KLOF No. 91 (Folk, Americana, Avant-Garde)

This week’s Mixtape features music from a number of recent album reviews, including:

Kevin Coleman’s K.C. Blues on which Glenn notes: It’s hardly surprising that K.C. Blues was created over a two-year-plus period; the music is happy to sweep through styles and moods, with each musician present able to seamlessly contribute to a coherent sound. Bringing to mind other avant-garde peers like Hayden Pedigo or Wendy Eisenberg, Kevin’s art is wide-ranging and far-reaching, demonstrating ambition and a desire to experiment and discover new ground in the acoustic instrumental guitar genre, and on this evidence there is plenty of it left.

Reviewed here by Alex Neilson, Dan Haywood and Harvey Lord‘s Ten Signs trades dizzyingly poetic lines across an album whose rhythm is particularly striking — both languorous and uptight. Spring birds twitter through the recordings; a casual charm runs throughout. Their guitar work is soulful and unpredictable, with instrumental breaks laddering between sections in a way that would have M.C. Escher shaking his head in baffled admiration.

Reviewed by Thomas Blake, Creekbed Carter Hogan’s Peasants Revolt acknowledges the possibility of an imminent apocalypse but is steeped in medieval uprisings, the Haitian Revolution, twenty-first-century trans activism and Americana. The songs are exuberant in their difference, and it’s the sudden shifts to or from the personal that make it such a unique album. A detailed American pastoral, beautiful and powerful.

Also reviewed by Thomas Blake, Nick Granata’s debut solo album, My Heart is Running Backwards! A Martial Artist! With a Closed Fist! Woof!, is an ambitious album of astonishing breadth and endless personality. A member of the Shovel Dance Collective, Granata largely plays down the wackiness of that title in favour of genuine sonic experimentation and a joyously queer heart.

and another Blake review: Cinder Well’s A Blooming Body is the closest we’ve been to witnessing Amelia Baker’s unique vision in full — her first time handling the processes behind making an album, and the greater creative control shows. Her talents have never been in doubt, but here they are more evident and more varied than ever: raw, richly detailed, full of hidden musical depths.

We’ve another Martin Carthy track from the new archival boxset release Along The Road Forever: Live at the BBC (1965-2022), which was released this month via Madfish. This time around, we’ve a live recording from Sidmouth Folk Festival (1978).

Plus tunes from The Modern Folk & Andrew Weathers‘ Five Remote Duos (2020), Andrew’s solo album Littlefield (2025), and Tucker Zimmerman feat. Big Thief, Iji & Twain, from Dance of Love (2024):

It’s not often that someone makes their best album almost sixty years into their recording career, but then again, Tucker Zimmerman is no ordinary recording artist. Where many would have used those years to attempt to emulate former glories or improve upon recent successes, Zimmerman fills his songs with the sense of starting anew. Everything about Dance of Love is fresh and spontaneous, music made on its own terms but with a spirit of collaborative generosity.   

Thomas Blake, KLOF Mag

And, originally self-released in 2023, Stella Kola, the debut album from Beverly Ketch (Jow Jow, Weeping Bong Band) and Robert Thomas (Sunburned Hand of the Man, Dalthom), now returns in a renewed edition—bringing wider attention to a record that already felt like a quietly essential artefact from the moment it first appeared. More details here: https://aguirrerecords.bandcamp.com/album/stella-kola.

Listen via Mixcloud

Playlist

1. 00:00 Kevin Coleman – 1914
2. 02:48 Dan Haywood & Harvey Lord – Fishing The Charr
3. 06:02 Creekbed Carter Hogan – Icarus Again
4. 09:42 Nick Granata – Rabbits!
5. 15:08 Martin Carthy – A May Day Song (Live At Sidmouth Folk Festival 8/78)
6. 18:55 Tucker Zimmerman feat. Big Thief, Iji & Twain – Old Folks of Farmersville
7. 23:09 Cinder Well – Shadows of Leaves on Red Brick
8. 29:39 The Modern Folk & Andrew Weathers – When the Onion Are in Bloom
9. 32:23 Cinder Well – Signals
10. 35:46 Kevin Coleman – Terrapin
11. 43:08 Stella Kola – First Fret
12. 46:12 Creekbed Carter Hogan – Peasants Revolt
13. 52:48 Dan Haywood & Harvey Lord – A Redstart
14. 56:46 Andrew Weathers – Susquehanna River