Your Custom Text Here
The album cover, one of several paintings by Ghanaian movie poster artist Daniel Anum Jasper
New album: Stevens’ new collaborative album with fellow songwriter brings two complementary voices and talents together with light, melancholy and beautiful numbers that are all inspired by a diverse set of feature films
Read more
Le Ren aka Lauren Spear
New album: Beautifully assembled tapestry of gentle, sensitive, personal songs about different relationships with mothers, lovers, and friends by Montreal singer-songwriter Lauren Spear who sings with refreshingly candid clarity and directness
Read more
Shannon Lay’s firth solo album Geist
New album: As shown by the single Rare To Wake, profiled earlier this year, this fifth solo album by the LA singer-songwriter brings beautifully written songs performed with acoustic restraint, rich vocal harmonies and maturity
Read more
Pokey LaFarge
New album: After 2020’s mischievously dark Rock Bottom Rhapsody, Illinois-born Andrew Heissler returns with his cherry-picking persona of Americana styles with a bright, clever and upbeat assortment of 1930s jazz, country, Hawaiian, calypso, folk and New Orleans R&B shuffle
Read more
The Specials perform a wide variety of well-chosen covers
New album: Uplifting, cleverly chosen and beautifully performed, the great Coventry band return with an album of timeless covers from folk to blues and ska, recorded during lockdown and perfectly reflecting the urgency of the times without being dogmatic
Read more
Bess Atwell
New album: Intimate, intelligent and gorgeously beautiful in voice and writing, the now Brighton-based folk singer-songwriter's LP is exquisitely performed with piano, guitar and gentle orchestration, reminiscent of Marika Hackman and Julia Jacklin
Read more
Spencer Cullum's Coin Collection
New album: An exquisite album, hauntingly beautiful by the London singer-songwriter and pedal steel guitarist re-located to Nashville is reminiscent of Nick Drake with added, electric guitar, organ, keyboards, flute and light percussion with a Tennessee twang
Read more
Local Valley
New album: This fourth solo album by the Swedish-Argentinian indie folk singer-songwriter and guitarist is filled with beautiful stillness, gentle intimacy and acoustic playing, birdsong, a wonder of nature, and sense of how tiny we are in a vast universe
Read more
The second LP by Big Red Machine
New album: Featuring guests including Fleet Foxes and Taylor Swift, an attractive second LP of mellow indie-folk by the band formed by The National’s Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver, and named after the dominant 1970s Cincinnati Reds baseball team
Read more
Bleachers - aka Jack Antonoff, doing his best Springsteen look
New album: Super pop producer Jack Antonoff releases a very personal album inspired by his New Jersey upbringing, and features his hero and big influence – Bruce Springsteen – as well as guests Lana Del Rey and string arrangements by St Vincent
Read more
Kristin Hayter aka Lingua Ignota
New album: An astonishingly intense, beautiful but at times disturbing journey into the heart of extreme Christian faith by Kristin Hayter who explores puritanism via relocation to rural Pennsylvania, expressed through the prism of piano, organ, Appalachian strings, drone, and above all, her extraordinary voice
Read more
Ishmael Ensemble
New album: Excellent, evocatively fluid follow-up to 2019’s A State of Flow by the Bristol band of Pete Cunningham and co whose mix of harp, saxophone, upright bass, vocals, percussion and more create a mesmeric mix of electronica, folk and jazz
Read more
Animal is the second LUMP album by Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay
New album: With a suite of exquisite sounds from flutes to the soft thunk of bass and ethereal vocals, the second album by Laura Marling and Tunng’s Mike Lindsay is a little more stripped back than the first, but still brings otherworldly beauty
Read more
Clairo’s new album - Sling
New album: Willow-the-wisp delicately soft and profoundly beautiful, this second LP by Massachusetts singer-songwriter Claire Cottrill, 22, has refined her bedroom indie pop of 2019’s acclaimed debut album Immunity for something more akin to Elliott Smith or Sufjan Stevens
Read more
Stephen Fretwell is finally getting busy again …
New album: Very welcome fourth album by the Scunthorpe guitarist-singer-songwriter after a 14-year-old absence with a life “song cycle of sorts,” sensitive, quiet and eloquent exploring fatherhood, grief and rebirth
Read more
MC Taylor aka Hiss Golden Messenger
New album: This LP of Bob Dylanesque country Americana by the North Carolina singer-songwriter MC Taylor offers a gentle set of songs that gentle protest about how society is tacitly controlled, but mixed with the desire and sweet moments of hope
Read more
Squirrel Flower’s Planet (i)
New album: A powerful, dark, simmering, emotional new album by the Boston-born indie-folk artist Ella Williams titled as a love letter to disaster in every form imaginable and embracing a planet in ruin, on a journey of decay and healing
Read more
Lucy Dacus
New album: Supremely sharp, personal and candid, this third solo album by the Virginia singer-songwriter and Boygenius member is a series of brilliant detailed diary entries with a dark, homicidal twist, and filled with ironic, killer lines
Read more
Consequences is Joan Armatrading’s 20th studio album
New album: Now 70, her voice is as strong as ever, and this 20th studio album in a five-decade career is filled with strong songwriting, more in the style of her 80s pop than 70s folk, but with impressive moments of emotional power
Read more
Peace or Love is KoC’s first album for 12 years
New album: The Norwegian duo of Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye return with their first LP since 2009, and fourth in 20 years with a collection of beautiful indie acoustic guitar-based folk, perfectly blended voices and barely drumbeat to be heard
Read more