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Katy Kirby: Blue Raspberry
New album: Following 2021’s strong debut Cool Dry Place, the Texas singer-songwriter returns with another collection of intelligent, sharply observed numbers with beautiful clarity of voice, fine balance of instrumentation, unflinching honesty, great turn of phrase, and powerful melodies
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Favourite LPs of 2023, Part 2.
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 2, and Part 1 was yesterday. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order …
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Part 1 selection of 2023 favourite albums
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 1, and Part 2 is also out here. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order. This is all about quality and innovation …
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@: Mind Palace Music
New album: A hidden gem released earlier in 2023 by duo Philadelphia guitarist Victoria Rose and Baltimore musician Stone Filipczak brings rich vocal harmonies and beautiful profound folk-pop
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Neil Young
New album: An affecting, intimate and novel release by the veteran Canadian singer-songwriter with a non-stop acoustic rendition of 13 of his own favourite songs spanning his career and comprising the unpredictable and lesser known
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Alex Nicol: Been A Long Year Vol 1 & Vol 2
New album: Two EPs forming one LP, this gorgeously paced, subtle country-inflected alt-folk release by the Montreal singer-songwriter brings his pure, high, haunting voice with poignantly vivid, droll lyrics about the self and the external world
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Wilco: Cousin
New album: A 13th LP by Jeff Tweedy and co of the veteran Chicago band, this time with the innovative Welsh artist Cate Le Bon as producer, bringing a more experimental sound than last year’s alt-country double LP Cruel Country, and something more reminiscent of 2001’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
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Margo Cilker: Valley of Heart's Desire
New album: A warmly comforting, toe-tapping, reflective, engaging Americana follow-up to 2021’s acclaimed debut Pohorylle album by the California-raised singer-songwriter, packed with stories and vivid images
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Allison Russell: The Returner
New album: Following 2021’s Outside Child, a second excellent solo album by the Nashville-based Montreal-raised singer-songwriter and activist from the band Po’ Girl, Birds of Chicago and Our Native Daughters, with charming but emotively poignant Americana, folk, soul, gospel and pop
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Mitski: The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
New album: With one of the purest voices around, a sublime seventh album by the Japanese-American artist – slow, powerful, dreamy country-flecked pop with orchestra, themed around troubled love and coloured with animal-themed metaphors
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Buck Meek: Haunted Mountain
New album: The New York-based, Texas-bred singer/songwriter and Big Thief guitarist returns with a beautiful third solo album of sensitive, moving, melodious alt-country, Americana and folk rock
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Hiss Golden Messenger: Jump For Joy
New album: Rich storytelling, engaging melodies, subtle humour and perfect, gentle pacing out this strong, highly enjoyable loosely concept album of Americana, country and folk by the North Carolina five-piece led by MC Taylor
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Rhiannon Giddens: You're The One
New album: The Greensboro-raised singer-songwriter and brilliant banjo player of Carolina Chocolate Drops and Our Native Daughters returns with her first solo album for six years, for the first time mostly originals, continuing her focus on black culture reclamation of catchy, soulful country and Americana
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Margaret Glaspy: Echo The Diamond
New album: Classy, emotive, mature songwriting with a stripped back, indie-rock guitar sound by the New York-based artist, and her third LP, self-produced with her partner, the guitarist/composer Julian Lage
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Bonnie Prince Billy: Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You
New album: A sublimely beautiful, poetic, delicate and profound new LP by American singer-songwriter Will Oldham, his first since 2019’s I Made a Place and the collaborative albums of 2021 – Superwolves with Matt Sweeney and Blind Date Party with Bill Callahan
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Bethany Cosentino - Natural Disaster
New album: Candid, catchy, straight-up 90s-style pop-rock with a dash of Nashville and Americana and piano ballads in this debut LP by one half of LA’s Best Coast duo in an album that combines climate change metaphor with personal experience
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Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway: City of Gold
New album: Following last year’s breakthrough album Crooked Tree, brilliantly uplifting bluegrass and country by the Nashville singer-songwriter renowned for her finger-picking, again co-written by Ketch Secor from Old Crow Medicine Show and co-produced by dobro veteran Jerry Douglas
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Sam Burton: Dear Departed
New album: Very much in the mould of late 60s/ early-70s Harry Nilsson or Glen Campbell – serene, gentle, melancholy, sometimes sublime songs in this second LP by the Utah-born, LA-based singer-songwriter
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Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan
New album: The Grammy-nominated vocal harmonising duo of Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan from Eagle Rock, California, release a new collection of beautiful, bittersweet acoustic American folk of moving and vivid narratives
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Desert meets country: Tinariwen’s Amatssou
New album: A fabulous new release by the north Mali nomadic group whose distinctive Tuareg Saharan desert blues is beautifully combined with a country style, with added pedal steel and violin, and a title that is is Tamashek for ‘Beyond The Fear’
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