Young folks focuses on the best, fresh folk, acoustic, singer-songwriter indie folk & alt-country jams. Turn it up Folks!

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Samhain

‘Inner City Fox’

[alt-folk/chamber pop]

Press Notes:

Samhain is one of the exciting new breeds of UK alt-folk that includes the plain-sung power of Richard Dawson and Adem. His live show has seen him perform and record with bassist Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane and support acts like The Subways’ Billy Lunn, Amy May Ellis and Jessie Reid.

His first single ‘Let the Horses Run’ caught the attention of Warner Music, where he is now recording with Richard Woodcraft (Engineer to the likes of Neil Young, Radiohead & Arctic Monkeys.) As well as receiving support from Warner, Samhain has been championed by Dave Gileat of BBC Oxford, Brody Swain of BBC Coventry and Warwickshire and Graeme Smith of Jorvik Radio. 10 years in the making, Samhain is set to release the culmination of his life so far as the self-defined “king of the losers”.

Influenced by the likes of Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen & Radiohead, Samhain creates a unique world of poetic folk and alternative rock that’s all his own.

Zoe Zobrist

‘Oh Baby’

[singer-songwriter/acoustic/americana]

Press Notes:

Hailing from Dallas, Texas and now living in Los Angeles, singer-songwriter Zoe Zobrist crafts songs that are as personal as they are dynamic. Like many of her contemporaries, her love affair with music began at an early age. She was just 5 years old when she learned to play piano and she began writing songs only 2 years later. But her passion was fully ignited when she stumbled upon her father’s 70s-era record collection in the garage of her childhood home and fell in love with the hard-hitting choruses and memorable melodies of classic rock.

She debuted her first single in 2018 and has since gone on to rack up over 40K monthly listeners and praise from publications like Under The Radar Magazine and Culture Collide. She has also performed and toured across North America, gracing the stages of iconic music venues like The Viper Room, The Troubadour, and Dallas Fort Worth’s Six Flags Amphitheater. In 2019, she was featured in John Mellencamp’s tour documentary that played on-screen during his “John Mellancamp Show” North American Tour.

Zobrist has spent the past few years refining her sound and experimenting with different styles, ultimately leading to her unique blend of classic rock inspired indie music.

The Wonderful Nobodies

‘You Wonder’

[country/americana]

Press Notes:

The Wonderful Nobodies are a trio of singers, songwriters, and multi-instrumentalists hailing from the Appalachian region of Virginia and North Carolina. Individually, they’ve written hundreds of songs and have played on stages from the Grand Ole Opry to Carnegie Hall. However, it was a Friday night jam that made a band out of the long-time friends.

Their debut album A/B was released in June of 2020, and new music is set for release this fall.

Ciaran Whyte

‘What Good Does Worry Do?’

[folk/acoustic]

Press Notes:

Ciaran Whyte is a young multi-instrumentalist hailing from Paisley, a town with a rich cultural history. As a baby, he would pull pots and pans from the cupboards and hit them with spoons before he could walk, so it was evident that percussion was in his future. Since then, Ciaran has become a stalwart around the music scene in the West coast of Scotland. From busking regularly on the high streets of Paisley and Ayr, to playing festivals with a variety of bands spanning many genres, he has always been fully immersed in any opportunities that presented themselves.

As much as he takes pride in the projects he is involved in, Ciaran’s solo work has always held a special place in his heart, and the Covid-19 pandemic offered him a chance to really focus on developing as a singer-songwriter. Renfrewshire Council’s Artist Development Grant scheme offered Ciaran a wonderful opportunity to record and release his first solo material for five years. What makes the EP stand out even more is that all the instruments were recorded by Ciaran himself, aside from a few guest slots. With 2021 looking like the light at the end of the tunnel for the music scene around the UK this talented multi-instrumentalist will hopefully get back to his busy schedule soon, and will continue to make a name for himself as a solo artist and a member of rock bands Dead by Monday and OHNOVA.

Oliver James Brooks

‘Two Best Friends’

[indie folk]

Press Notes:

Oliver James Brooks is a Toronto-based folk-rock singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from small town Ontario. For as long as he can remember, he’s been fiddling around on his dad’s old acoustic guitar and it wasn’t until about 5 years ago or so, that he started turning his “fiddlings” into songs.

Throughout the past couple of years he’s been very lucky and has had the opportunity to work alongside some great folks in the music industry, played at IndieWeek 2019, radio airplay on CBC and has been compared to the likes of Kurt Vile and Elliott Smith (two of his personal favourites) by Divide & Conquer.

