Folk & Honey, Sonic Blooms: UK Alt-Folk & New Roots Rising Deluxe CD

FEATURING TRACKS BY BROOKE SHARKEY, LEONIE EVANS, THE NIGHTJAR, LOW CHIMES, NED ROBERTS, JINWOO AND MANY MORElsquoSonic Bloomsrsquo is a double album compilation of the UKs finest emerging altfolk and new roots music, on Folk amp Honey, a new label created by the UKs leading folk gig listing site. lsquoSonic Bloomsrsquo has been curated by leading altfolk promoters New Roots and features the scenersquos most exciting talent, including Brooke Sharkey, Leonie Evans, The Nightjar, Low Chimes, Jinwoo, Ned Roberts and many more. lsquoSonic Bloomsrsquo shines a light on a wonderfully diverse, vibrant scene that is happening right now, on its own terms, mostly without the backing of the media, the music industry, or the folk music establishment. Call it alternative folk, call it new roots, it pulses under the surface with word of mouth gigs in perfectly intimate venues, put together by dedicated owners and promoters everyone there for the music, everyone there to listen intently to what these young, innovative artists are creating. Though built from the ashes of a folk awareness, the flame for most of the work on this album was lit in a city setting. For many of these musicians their sound is the result of soaking up everything the metropolis throws at them. You can hear it in the easy cultural mix of English and French in Brooke Sharkeys Faces, Robert Chaneys noir city tales, the urban electronics that underpin Sisikas Routes, Adam Beatties story of what it is to be an immigrant in the city.This music is fearless and fiercely intelligent, led neither by fast changing fashion nor the rules of tradition these are independent artists with independent voices. Its curious and openminded you can hear the hunger for pushing boundaries in the progressive jazz spices that flavour Leonie Evans and Low Chimes, the anthemic pop choruses that lift Ferris amp Sylvester and Tobias Ben Jacob, the repetitive rhythms that subtly echo Detroit techno and systems music in Firefly Burning and Mishaped Pearls, and the uncategorisable postfolk of Jinnwoo and The Nightjar. These artists are deeply linked, many play on each others songs, share a producer, a studio, a stage, shared experience. Each has their own strength of vision, a DIY ethic that links back to traditional folk music. Theyre the children of the original indie generation, the first flowerings of punk and independent culture that shook up the late 70s amp 80s. This musical movement is not just limited to the twenty artists on this album, there are many more British musicians performing and recording boundarypushing altfolk. Rather, lsquoSonic Bloomsrsquo is a snapshot of an emerging scene that merits a little time in the spotlight