2025

As with past compilations in this celebrated series, Imaginational Anthem vol. XIV : Ireland is a wonderfully diverse, quietly exciting set of songs. Cian Nugent, Caoimhe Hopkinson, NC Lawlor, Aonghus McEvoy, Junior Brother, Sean Carpio, David Murphy, Brenda Jenkinson, Damian O’Neil, Mark McKowski & Jerome McGlynn all make valuable contributions …

Our latest Mixtape features new music from Junior Brother, Big Thief, Thomas Dollbaum, Carson McHone, United Bible Studies, Katy Pinke & Will Graefe, Setting, Saul Williams, Carlos Niño & Friends, JJJJJErome Ellis, The Cosmic Tones Research Trio, P.G. Six and Jens Kuross.

We chat to Junior Brother, whose songs are known for veering between the intensely personal and the hotly political. On his third album, The End, the Dublin-based songwriter’s ragged and uncompromising delivery reaches new heights of unexpected beauty, strangeness and relevance. Throughout the interview, his answers to our questions were …

Big Thief’s Double Infinity was always going to be different. While it’s leaner than their last, its sonic range is wider. It is an album dedicated to corporeal impermanence, and to its flipside: love and its constant presence. It goes without saying that it’s big on ideas. It’s also big …

Carson McHone’s third album, Pentimento, is a dense, multi-faceted tapestry, with fragments of poetry, spoken verse, field recordings, pastoral folk, guitar and chamber pop, amply demonstrating the benefits of a more collaborative approach on this audacious gem that also reveals a level of sophistication, demonstrating that there are no real …

DUG, featuring Lorkin O’Reilly and Jonny Pickett, have created something that is both ancient and modern with “Have At It!,” a weird and wonderful album that takes traditional music and stands it on its ear. Their playing never falters, remaining decidedly unbeholden to the forms and functions of the past …

In a pleasantly surprising turn of events, the Mercury Prize has included folk legend Martin Carthy’s latest album, “Transform Me Then Into A Fish,” on its 2025 shortlist. This announcement, made today, marks the 84-year-old musician as the oldest artist ever nominated for this prestigious award.

Featuring Nathan Bowles, Jaime Fennelly and Joseph Westerlund, “at Public Records” is the latest live album from Setting, on which all four pieces stand out in very different ways, but together make a whole that is one hell of a listening experience. A worthy conclusion to a trio of live …

Chicago boogie-rockers Glyders announce their signing to Drag City and a new album, ‘Forever’, out November 21, 2025. The new power-trio, now featuring drummer Joe Seger, celebrates with the release of their first single and video, “Stone Shadow,” a T-Rex and new wave-influenced track promising a high-energy, good time.

With photography by Sophie Reichert, Danny Neill reports back from End of the Road, a brilliantly curated festival that still gets it right. Some of the shining highlights from a fully packed four days include Bug Club, Emma-Jean Thackray, Lisa O’Neill, Broadside Hacks & Mike Heron, Katy J Pearson, Jerron …

New York-based collective toso toso announce their self-titled debut album, and share “lluvia de meteoritos”, a lead single that upholds their album promise of an avant-pop sound that blurs the lines between structured composition and free improvisation, blending moments of furious energy with tender intimacy.

On “Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople”, the music and poetry exist symbiotically, growing out of the same physical and political landscape. Williams has a gift of kindling revolutionary thought through a sense of responsibility, to the land and to each other. It’s a message the world …

Taking its name from a street in Birmingham that a teenage Jon Wilks would busk, Needless Alley is described as a patchwork of memories and marks a more autobiographical approach to his writing after previous trad folk-inclined material. These songs from his mental attic are definitely worth exploring, and, as …

Good Times is the latest offering from Alexei Shishkin. “…pop culture, poetics, psychology and philosophy are rolled into a surreal, lumpy ball and garnished with a palatable – and memorable – indie-pop melody.” Despite Shishkin’s lo-fi beginnings and his continuing willingness to drink from the well of slacker aesthetics, Good …