. In Brazil, the feeling is mirrored: even though I speak the language, play the music, love the food and feel comfortable in the culture, I’m…

Tell us about your new album, Whitby? What was it about the seaside town which inspired you to make it? It was actually walking along the beach, towards a place called Sandsend. We were quite alone. The odd dog walker going past. I was feeling disheartend by some of the things we humans do. But got such an overwhelming feeling of nature and its beauty. And it felt timeless. It made me want to make music that might describe how I was feeling. Locations from Yarmouth to St Ann’s in Nottingham have been the subject of your previous recordings. Do these areas all have something in common, and what makes them so ripe for creative contemplation? I guess the something in common is me, or my personal journey through those…

Two tracks into Rose Io’s Autumn Automaton (MIOHMI Records ★★★), I’m thinking of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd – it having a similar way of handling unexpected turns of melody, imagery, tone and feeling. A lyricism that extends from the particular to the cosmic, like Barrett does. The Brighton-based singer and artist is steeped, too, in an otherworld of 21stcentury musical-magical occultism. How much you resonate with exposure to that otherworld, and songs like ‘Toad Light’, will influence how you settle in with Autumn Automation, but these are rich and idiosyncratic songs, multi-layered sound-image pairings of weird perspectives and deep chiaroscuro. Susy Wall’s Black Lights (Susy Wall ★★★) is the Black Country singer’s second album, and focuses on where she has lived for the last 25 years, with contributions from Black…

18th-century poet Tobias Smollett once stated: “Edinburgh is a hotbed of genius.” Whilst Smollet was referring specifically to Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, the evidence of this legacy of innovation and creativity can still be found in the city’s music scene today. With venues ranging from the intimate to the decidedly grand, the city boasts a colourful and creative scene which far outlasts the Fringe Festival that dominates Edinburgh’s summer months. For a guide around the musical gems which mark the city’s warren-like streets, we spok to local singer-songwriter Sam Shackleton, also known by his Gaelic moniker, Sorley the Bard, to learn more about what he would brand as part of the city’s “genius”. What’s the music scene like in Edinburgh? Edinburgh is a city that oozes history and music. Take Makars’…

There Is Beauty, There Already is the new album from London-based composer and drummer Sarathy Korwar, and the first on Korwar’s new label, Otherland (which he describes as a home for music “that doesn’t tick many boxes – that doesn’t have a motherland or fatherland”). The album is a 40-minute suite of drum improvisations performed by Korwar and fellow drummers Photay, Magnus Mehta and Joost Hendrickx. They utilised an arsenal of percussive instruments – drum kit, tabla, marimba, balafon, udu, ghatam – and synthesisers. “We had all these drums together and we would swap them around… everyone plays them differently”, says Korwar, adding, “It’s almost impossible to know which track features who.” Ahead of the album’s launch on November 15 at the ICA (during the London Jazz Festival), we dive…