Our latest Mixtape gathers thirteen tracks, most of which have passed through these pages over recent months — with two new arrivals making their KLOF debut.
Kevin Morby‘s Junebug opens proceedings, drawn from his Aaron Dessner-produced Little Wide Open. Creekbed Carter Hogan‘s Cutbank of Cleves, the lead single from medieval-Americana fable Peasants Revolt, follows. Alongside them sit familiar voices — Daughter of Swords, Cinder Well (whose While the Womb Screams Silently found Amelia Baker responding to Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire), No-No Boy, and Yo La Tengo. The improvised New Dawn from Sofra Trio – Melisa Yıldırım, Merve Abdurrahmani & Hadi Hrekes – threads through the middle, taken from their debut EP “New Dawn” out today via Worlds Within Worlds.
Worth pausing on: Gregory Corso‘s For Homer is taken from DIE ON ME (Shimmy Disc), last year’s vinyl reissue – a unique compendium collecting the works of the single most underappreciated master of American poetry, produced by the late great Hal Willner. Gregory Corso died on January 17th, 2001 at the age of 70, just a few days after many of these historic recordings were completed (including the track featured: For Homer).
A welcome return for Mary Hampton, who features twice with Exultation and The Sailor’s Wife. KLOF has followed her work since the Gold Hat days back in 2013, and both tracks here are taken from Book Three, a self-recorded five-song set released on 6th May. Hampton describes the collection as four traditional songs — two of them adapted from the French — plus a poem setting, gathered around the theme of contact: “with others, with the world, with oneself”. She heads out on a seven-date UK tour from 27th May to 2nd June, sharing double bills with La Cozna — over from France for their first UK shows — with stops in London, Brighton, Bristol, Lowick Green, Sheffield, Sowerby Bridge and Rotherham.
Two names make their first KLOF appearance.
Leipzig-based multi-instrumentalist Damian Dalla Torre contributes Longitude from forthcoming album People Pleaser, due 12th June via Squama. Dalla Torre — whose previous record I Can Feel My Dreams was named The Guardian‘s #1 Contemporary Album of 2024 — builds the record around a guitar-led core ensemble alongside collaborators including Bertram Burkert and Laura Zöschg, with field recordings captured between Leipzig, Kobe and an Italian mountain residency at 2,500 metres folded into the texture.
Mongolian musician and sound artist Ts Bayandalai contributes Bird of Wind, taken from Wind of Oirat — his full-length debut on Night Defined Recordings, following the acclaimed 2020 EP Kimel. Raised in a nomadic family on the Mongolian steppe, Bayandalai builds his music from traditional Mongolian instruments and song, threaded through with influences from experimental music and post-rock, and rooted in the myths and landscapes of his homeland.
Closing the mixtape, Jeff Parker‘s ETA IVtet stretch out on Like Swimwear, the side-length opener of new album Happy Today, out today on International Anthem (15th May). Recorded live at the Lodge Room in Los Angeles in August 2025 with drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson, it’s the quartet’s third album as a unit and their first recorded outside the now-shuttered Highland Park micro-club ETA — the seven-year Monday-night residency that gave the band its name and its sound. Like Swimwear is a textbook example of that sound: a long, patient, communal pull on a single idea until it shifts.
Press play, settle in, and let the running order do its work.
Playlist
00:00 Kevin Morby – Junebug
03:25 Creekbed Carter Hogan – Cutbank of Cleves
05:41 Damian Dalla Torre – Longitude
12:58 Mary Hampton – The Sailor’s Wife
18:27 Daughter of Swords – Willow
21:54 Cinder Well – While the Womb Screams Silently
26:28 Melisa Yıldırım, Merve Abdurrahmani & Hadi Hrekes – New Dawn (improvisation)
32:19 Gregory Corso – For Homer
35:13 Yo La Tengo – Sinatra Drive Breakdown
42:32 No-No Boy – Nothing Left But You
46:30 Ts Bayandalai – Bird of Wind
54:03 Mary Hampton – Exultation
55:52 Jeff Parker, ETA IVtet – Like Swimwear