His latest effort titled, Storm Chasing, is a 10-track studio album that will be released on November 12, 2021. It was written and recorded between September 2020 and February 2021 at Gavin Gardiner’s All Day Coconut studio in Toronto, Canada. Pretty much all of the sounds were captured using an old Tascam 388 8” track tape machine, with the exception of a few overdubs here and there. The album itself kind of just came together, “the initial plan was to book some time at Gavin’s studio and if all went well more time would be booked,” explained Oliver. Not before too long, 10 songs were finished up and the album existed.

Chris Ho

‘Everything Is Endlessness’

[indie folk/indie pop]

Press Notes:

Chris Ho turns everyday melancholy into a bold and empowering art form, rather than a well-kept secret. A folk-meets-indie-pop artist based in Vancouver, his music explores themes of self-expression, understanding one’s identity, and gender fluidity. His music is a dynamic blend of raw, earthy acoustics with idyllic indie-pop melodies and poetically charged vocals.

Ho has independently released one EP (Answers, 2011) and two full-length albums (City of Dust, 2012; Places You’ve Been, 2017), as well as toured throughout Western Canada (having slept in his old Toyota Camry on more occasions than he’d like to admit). Having received funding through FACTOR Canada’s Artist Development Grant, Ho released the new single “Borrowed Books”, and will be releasing two more singles alongside official music videos in the fall and winter of 2021, followed by an EP release in the spring of 2022.

Mick Mullin

‘Bristol 1927’

[country/bluegrass]

Press Notes:

Mick Mullin is a plainspoken storyteller making original music steeped in country and gospel traditions. Nashville born and raised, he’s the son of a Kentucky coal miner’s daughter and a Tennessee Bible editor—naturally his first taste of music came in the form of Baptist hymnals. His second album Mullin’ It Over is a diverse set of vignettes digging deep into the soil of the American roots music tradition. Throughout, he contemplates his life up to this point: his choices, his mistakes, and his redemption. 
 Mullin’ It Over represents his growth both as a person and as a songwriter starting with his 2019 debut Music City Miracle. While the stories told are fictional, the experiences informing them are not, including his struggle with alcoholism and the renewed faith which saved his life. It’s a mature, forthright blend of country, gospel and bluegrass, hard truths, painful losses, back alleys and church pews. Throughout, Mullin is the unlikely hero at the center, radiating scruffy charm and most of all, sincerity. “I would rather be rejected for who I am than accepted for who I’m not,” he says, freely admitting that might not win him any popularity contests. “I’ve decided to carry the torch of original country and roots songwriting to tell the story of where I’ve been and who I am now because of it. I sing in dive bars and honky tonks on Saturday night and help lead worship in church on Sunday morning with the same flat top guitar.”

Don Ivy

‘3am’

[folk/indie pop]

Press Notes:

My name is Don Ivy (formerly Tropico Don), I am 32 years old and I am a singer/songwriter from Manchester, UK. I am also a bit of a nomad with a pretty unique life style, I often go travelling for months at a time, but also have a pretty serious job working in mental health.

As a child, I instinctively knew I would grow up to make music, but unfortunately I kind of lost my way and I settled for a conventional career and socially “normal” life instead.

As I approached my 30th birthday, I just couldn’t stand the sadness and deep dissatisfaction that had haunted me throughout my 20s any longer. In March 2018 I embarked on a spiritual journey that lead me to Peru. I had a profound and life changing experience whilst staying in the amazon rainforest and I knew that things just had to change.

I thought that life would end for me at 30. Now I see it has only just begun.

The music I kept locked away inside all of these years is now pouring out of me. It feels so good to be able to take that vulnerability I have always felt and be able to do something productive with it. My music is about creating a space for other people to feel safe to be vulnerable too.

I prefer to call myself a story teller, and provide the audience in a fully immersive experience, that translates my own feelings as much as possible (and therefore touches their own). I do this by creating music videos with footage I have usually captured from my own real life experiences, and I often include samples of conversations that have happened, and poetry I have written, within my productions.

Me Auld Flower

‘Electricity Comes to the Black Valley’

[indie folk/chamber pop]

Press Notes:

Me Auld Flower is a songwriter living and recording in the wilderness of Connemara in the west of Ireland.

‘Fr. Griffin Avenue’ and ‘Electricity Comes to the Black Valley’ are Me Auld Flower’s first new music since last year’s album ‘The Vaults of Consciousness’, and a harbinger of its sister album ‘The Vaults of Consciousness, Volume II’.

Luke Beling

‘The Way Back’

[indie folk/alternative pop]

Press Notes:

Born and raised on South Africa’s Sunshine Coast, Luke Beling left home at 19 and traveled the world.

Beling’s indie-folk songs are deep pockets of hope, whispers of joy blown in by a wild wind. He currently resides on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Compiled by: Christos Doukakis