Various Artists - Home is Where the Art Is (15 Years of Reveal Records) | Album Review | Reveal | Review by Allan Wilkinson | 01.01.21 A rather generous overview of Reveal Records, which features no less than 38 tracks (57 on the digital version), culled from the numerous albums released on the label since … Continue reading Northern Sky Archive 2021

1. Bert Jansch (Cambridge 2004) The first time I heard the voice of Bert Jansch, along with his distinctive guitar playing, was in the art class at Oswin Avenue School, when our new art teacher brought into class Bert’s first LP, specifically to play us the song Needle of Death. Heroin was the new number … Continue reading 50 ♂

Let’s have a little look through the photo album, starting with a collection of fifty women I’ve had the pleasure to photograph over the last fifteen years or so for the Northern Sky Reviews website. The photographs will appear one per day alternating between colour and black & white. Watch out for daily posts. 1. … Continue reading 50 ♀

Album Review | Heptown | Review by Liam Wilkinson With Neon Signs & Little White Lies there’s a palpable sense of arrival.  The Detroit-born, Denmark-raised singer songwriter J. Tex has been steadily evolving over the last two decades and, whilst the albums he made with his band The Volunteers each offered a tantalising glimpse of … Continue reading J. Tex – Neon Signs and Little White Lies

Album Review | Rocksnob | Review by Allan Wilkinson This fine debut album by singer songwriter (and actor) Alexander Ellis, otherwise ‘Our Man In The Field’, demonstrates confidence both in the writing and in the delivery.  There’s something of a David Gray detectable in Ellis’s vocal delivery, which works well, especially when accompanied by the … Continue reading Our Man in the Field – Company of Strangers

Book Review | Borthwick Press | Review by Allan Wilkinson With a dedication to the late Edward Tudor ‘Ted’ Crum, a victim of COVID 19 and a friend to some of the contributors to this collection of poems and illustrations, Viral Verses is a gathering of empathetic writers and illustrators, each with a shared vision … Continue reading Viral Verses – Art in Exceptional Times

Album Review | Haystack Records | Review by Allan Wilkinson Celebrating ten years together as a fine a cappella quartet, The Teacups present their third and sadly their final album, as Alex Cumming, Kate Locksley, Will Finn and Rosie Calvert call it a day.  Having met at Newcastle University, where the four singers were studying … Continue reading The Teacups – In Which

Album Review | Self Release | Review by Allan Wilkinson Like a lot of debut albums by gifted musicians who’ve already spent many years honing their craft, Chris Gray’s self-titled inaugural effort is brimming with musical dexterity, ingenuity and expressiveness throughout.  The Lockerbie-born multi-instrumentalist and composer places his inventive whistles and Pipes very much in … Continue reading Chris Gray – Chris Gray

Album Review | Outhere Records | Review by Allan Wilkinson The debut album by the Accra-based eight-piece collective Santrofi, meaning a rare bird in Akan mythology, captures the dynamism and energy of their live set, seen by many last year at some of Europe’s biggest international festivals, including WOMAD (UK) and WOMEX (Finland).  Absorbing the … Continue reading Santrofi – Alewa