Biita Houdei’s solo debut “This Bed Was Made For Me” challenges quickfire disposability head-on. She sewed a patch for each of its fourteen songs, then recorded them over ten full, back-to-back days. The result exudes personality and feeling, a testament to the slow process and the commitment and patience required to create a complete work of art.

Jason McNiff talks through his latest album, Ten Blue Songs, which was recorded and produced live by Trevor Moss. Clarinet, double bass, piano, and violin accompany him on an album whose influences include Italo Calvino, Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, and guitar legend Davy Graham. “This album is evidence of our working life and couldn’t exist without the gigs”.

Fermanagh-born, Dublin-based composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist RÓIS, aka Rose Connolly, has signed to Domino Records. Her critically acclaimed 2024 album, MO LÉAN, will be reissued globally – remastered with a brand-new track, “PORT NA H-EALA”. Watch her performing “WHAT DO YOU SAY (LIVE FROM A WAKE)”.

Smithsonian Folkways will reissue Michael Hurley’s 1964 debut “First Songs” on vinyl on November 6th. Frederic Ramsey Jr. originally recorded it at home in New Jersey on the reel-to-reel machine he used for Lead Belly’s Last Sessions. Mike Monseur has remastered it, and it comes in the original black gatefold. Watch the video for his classic ‘The Werewolf Song’, which was animated by Hurley’s friend Drew Christie.

Mayo Thompson’s “Quiet Days in Cliché” is his first solo guitar album and his first solo record in fifty-six years. Out December 4th on Drag City, it was recorded on a smartphone. Mayo calls it just some strumming and notes to self. Drag City call them “acoustic improvisations that draw threads through space, looking for what more could happen.”

We caught up with Marisa Anderson at End Of The Road and chatted about her latest album, The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music; how she talked her way into accessing Harry Smith’s final record collection; and how, while recording the album, she chose to stay pretty close to the source material: “I wanted to learn from the material rather than impose myself on it.”

Digressions #4 – Living Slow EP is the latest in John Blek’s series of download-only releases available via Bandcamp. From the minstrel-folk-mottled opener to the piano-waltzing closer, it’s a sublime and moodily atmospheric offering.

Jake Blount’s “Single-Footing Horse” has him coming full circle, returning to the old-time mountain music played by Appalachian string bands that first nurtured him. It’s a joyous and technically brilliant batch of tunes, every bit as potent – and, in a way, just as experimental – as his earlier forays into afrofuturism.