[Resisting the pun ‘folking genius’]

Some years back, after our second performance at Glastonbury 2008, two of my brothers insisted I come and join them at the Park Stage to watch a set by a then relatively unknown band called Mumford & Sons.

It was a great gig (although for some reason one that I neglected to mention in my frankly riveting 2008 Glastonbury Tour Diary). My bros had been following Mumford & Sons pretty much since they started, roughly a year previously, touring around small pubs and clubs in London watching the band patiently build their fanbase. Four years later, they’ve sold 2.3 million records. You do the math (there isn’t really any math to do here; that just seemed like the appropriate thing to say).

Anyhow, news today is that the Mumfords’ second album Babel is due for release on September 25 on Glassnote. Pretty excited about this myself, as I was a huge fan of Sigh No More. The NME have released a video of them previewing a track from the next record called ‘Ghosts That We Knew’ on Philadelphia’s 104.5FM. Click here to check it out.

Best of luck to them, I say. A quintessentially English band playing quintessentially English music. And they made folk cool, which nobody saw coming.

ps. if this puts you in the mood for listening to British acoustic acts performing live on American radio, click here to listen to The Lightyears’ interview on WXPN Philadelphia.