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Contemporary Folk refers to post-Bob Dylan folk singer/songwriters of the 70s and beyond. Prior to Dylan, most folk performers interpreted classic folk songs or wrote broad-based, topical songs. After Dylan, folk singers changed their approach.
- Gregory Alan Isakov. 95 votes. Gregory Alan Isakov (born October 19, 1979) is a South African-born singer-songwriter currently based in Boulder, Colorado.
- Caamp. 112 votes. Caamp are an American folk band from Columbus, Ohio, which began as a project between childhood friends Taylor Meier and Evan Westfall, who met at a summer camp in middle school.
- The Lumineers. 121 votes. The Lumineers are an American folk rock band based in Denver, Colorado. The founding members are Wesley Schultz (lead vocals, guitar) and Jeremiah Fraites (drums, percussion, piano).
- Fleet Foxes. 45 votes. Fleet Foxes are an American indie folk band formed in Seattle, Washington in 2006. The band consists of Robin Pecknold (vocals, guitar), Skyler Skjelset (guitar, mandolin, backing vocals), Casey Wescott (keyboards, mandolin, backing vocals), Christian Wargo (bass, guitar, backing vocals) and Morgan Henderson (upright bass, guitar, woodwinds, violin, percussion, saxophone).
- Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves. Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves have each pushed folk boundaries in their own separate projects. De Groot has made a name for herself as one of the best clawhammer banjoists in Canada, and Hargreaves is a skilled fiddler who’s toured with the likes of Gillian Welch and Laurie Lewis.
- Emily Fairlight. Emily Fairlight writes both poems and lyrics, and you can tell. The New Zealand singer/songwriter makes music that feels purposefully introspective and intimate, the kind of thing you might listen to alone in the kitchen or with a few friends on the couch, but not too many friends—you’ll want to keep these sounds and words to yourself.
- Jennah Bell. Los Angeles’ Jennah Bell is not just a folk singer. She’s a master picker, yes, but her songs are heartier and brighter than your run-of-the-mill singer/songwriter ditty.
- Kaia Kater. For rising folk star Kaia Kater, embracing her heritage is one of the most important parts of storytelling. On her 2018 album Grenades, the banjo-toting singer/songwriter explores her identities as both a Canadian and Grenadian.
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- Ficino Ensemble and Michelle O’Rourke – Folk Songs
- Oki – Tonkori in The Moonlight
- Jake Blount – The New Faith
- Cerys Hafana – Edyf
- Benedicte Maurseth – Hárr
- Burd Ellen – A Tarot of The Green Wood
- Mali Obomsawin – Sweet Tooth
- One Leg One Eye – and Take The Black Worm with Me
- Fern Maddie – Ghost Story
- Angeline Morrison – The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs of Black British Experience
Italian electronic music pioneer Luciano Berio’s arrangements of traditional music from Armenia, Azerbaijan, France, Italy and the US were given bewitching new interpretations by the Irish chamber music ensemble. Michelle O’Rourke’s bright, baroque delivery alternately cossets and jolts.
A galvanising set of traditional music from a critically endangered culture in Japan performed by the excellent Oki Kano, who plays the tonkori, an arresting and stark-sounding five-stringed ancient harp. Accompanied by female singers and synthesisers, Ainu lets tunes and sounds that have been suppressed for centuries sing out. Read the review
A concept album about Black refugees living in a near-future dystopia, The New Faith is a fascinating, buzzing whirlwind of what Blount rightly calls “traditional Black folk music”, a heady mix of spirituals, gospel songs, fiddle and banjo tunes, gospel, Alan Lomax field recordings and rap. Read the review
Brilliant triple-harpist Hafana continues to dig deep to explore the possibilities of her instrument, as well as neglected corners of Welsh song that speak to our anxious present (it’s no accident that edyf is an old Welsh word for “thread”). Celtic summer carols, psalm tunes and hymns shudder gorgeously. Read the review
The deserving winner of the 2022 Nordic music prize, Hárr is Hardanger fiddle player Benedicte Maurseth’s recreation of her mountainous home territory in Norway through old tunes, droned strings and what she calls the musique concrète of her field recordings of people and animals.
Exquisite drone-folk from the relentlessly curious duo of Debbie Armour and Gayle Brogan, taking in English, Scottish and Danish ballads and a shape note hymn of the Shenandoah Valley. As they explore ideas of memory and hidden meaning, Burd Ellen’s voices and fascinating soundscapes impress.
An album combining the indigenous tunes and lyrics of the Abenaki First Nation in North America with free jazz and improvisation, this exhilarating album by a master bandleader and performer ripped apart and reassembled the ideas of how tradition is usually received – and how it should be. Read the review
Folk songs are warped and stretched into convulsing black metal shapes by Ian Lynch, a quarter of Irish band Lankum, on his thrilling solo debut. Shruti boxes, uilleann pipes and hurdy-gurdies create sounds you’d imagine being squeezed tight by My Bloody Valentine. Read the review
A sparse, striking debut from this Vermont-based singer and banjo player, whose beautiful, often unnerving delivery and crisp arrangements make ballads like Hares on the Mountain and Ca’ the Yowes sound piercingly new. Fans of lo-fi artists such as Diane Cluck and Nina Nastasia will find a new favourite here. Read the review
The dazzling culmination of an ambitious lockdown project by the Birmingham-born, Cornwall-dwelling Morrison – a gorgeous singer and multi-instrumentalist – to create a living catalogue of Black British folk song. Produced masterfully by Eliza Carthy (whose dad, Martin, also takes part), well-known ballads mix with moving originals about real Black...
Dec 20, 2021 · Photograph: Robin Little/Redferns. 8. James Yorkston and the Second Hand Orchestra – The Wide, Wide River. A gorgeous album of instrumentals recorded over three days by the Scottish singer ...
Contemporary folk music refers to a wide variety of genres that emerged in the mid 20th century and afterwards which were associated with traditional folk music. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith ...
Dec 22, 2020 · Her voice and songs hold small echoes of the work of Lisa O’Neill and Lankum, but also the sharp simplicity of alt-folk artists that emerged in the early 2000s such as Laura Veirs and Diane ...
