The Latest
Alex Dupree returns on August 14th with “Talking to the Dog,” his first album since 2022’s “Thieves,” released via Oklahoma’s Scissor Tail Records. Produced by Michael Krassner and featuring Jolie Holland, it’s the work of a poet-songwriter taking Hank Williams’s offhand line somewhere stranger and more visionary. Ahead of it, he shares lead track “New Meaning.”
“Sam Carter Sings Nic Jones,” recorded live at Celtic Connections, is a faithful, generous tribute to one of the UK’s finest folk musicians. Carter knows these songs inside out, and he delivers them with a real passion, as well as the care they deserve. It’s a record that hands the tradition on, proof that the cycle of folk music and storytelling is in good health.
Luluc share “No One Else’s Pen”, the second single from their sixth album “Sweet Thief”, out 10th July on Community Music. Steve Hassett calls it a big old love song and a paean to living and loving with integrity, gratitude and presence of mind, set to a video built around printmaker Fleur Rendell’s artwork.
Shearwater share “Slugs In The Marigolds”, the third single from “The New World”, and it’s a side of the band we’ve not heard before: slinky and carefree. Beginning mid-stride, as if caught playing in an empty warehouse, it lets Doug Wieselman’s casually beautiful saxophone summon the ghost of Roxy Music, the loose, sunny feeling playing against a darker lyric.
MMM (Gayle Brogan, Elizabeth Still, Nick Jonah Davis) provide a fascinating, deep listening experience on “Lunistice Alignments”. The record covers a lot of sonic ground, each of the six tracks occupying a very different space and mood. Somehow sounding ancient and contemporary, light and dense: MMM ask for close attention and repay it in full.
Chicago trio Black Duck and Basque musician Elena Setién announce their self-titled debut, Black Duck With Elena Setién, out August 28th via Thrill Jockey. Born from a run of improvised Spanish shows and recorded fast in Chicago, the album lands with lead single “Land of the Many Eyes” — four players conversing at the boundaries of improvisation and composition.
Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip and producer Mike Simonetti have shared their cover of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “I See A Darkness,” from the collaborative EP, out 12th June via Smugglers Way. The accompanying video, starring Taylor and David Bredin with Jarvis Cocker and Sian Ahern, plays like a televised Samuel Beckett play.
Shabason & Krgovich’s “Four Days in June” is an album of subtle, often delicate layers, borrowing from country, sophisticated AOR, laid-back jazz and chamber-pop. This is music that settles on you gently, sometimes like a fine rain or sometimes like dust — songs that patiently take stock as their creators slip into middle age. Deceptively light, wholly profound art.
Elanor Moss announces her debut album “The Knife, The Needle,” out August 21st on Merge Records, and shares the single and video “Sarah Waiting in the Car.” Across nine songs, Moss renders joy and pain in exquisite peals of psych-folk, her darkly-dreamed vignettes offering an understanding of healing as a process, rather than an object one obtains. This album is sure to be on many End-of-year lists.
KLOF Mag’s Mixtapes and Shows page now features a persistent player — two new buttons, Play and Info, let you keep listening while browsing the archive, or swap between mixes freely. Older code going back to 2010 has also been updated. With over 450 mixes in the archive and new ones added weekly, it’s a good time to explore.
Our latest Mixtape opens to Frankie Archer, whose new album, The Dance of Death, is out today. We’ve also got new music from Zoh Amba, Simon Joyner, Johnny Bell, and a big finale from Brown Wimpenny. Plus: Iona Zajac, Stein Urheim, The Modern Folk, The Deadlians, Hack-Poets Guild, Naomi Alligator, Deer Scout, Josh Kimbrough, Nora Brown, anne annie, Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell, Robert Wyatt, Maxine Funke & more.