“Made In Senegal” is Orchestra Baobab’s first album in over ten years, out October 23rd on Strut/Madoky. Second single “Ana Maria” was written by the late Rudy Gomis for the grandmother who alone supported his career in music, drawing on Casamance Creole imagery to send the wind as a messenger between generations.

Prairiewolf’s “Zone Poems” blurs the line between studio recording and live album, its material cherry-picked from 2025 sets in Crestone and Denver, then layered, manipulated and rearranged. Each decision is discerning, the sound never overcrowded. Previously made recordings have been examined, forensically operated on and crafted into a precise, clean set of songs that captures a trio’s energy.

Elanor Moss has shared “Fixer”, the final single before her debut album “The Knife, The Needle”, out 21st August on Merge Records. It opens the album and gives it its name, the chorus turning a knife into a needle that might stitch the wound instead. The video is by H. Hawkline.

Richard Thompson will release his 20th studio album, “Hippies, Thugs and Heroes”, on October 16th via New West Records, and has shared the first single, “Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking” — a hustling London song carried by strutting, raw-nerve riffs. Recorded live in New Jersey with his touring band, the album is, in his words, “less them and more me”.

The Powers Ensemble share the mutant DNA of Will Oldham, “Astral Weeks” and Robbie Basho, and there’s a freshness to “Kindling” which is disarming but also makes your blood sing with recognition. Each song captures a communal rush of discovery — messy ecstasy achieved with flair and concision.

Clara Mann has announced her second album, “Wishbone”, out 23rd October via state51, and shared the lead single and video “News From Home”. Produced by Fabian Prynn in Norfolk, it follows 2025’s “Rift” — where that debut sat in a single strange, isolated shade of blue- “Wishbone” is built on contrast. A UK and European tour runs from September.

This week’s Monday Morning Brew features new tunes from M.G. Boulter & Jenny Sturgeon, Alex Dupree, Colin Stetson & Brighde Chaimbeul, Bitichin Bajas, Cinder Well, Minna, Jeffrey Silverstein, Le Ren, Ben McElroy, Jackson Hoyt & Kaia Kater, Karine Polwart, The Deep Dark Woods and more.

Eliza Carthy pays tribute to Martin Carthy on her new single ‘Mr Sits in the Dark’, out today on Hem-Hem Records and accompanied by a video created by Marry Waterson. Her new album, Frenemies, will follow in the Autumn, featuring special guests, including Jools Holland, Robyn Hitchcock, Miranda Richardson, and more, with a special album launch party at Dingwalls on October 22nd.

KLOF No. 91 gathers fourteen tracks from albums we’ve been reviewing: Kevin Coleman’s “K.C. Blues”, Dan Haywood and Harvey Lord’s “Ten Signs”, Creekbed Carter Hogan’s “Peasants Revolt”, Cinder Well’s “A Blooming Body” and Nick Granata’s debut “My Heart is Running Backwards!…”. Martin Carthy returns from the “Along The Road Forever” boxset, live at Sidmouth in 1978, plus The Modern Folk, Andrew Weathers, Tucker Zimmerman and Stella Kola.

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.

Kevin Coleman’s “K.C. Blues” is happy to sweep through styles and moods, bringing in experimental folk, Americana and blues over six tracks and forty minutes. Made in bedrooms and basements, it is looser and more open-ended than “Imaginary Conversations”, each musician seamlessly contributing to a coherent sound. An exciting, impressive album that rewards deep listening.

Samuel Blaney created “Island Rains” in moonlit reverie on the west coast of Ireland, with Adem Ilhan and Neil MacColl colouring the songs without ever overwhelming them. You can hear the influence of a life pared back to essentials, and a tangible sense of how tending something small becomes a way of steadying yourself against the wider world.