New album: Wonderfully energetic, rhythmic stylish, inventive and witty sixth album by the 12-piece experimental Geneva collective who sing politically in French and English, their music decorated with oodles of of clever brass, violins, double-bass, marimbas, percussion and more
Read moreFie Eike: Water
New album: A delicately beautiful distillation through fluid subject in different contexts by the Copenhagen-based artist composer and singer, Anne Sofie Strandheim Eike, with Norwegian roots, creating a soundscape from piano, electronic elements and natural field recordings
Read moreHaley Heynderickx: Seed of a Seed
New album: Delicious, intelligent, playful, gorgeous, witty folk with a country flavour by the honey-voiced Oregon singer-songwriter, packed with lyrically vivid images and perceptive, humorous lyrics, with fabulous finger-picking guitar, with added cello and trombone
Read moreFionn Regan: O AVALANCHE
New album: A gorgeous, sun-dappled, atmospheric seventh album recorded in Spain by the Irish singer-songwriter with a cinematic concept of songs of different sequences, moving backwards and forwards, and featuring actress Anna Friel on guest backing vocal
Read moreFievel Is Glauque: Rong Weicknes
New album: A beautifully quirky, unique cross-genre, melodic, meandering experimental release of surreal lyricism of jazz-folk-pop by the Belgian-US duo of Zach Phillips and Ma Clément joined by an ensemble of six other musicians
Read moreOne True Pairing: Endless Rain
New album: A strikingly beautiful new LP by the Kendal singer-songwriter aka Tom Fleming, formerly of Wild Beasts, whose tender, high voice soars and also brings hushed tones across a gorgeous set of autumnal-feel songs, accompanied by inventive sounds on various acoustic instruments
Read moreLaura Marling: Patterns In Repeat
New album: The popular British indie-folk singer-songwriter returns with her eighth studio LP, one of of gentle intricacy and delicate acoustic beauty, particularly reflecting on newly becoming a mother, as well as ideas and behaviours inherited down generations
Read moreHalf Waif: See You At The Maypole
New album: Ethereal, shimmering, poetic, sensual delicate experimental folk and synth-pop in this substantial 17-track sixth LP, following 2021’s Mythopoetics, by the New York singer-songwriter and producer Nandi Rose Plunkett, with lingering release about pain, grief, but resilience and beauty
Read moreMarysia Osu: Harp, Beats and Dreams
New album: Truly gorgeous experimental work by London’s Trinity Laban-graduate harpist of Polish parentage, who as well as conventionally rippling the strings of instrument, creatively uses it with other effects, adds sea other nature sounds with electronica, with magical sprinkles of guest vocals, cello, woodwind and percussion
Read moreGoat: Goat
New album: The mysterious masked Swedish collective return with their third LP in as many years with a heady new dose of primal prog, funk, folk and psychedelic rock sitrred in a pot of guitar pedals, flutes, drums and ritualistic-style vocals
Read moreHayden Thorpe: Ness
New album: The former Wild Beast singer’s new LP is a beautiful, experimental release inspireed by Robert Macfarlane’s book of the same name, an ode to the Suffolk coast’s mysterious ten-mile long shingle spit at Orford Ness, the now wilderness but former Ministry of Defence weapons development site
Read moreNaima Bock: Below A Massive Dark Land
New album: Wonderfully delicate, deliciously paced, lo-fi indie folk by the British artist of Greek-Brazilian heritage and former member of Goat Girl, with her second album, following 2022’s Giant Palm
Read moreMustafa: Dunya
New album: This tenderly delivered debut LP by Sudanese-Canadian performance poet, film-maker, and singer-songwriter is a hushed-voiced, acoustic form of folk, the title translated as “the world in all its flaws” in Arabic, and variously touches on religious devotion, childhood trauma, gang violence to romantic intimacy
Read moreBright Eyes: Five Dice, All Threes
New album: Equal measures of toe-tapping catchiness, poignantly sharp, intelligent lyrics, intensity, tenderness and moving melancholy come in this excellent new LP by the US indie-folk rockers fronted by singer-songwriter and guitarist Conor Oberst, and featuring guests Cat Power, The National’s Matt Berninger, with co-writing by Alex Orange Drink of New York punk band The So So Glos
Read moreNilüfer Yanya: My Method Actor
New album: Classy, effortlessly cool, experimental indie-folk-pop in this third LP the London singer-songwriter, again joined by producer and co-writer Wilma Archer in an album about identity, relationships and self-control
Read moreSusanna: Meditations on Love
New album: The experimental Norwegian singer and composer Susanna Wallumrød’s LP is a releases a striking, eccentric, beautifully bewitching collection about relationships, concentrating not on the giddy joy of falling in love, nor breakups, but the oddness in between
Read moreGillian Welch and David Rawlings: Woodland
New album: Exquisite, folk and country about turbulence and resilience by the singer-songwriter couple, with an album named after their Nashville studio wrecked by a tornado in March 2020, and their first release together for 13 years
Read moreMalice K: AVANTI
New album: Angsty but beautiful, reminiscent of the whispery, intimate style of the late, great Elliott Smith, but also the occasional punk scream eruption, this darkly mesmeric, candid, introspective indie-folk-grunge-punk LP by New York-based visual artist and songwriter Alex Konschuh is a vivid, ghostly, and deeply emotional
Read moreMilton Nascimento and Esperanza Spalding: Milton + Esperanza
New album: An inspired collaboration between the veteran 81-year-old Brazilian singer and the American jazz bassist, singer and arranger, 39, their low and high voices blending beautifully and bringing new life to the former’s old catalogue, plus covers and guests including Paul Simon and Lianne La Havas.
Read moreOrville Peck: Stampede
New album: A hugely enjoyable, mischievous, tuneful and genre-spanning LP by the South African-born openly gay but often masked country singer-songwriter, joined by an impressive array of co-performers doing original numbers and covers, including Beck, Elton John, and Willie Nelson
Read more