It's a massive shame.

Sadly I don't think it's a temporary suspension of publication: Ian Anderson wanted to retire as editor (he'd been working the role unpaid for at least 4 years, I understand); and there isn't a magazine publisher to take it on.   

For me, the biggest loss will be fRoots' ear to the ground on the fringes of the UK and Irish folk scene. They gave press to bands like Stick in the Wheel and Lynched (now Lankum); they review lots of self-released albums...they review Musical Traditions releases... that sort of thing.

The world music coverage of fRoots does coincide a fair bit with Songlines magazine; so from the world music point of view I don't think there's quite as much as a vacuum left. But it's the off-the-radar UK folk acts that I think will suffer most from it. I don't think there are any other magazines out there giving big feature space to the tiny independant folk acts: fRoots would even put them on the cover.

It's making me think about perhaps starting a quarterly fanzine...