Launched in 1999, Songlines is the leading magazine covering traditional, contemporary, folk and fusion music from around the world. Each edition is packed with the latest album reviews, artist interviews, festival profiles and travel adventures from every corner of the globe. Music is about culture, politics, history and the environment and Songlines is your essential guide to it all.

If you’re new to Songlines, download our Aug/Sept 2014 issue (#102) for free. Features include an interview with Afrobeat pioneers Tony Allen & Orlando Julius, as they both celebrate 50-year careers with new albums.

There is also an interview with Scottish author, avid music consumer and vinyl addict Ian Rankin, who speaks to Jo Frost (Songlines editor) about how he’s always willing to take a punt on new music, especially if there’s a good story behind it.

Also featured in the trial issue: a feature on Israeli musician Idan Raichel and his collaboration with Malian musician Vieux Farka Touré; Malian jeli singer Kassé Mady Diabaté; and violinists Anna Phoebe and Jyotsna Srikanth. We also pick our Essential 10 Afrobeat albums that you must own, plus Chris Moss provides a Beginner’s Guide to salsa superstar Rubén Blades.

The August 2026 issue (#220) of Songlines is out now. We are in conversation with Lila Downs, who talks about grief, new love and reclaiming her own voice on Cambias Mi Mundo. We travel to Belize to meet the Garifuna Collective, the ensemble continuing the legacies of Andy Palacio and Aurelio Martínez while keeping the music of the Garifuna people moving forward.

We hear the extraordinary story of Jocelyn Balu, the Kinshasa-born singer reviving Congolese rumba in the spirit of his mentor, Papa Wendo. Our Beginner’s Guide is devoted to Sinn Sisamouth, the ‘Elvis of Cambodia’, whose voice defined the country’s Golden Age before it was silenced by the Khmer Rouge. We talk to Barrington Levy, the reggae powerhouse still in commanding voice five decades on, about this summer’s WOMAD appearance. We join Rattling Ark, the Dublin group placing the cello at the heart of Irish traditional music.

And we visit Adrian Younge at his Linear Labs studio, where the Jazz Is Dead co-founder imagines a Ghanaian dream of American disco on Afro-Disco Makossa. Elsewhere, Laura Risk contemplates a century of ‘staged veillées’ in Québec, and the line between commodified nostalgia and living tradition, in Field of Research; we tell the story of WOMAD through the places it has called home – from Carlyon Bay to its new base at Neston Park – in Fireside Stories; Mendoza trio Usted Señalemelopick their Essential 10 Argentine Classics, from Carlos Gardel to Mercedes Sosa; scientist, musician and author Daisy Fancourt reflects on how music shapes our health and wellbeing in My World; and Paul Bowler traces ‘Utrus Horas’ with Orchestra Baobabfor Songbook, following the song from Guinea-Bissau protest anthem to the band’s rebirth.

There’s also Ladysmith Black Mambazo, AnExperience Festival, Sir Richard Bishop, BITOI, Six Shooter Records, Yegor Zabelov, Gorillaz, Fête de la Musique and Iuri Passos – plus all the usual news, listings, reviews, competitions and so much more. 

Subscribers will also receive our accompanying compilation (CD + digital) featuring ten tracks from the best new music releases and five bonus ‘Pentangle-influenced’ selections to accompany the issue.