Portland’s Quinn Henry Mulligan is carrying on the sonic traditions of a long line of acoustic troubadours, from the 60’s folk-revivalists and coffee-shop hippies to the indie-folk blenders of the modern age. In fact the album January seems to have a foot at each end of that timeline, equally happy to deliver a soft retro-roots ballad such as Monday, Late as a fully orchestrated, cosmic Americana crescendo like okay.
It is this awareness of what has gone before that enables Mulligan to use those past traditions and classic sounds as a springboard to head into a glorious future for the folk genre. The result is an album which answers that much asked question “Where now for folk music?” without having to result to post-this and alt-that nonsense or having to dress it up in indie trappings. This is folk music in the traditional sense but also folk music for the future, music which will appeal to the generation of cool kids who have been turned on to the genre by a whole host of skinny-jeaned crossover bands, but which will also keep the traditionalists happy and even win favour with the more chart minded music.
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