Holiday season 2025 is here with all-new versions of all-old songs as well as new tunes that may (or may not) become holiday standards.

How do you define Clannad’s career, an era and for all intents and purposes the genesis of a new genre, in just a couple of compact discs?

Like many other musicians, Pierre Bensusan’s touring plans were scuttled by the COVID-19 pandemic, and he turned to creating ‘Azwan’ instead.

Beginning with a ruminative exploration on the fiddle, the Boston-based Celtic duo Twae-Left-Feet paint an enveloping portrait of old-world charm – before leaping with winking gusto into what might be best described as heel-clicking hootenanny. Meanwhile, Scott Burn’s layered, deeply intriguing work on the tambourine-like bodhran gives the tune bothRead More

Combining the diaphanous feel of Celtic music with the thunderous classically inspired rock that powered classic 1970s prog, multi-instrumentalist Rob Reed has created in Beneath the Waves something that feels both timeless and new. You May Also Like: No related posts.

Back when I compiled my “Best” Guitarists list, my hope was to reframe the discussion, making people see that there are different ways of evaluating talent. The good news is that most folks seemed to get the idea. You May Also Like: Linda and Richard Thompson, “The Great Valerio” (1974):Read More

It doesn’t happens very often (and too bad for that!), but there are times when you hear a piece of music, a guitar, or a voice for the first time and the whole world seems to drop away for that moment. You May Also Like: Richard Davies – ‘Cosmic Odyssey’Read More

An uplifting shard of Celtic sunlight amidst the shivery glimmerings of winter, Jennifer Cutting’s rousing Song of Solstice is garland of emerald-island legacy pieces, serenely beautiful carols and majestic folk songs — all performed with age-old instrumentation of accordion, fiddle, whistle and bagpipes. Themes focus not just on the joysRead More

By Nick DeRiso At once neo-renaissance, new age and something akin to blissed-out bluegrass, Erwilian’s holiday-themed concert recording Midwinter’s Night neatly sidesteps the pre-conceived notion of sickly sweet Yuletide fare. Midwinter’s Night, instead, is a concert souvenir from warm night of remembrance, affection and camaraderie – sparked by these friendly-as-familyRead More

NICK DERISO: Sequencing an album by the New Orleans-based Irish folkie Beth Patterson must be like trying to make sense of a series of radio stations. The first track on her debut solo CD was a classic reel, one of those familiar yet still luminous moments with the swirling rhythmsRead More