A Year in Music – 2025 – Zoe Howe (Author)
by Killian Laher

How has your year been?

Pretty good, thank you. It’s been quite busy – an updated/revised version of my Stevie Nicks biography has just come out via Omnibus as a print edition and on Audible (narrated by yours truly in my finest telephone voice). I was also involved in another exhibition with the Thames Group of Artists, this one a response to a map of Southend’s music venues – many lost – conjured up by the legendary Kosmo Vinyl, Will Birch and Jules Balm.  I’ve been doing lots of interesting work with the Royal Literary Fund charity, who have supported writers from James Joyce to Dylan Thomas and do incredible work in the community, which is something I’m honoured to be involved in. Plus, amid a great deal of cat-wrangling, I’ve been watching a lot of Northern Exposure, a strange, clever, soft, sharp, magical programme with a huge heart from the early 90s. I am Ed Chigliak.

What albums have you enjoyed most this year?

I’ve been enjoying the dreamy output from Julianne Regan and Tim Bricheno (All About Eve), their latest album Apparitions is appropriately haunting and utterly transcendent  https://reganbricheno.bandcamp.com/album/apparitions/.

I’ve also been revisiting Steeleye Span’s Now We Are Six after many years; I love it when they bring the spookiness out of these traditional songs – what arrangers they were/are.

What’s the most promising new act you’ve heard this year?

Martha Cowan. I saw her supporting Pictish Trail at Birkenhead’s FutureYard not long ago, and she was just glorious in a gorgeous, low-key way. Huge talent!

Any gig highlights?

I saw Turin Brakes do a semi-acoustic set at Liverpool’s twinkly St Michael’s church, and they were on fabulous form and wove a truly uplifting spell.

Can you recommend an album that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves?

Can I recommend three? It’s a magic number, after all.

Fotheringay – 2: the version of ‘Gypsy Davey’ is so strange and moody, and Sandy Denny’s vocal off the chart,

Songs For A Fallow Land – Cleaners from Venus.

Candleland and Mysterio – Ian McCulloch.

What inspires you these days?

Folk music and folklore, nature, magic, memories, ghosts, cats.

Anything interesting in the works yourself?

A few things: my Rock and Roll Witch show just returned to the Soho Radio airwaves after a six-month hibernation (summer is the time to hibernate, right?). I’m back Dec 16th 6-8am to greet the dawn, and it’ll air every four weeks on Tuesdays.  I’m also developing a new kind of dark folk music project with an old comrade of mine from Southend – I used to be the drummer in his excellent band Wobbly Lamps. Since a hand injury, I drum no more, so it’s vocals only for me now, which after only ever supplying backing vocals hither and thither over the years (for artists including Viv Albertine, SheBeat and others), it’s an interesting turn.

Finally, my conservationist compadre Ajay Tegala and I have been touring our ‘Witching the Wild Year’ show here and there (where you can also hear me throwing in the odd folk song), which explores the connections between nature and folk magic throughout the year. We’re developing a book too, which will be out in 2027 via the History Press.