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Conchúr White: Swirling Violets
New album: Gorgeously sensitive, intimate, uplifting, grounded but dream-like folk-pop debut by the singer-songwriter from County Armagh, with blissful but pointed songs of a mystical, spiritual, existential and relatable nature
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Emma Gatrill: Come Swim
New album: Deliciously gentle, subtle, clever and beautifully original alternative folk by the Brighton-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist on a third LP that includes guests Kate Stables and Rozi Plain from This Is The Kit and Conor O’Brien from Villagers
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Marika Hackman: Big Sigh
New album: This visceral, hypersensitive, alternative folk-pop fourth album by the Hampshire-born singer-songwriter digs deep and dark into the psyche through personal crisis and relationship trauma as one of her best to date
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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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Joanna Sternberg: I've Got Me
New album: Another retrieved treasure from earlier this year, released in June, of gentle, witty, melancholy intimate self-deprecatory folk numbers by the New York singer-songwriter who exudes a old-school charm
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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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Soema Montenegro: Círculo Radiante
New album: The Argentinian singer, poet-shaman and social activist’s fifth album brings out her powerful, passionate voice with a backdrop of traditional folk alongside electronica in a beautiful, entrancing release radiant with the sun and South American music
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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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Harp: Albion
New album: Ethereal, evocative, alternative folk, bathed in flutes and acoustic guitars, in this beautiful debut by the former Midlake singer Tim Smith and his wife Kathi Zung, covering a range of emotions, and bucolic, mountain images
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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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The Polyphonic Spree: Salvage Enterprise
New album: The Dallas, Texas choral-folk-rock ensemble fronted by Tim DeLaughter return with a first set of originals since 2014’s Psychphonic , here with a bright, uplifting, evocative return that characteristically echoes the gentle psychedelia of Pink Floyd and The Flaming Lips
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Bas Jan: Back To The Swamp
New album: This third album by the quartet fronted by singer and harpist Serafina Steer, is another wittily droll, darkly humorous collection about love and modern life’s absurdities and mundanities, with influences from The Pet Shop Boys, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Kate Bush, Heaven 17 and even a referential shake of Salt N Pepa
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Anjimile: The King
New album: A breathtaking, beautiful, powerful, intimate fifth album by the American experimental folk singer Anjimile Chithambo whose rich, rangey, deep and high voice has an alluring androgyny, somewhere between Nina Simone and Sufjan Stevens
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Beirut’s Zach Condon at the Norwegian church organ
New album: A joyous, tremulously beautiful, restorative new LP by New Mexico’s Zach Condon, the title after old wooden church on the Norwegian island of Hadseløya from which he recovered his physical and mental health after pre-Covid career-threatening throat problems
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King Creosote: I DES
New album: Fife’s Kenny Anderson returns with his first solo LP for seven years, a glorious, delicate warm, eccentric release of indie-folk, vibraphones, accordions, e-bows, samplers, ungulates, scratched records and wine glass-drones
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Cody Pepper: Chemical Oasis
New album: An alluring, eclectic, eccentric jazz-pop electronica LP by the London-based singer-songwriter and Zebrah flautist Pauline Janier who brings a diverse set of sounds and musicians into this enthrallingly odd release
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Bex Burch: There Is Only Love and Fear
New album: Charming eccentric, experimental debut by the Leeds-raised Berlin-based composer, percussionist, producer and instrument maker whose LP conjures up delicate, rhythmic African-inflected jazz-folk-traditional magic with variety of acoustic-instrument collaborators alongside her very own handmade xylophone
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Bombay Bicycle Club: My Big Day
New album: The London indie band fronted by Jack Steadman return with an expansive, playful, humorous. experimental new album across a catchy range of styles, folky pop but also into psychedelia that at times echoes The Flaming Lips
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Nitin Sawhney: Identity
New album: The acclaimed British-Asian musician returns with a powerful LP themed very much as titled, and spurred by burning issues over how immigrants are portrayed, presents 17 tracks on different sides of heritage, sense of self, belonging and multiculturalism, with an impressive set of guest singers and rappers
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