When I hit play on the Deemon Diamonds Community Choir and their latest offering "Now Christmas Can Begin", I wasn't expecting the sudden urge to check the locks on my front door—not out of fear, but out of a latent, dusty anticipation I haven't felt since I was six years old. https://open.spotify.com/track/4iURbAzzxDLsHch1fKXm36?si=d6fb496a3b4346d6 This collective from Barrow-in-Furness has constructed something curious here. Musically, it is a blanket...

You hear the first strike of the drum and instantly know this is not a history lesson. Folk music often gets treated with too much reverence, placed carefully on a pedestal where no one can touch it. Remon Nakanishi takes a completely different approach. He grabs these centuries old communal songs, drags them into the studio, and surrounds them with some of the most infectious...