Real Gone’s End of Year Round-Up 2022

2022 has gone extremely quickly. With most people back at work in their offices and gigs being a regular occurrence, everything has felt far more like those old pre-2020 days. Almost as if to celebrate a shift back towards “normality” (though we’re no means out of the woods with regard to viruses) lots of our favourite bands went into overdrive, and a few of them even produced albums that are up their with their finest work.

Below, you’ll find Real Gone’s ten favourite releases of 2022, along with a few others that really stood out. It really has been a great year for music; some of the stuff we’ve not included was also of a very high standard, and it really felt like there was something new to explore every week.

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REAL GONE GOES OUT: Martin & Eliza Carthy – Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate, Kent 8/9/2022

The beginning of September 2022 has been horrible. The British government has all but fallen apart, bumbling from day to day; energy prices have reached a new level of unaffordable, and the corner of Kent where the Music Hall sits, proudly but unassumingly in a seaside back street, has been battered by apocalyptic weather for what now feels like an eternity. The summer has started to feel like a distant memory. On top of that, The Queen has died. For most people – monarchists or otherwise – this has more than added to an escalating feeling of unease. Most people have no knowledge of a world without Queen Elizabath II on the throne, and somewhat predictably, the internet has quickly descended into factions, either mourning or gloating. It’s fair to say that a distraction is in order.

Tonight’s show from Martin & Eliza Carthy at Ramsgate Music Hall is the distraction we all need, but this show from the father and daughter folk duo has felt a long time coming. Originally scheduled for November 2021, it got postponed until March ’22 and then cancelled. Just as most people started to think it would never happen, it was then re-announced, and almost a year down the line – not before time – the Carthys are set to put in a most welcome appearance on a drab Thursday night.

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ELIZA CARTHY & TIM ERIKSEN – Bottle

bottleEliza Carthy has carved out a successful career to become one of Britain’s leading folk artists.  Whether tackling traditional folk music (as per 1998’s ‘Rice’), or her adding folk elements to adult contemporary music (2011’s ‘Neptune’), Carthy’s albums are often solid, thoughtful affairs.  Somewhere over the water, Tim Eriksen has made his name taking traditional American folk roots and adding his own charm, firstly as a member of Cordelia’s Dad, but also in a stripped back solo setting.   The talents of these two geographically opposed musicians comes together for the first time on 2015’s ‘Bottle’, a record that’s quite dark in places, but often rich in appeal; the largely unaccompanied talents of both folkies left to stand starkly.

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