Watersons

On the generally acclaimed Let England Shake, Harvey gave her music a bony, volkish edge, flaying it back to strummed autoharp, electric guitar and crude drums, mongrelising it with awkwardy intrusive sampling of Middle Eastern singers, dub interjections and huntsmen’s horns. Seamus Murphy’s cinematography complements this approach perfectly: not storyboarded, but collaged from various journeys around the island made during 2011, from the remotest hedgerows to the heart of London.

Happy new year: I trust everyone had some kind of decent break. I read Robert Byron on Tibet (for climatic context, possibly), watched Robinson In Ruins, played a fair bit of Pharoah Sanders and The Watersons, and rediscovered that a body clock wrecked by parenthood can be very useful during an Ashes series.

Great Scot draws deep from the wellspring of British folk + Q&A

With the sad news of the guitarist's passing, here we publish his last Q&A originally printed last October

Day Five, and we get to Fleet Foxes, and the judges' conversation which resulted in them winning the first Uncut Music Award. Tomorrow, by the way, The Raconteurs.

Just playing the new Love As Laughter album, as recommended by one of you on the albums of the year thus far thread, when Sam Jayne serendipitously sings, “Listen to the radio play ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’.” Serendipitous because I’ve just posted John Robinson’s excellent review of Neil Young’s Hop Farm jam yesterday over at the Live blog.

Definitive 1971 gathering of British folk-rock elite in their absolute prime

Four-CD box and DVD on the story of an extraordinary musical dynasty