There’s still a bit of 2019 to come but Recorded Music NZ has announced the three finalists for the Best Folk Tui 2020.

Mel Parsons is once again in the running to win Te Kaipuoro Taketake Toa, alongside Kiwi singer/songwriter Victoria Vigenser & Lindsay Martin and husband-and-wife duo Paper Cranes. The award ceremony will take place at the 2020 Auckland Folk Festival on 26 January.

Recorded in LA with famed producer Mitchell Froom, Mel Parson’s fourth studio album ‘Glass Heart’ was a finalist for the 2019 Taite Music Prize and saw her get into the last 20 for this year’s APRA Silver Scroll Award. Both her debut and sophomore album (‘Over My Shoulder’ and ‘Red Grey Blue’) were finalists for Folk Album of the Year.

Kiwi singer Victoria Vigenser and Australian producer and composer Lindsay Martin first met at Wellington Folk Festival, where Martin offered to help record a few of Vigenser’s gritty originals. Since then, the pair have become a staple of the Australasian festival circuit and continued to create and perform as the duo We Mavericks. A new album is planned to be released in 2020.

Husband-and-wife team Fraser and Naomi Browne are the musicians behind Paper Cranes, creating songs that ponder the meaning of life and love with captivating and dynamic live performances. Bringing in a mixture of Japanese, Swedish and Australasian influences, their latest album ‘Voices’ could be described as folk-pop.

Recent winners of the Tui for Best Folk Album

2013 – Great North
2014 – Tattletale Saints
2015 – Great North
2016 – Holly Arrowsmith
2017 – Guy Wishart
2018 – Albi & The Wolves
2019 – The Frank Burkitt Band