The Latest
Tried To Do’s, Jay Hammond’s second album as Trippers & Askers, follows the jazz-inflected sprawl of ‘Acorn’ with something more introverted and song-based. Shaped by acute personal grief and the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Asheville, the album turns inward without losing generosity. It’s a slow-burning, finespun record of bold sincerity and steady groundedness.
Jonathan Day returns as Jonathan Hijr Day Quartet with his new single, Cafe in the Valley of the Fire Church, born from his travels among the Amazigh and recorded at Gavin Monaghan’s Magic Garden Studios. Featuring Simon Smith on bass, Meinir Olwen on harp, Niimi Day Gough on voice and Adam Knight on vibraphone, the track fuses Celtic soul with Songhoy blues.
A decade on from Junun, Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood and The Rajasthan Express return with Ranjha, swapping Jodhpur’s Mehrangarh Fort for the rather more modest setting of Greenwood’s Oxford studio. With The Smile’s Tom Skinner on drums and twenty-one musicians at full creative tilt, this long-awaited follow-up is a big, rich, funk-leaning record built on ensemble craft and devoted love.
The latest Monday Morning Brew brings new dispatches from Aldous Harding, Robyn Hitchcock, Lemoncello, Josienne Clarke, Maisy Owen, Abigail Lapell, Zoh Amba, Lee “Scratch” Perry and lots more in a playlist featuring over two hours of music — plus Substack readers get to enjoy an advance read of our Off the Shelf feature with Abigail Lapell.
Lemoncello return with their second album Perfect Place via Claddagh Records, still carrying the quiet confidence of a duo who have already carved out a distinctive place in contemporary Irish folk. Laura Quirke and Claire Kinsella have continued to refine the intimate, instinctive interplay that first brought them to our attention; this is their strongest statement yet.
Swedish singer and musician Sara Parkman’s fourth solo album Aster, atlas tackles the biggest themes: life, death, faith, grief, and the passage of time. From its opening few seconds, it is uncanny and darkly magical. Parkman has given us something precious and gutsy, an album that, like the gardens that inspired it, has its own inscrutable rhythms of growth and decay.
Bedouine — the project of Azniv Korkejian — shares the video for “On My Own,” the third single from her forthcoming album Neon Summer Skin, out June 5th via Thirty Tigers. The contemplative piano ballad opens an album shaped by home, displacement and inherited identity. She has also announced new UK and European tour dates including a London show at Milton Court Concert Hall.
Lambchop announce new album Punching The Clown, due 21st August via City Slang — their first in nearly four years. Inspired by lined out singing, an obscure gospel form rooted in late-1800s Scotland and Appalachia, the album frames Kurt Wagner’s songs around guitar, banjo, voice and choir, with Justin Vernon, Andrew Broder and Mark Nevers. Lead single Weakened is out now.
Jeffrey Alexander + The Heavy Lidders share ‘Critical Masses,’ a new track from their forthcoming album ‘Liquid Donnon,’ out 12th June via Riot Season Records (UK) and Feeding Tube Records (US). Convened in 2019, the band — featuring members of Elkhorn and drummer Scott Verrastro, alongside guitarist-vocalist Alexander — pulls together cosmic jazz, deep psych and free improv, threaded with memory of Alexander’s late friend Donnon.
Following years of IVF and an on-stage miscarriage, Abigail Lapell was pregnant with her first child when she made her album Shadow Child. Nine of the songs represent a month of gestation, embracing moments of joy and loss, and addressing issues such as reproductive health. Sweet and tender, the album is tinged with sadness but comes to full term with hope and joy.
Amsterdam collective Personal Trainer have announced their third album “Human Assholes,” due 4th September via Bella Union. The 15-track follow-up to 2024’s “Still Willing” is led by first single ‘Punch Drunk Love’ — borrowing its title from the Paul Thomas Anderson film — which arrives with a typically charming new video. UK and EU tour dates run from July through October.
Croz Boyce — Animal Collective’s Dave Portner and Brian Weitz — share the Joseph Ricketts-directed video for “Steven’s Sunshine Rejected,” the second single from their self-titled debut album, out this Friday May 8th on Domino. Down-tuned guitar and slide lines stake out an overcast mood while Weitz’s electronics shift like changeable wind, before the back half tilts towards something firmer.
Zoh Amba has shared the title track and video for Eyes Full, their Matador debut, out June 5th. The track lands harder than lead single Another Time, three players threaded together as Amba’s acoustic holds the centre and asks what makes a heart full. The video, set in a gym, ends with the band joining in the fun for a pickup basketball game.
Originally released in 2008 and now reissued with two bonus covers, Hayman, Watkins, Trout and Lee — the quartet of Darren Hayman, David Watkins, Dan Mayfield and David Tattersall — is an absolute joy to rediscover. East London bluegrass played with close-knit, co-operative DIY warmth: witty, lovelorn originals and artfully chosen covers. Think The Basement Tapes with more banjos.
Monday Morning Brew #153 features new tracks from Jim Moray, Emily Portman, Chris Brain, Henry Parker, Ajeet, Rachel Sermanni & Aisling Urwin, and Rónán Ó Snodaigh & Myles O’Reilly — a span that takes in Shetland song reimagined through squelchy synths, music inspired by a backpacking trip across Bleaklow and the Upper Derwent ridges, and a 16th-century Gaelic lament turned lullaby from The Furrow Collective.
May Day wears two faces — one rooted in nature and ritual, one rooted in struggle – International Workers’ Day. This extra-long Mixtape honours both, with Gil Scott-Heron’s enduring call to action, a Wampís-Aboutface collaboration drawn from the Peruvian Amazon, The MerKaBa Brotherhood’s hermetic ritual textures, the deep blues of Robert Petway, Bonny Billy’s communal warmth, and strange new turns from Tenniscoats, Trio Tekke and Wax Machine.
To celebrate the release of Gallants, Jim Moray is sharing a live performance of “The Nightingale,” recorded at The Arch — a 140-year-old former church in Southport — with his full live band. The recording is taken from a complete live session premiering at 8pm on Sunday May 3rd on YouTube, free to watch with a pay-what-you-want donation ticket available.