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Gruff Rhys: Sadness Sets Me Free, his 25th album overall
New album: The effortlessly talented Welshman, former Super Furry Animals frontman and all round nice guy returns with a gorgeously bittersweet album of wry humour and fabulous tunes inspired by the joys of writing about sad subjects
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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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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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Rolling Stones rock of ages: the diamond geezers return with polished retrospective of their career
New album: A rock dinosaurs’ indulgent dirge? Far from it. This first LP of new material by the veterans for 18 years, and perhaps their final one, goes with a bang – echoing some of their 70s rock, blues, and country infused pomp
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No hiding places: CMAT re-enters with her second album
New album: Following her acclaimed 2022 debut, Dublin’s Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson returns with luxuriant, catchy country-pop decorated with her biting, candid, self-deprecatory wit on relationship fragility, packed with highly specific pop culture or British references
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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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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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The posthumous Jamie Branch album and the third in the Fly or Die series
New album: A posthumous release for the brilliantly innovative New York Chicago-raised jazz trumpeter with punk ethic or died last year aged just 39, with wonderful experimental sounds following 2017’s Fly Or Die and 2019’s Fly Or Die II – Bird Dogs of Paradise albums
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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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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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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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James Howard: Peek-a-Boo
New album: Like a slow caress of wry beauty, a deliciously paced alt-folk-Americana debut by the English producer and multi-instrumentalist with a collection aptly described as 'twinkling like a glitterball in an abandoned dancehall’
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The Dream Machine: Thank God! It's The Dream Machine
New album: Catchy, toe-tapping, wistful, melodic and witty, the New Brighton, Merseyside band’s 60s-influenced psychedelic indie-pop has echoes of the of the LA’s and The Coral, but also draws influences from Bob Dylan, blues and country
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Spencer Cullum returns with further treasures
New album: Following 2021’s beautiful first coin collection, another delicious release of gentle 70s-style folk with light touches of country, jazz and pop by the Romford artist who has made his home in Nashville, Tennessee
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