Archive: IMBOLC 2019

Together since 2013 and from Toronto, Ontario, The Lonesome Ace String Band--Chris Coole (banjo), John Showman (fiddle) and Max Heineman (bass)--bring energy, passion, skill and a refreshing vibrancy to their brand of American roots music. The music comes from a tradition that has inspired and brought together generations of people. Its themes of love, loss, hard work and hardship, faith, and everyday life have global resonance and speak to everyone. The Lonesomes’ latest album, When The Sun Comes Up (their third studio recording) comprises mostly original compositions and focuses on the group’s predilection for the spiritual and redemptive side of narrative music, where characters come to life in song to confront mortality, impossible choices, and the relentless pressures of change. You’ll feel the energy of three passionate musicians playing the burning desert out of those instruments and loving every minute. There’s richly literary dimension to their brand of American roots music, performed with a refreshing specificity that is too often missing.

Fiddle players, singers and multi-instrumentalists Rowan and Anna Rheingans grew up in the Peak District, surrounded by traditional music. Rowan is well- known on the English folk scene for her collaborations, with Nancy Kerr & The Sweet Visitor Band and Eliza Carthy an Karine Polwart. Anna lives and works as a fiddle player in Toulouse and is a fluent in southern French folk music. Both sisters have spent signi?cant time studying ?ddle music in Sweden and Norway. The Rheingans Sisters’ richly connecting music is contemporary yet draws deeply on and is deeply anchored in folk traditions. Having studied in France, Sweden and Norway, they make it their spirited mission to join up points across the musics of different geographical roots. In a word, they deconstruct and reimagine traditional music, playing it alongside their own beguiling compositions. Particularly since the release of their award-winning album Already Home in 2015, The Rheingans Sisters have been wowing audiences across the UK, Europe and Australia, captivated by the full-heartedness of their performances and the adventurous mix of fiddles, voices, banjo, bansitar, tambourin à cordes, poetry and percussion. They won the 2016 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Original Track—Mackerel. Their third album is Bright Field, from early 2018.