This week’s KLOF mixtape features Fust and Sluice, who share band members – Sluice’s exceptional Companion comes highly recommended. Brown Wimpenny get a double ahead of their debut album, while Wendy Eisenberg — whom Thomas Blake recently called “one of the most talented musical artists of their generation” — previews their self-titled, out tomorrow on Joyful Noise. Plus Plankton Wat, Brown Horse, Big Thief, Steve Gunn, and more.

Brown Horse’s third album, Total Dive, is a bigger, bolder beast than anything they have attempted before. Snarling guitars and weary pedal steel carry songs steeped in isolation, loss and defiant dark humour, with nods to Neil Young, Jason Molina and Uncle Tupelo running beneath the scuzz. A pinnacle, reached in just three albums.

Jesca Hoop has shared “Big Storm”, a propulsive new single and video from her forthcoming album “Long Wave Home.” Born from a moment of near-total flight — a plan to disappear, upended by the biggest storm in recent history — the track is a reckoning with the impossibility of escape. Watch the video now and pre-order the album ahead of its 1st May release.

Big Potato Records have announced Dream Me A Dream, the final studio album from Tucker Zimmerman, out June 19th. Listen to the first single Sun In Scorpio now. Pairing banjo, violin and swirling organ with orchestral Moog and analogue synths, Zimmerman leapt into textures recalling the electronica adventures of his earlier work. He was in his eighties, and it sounds like nothing else he recorded.

The Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties series continues with Vol.XXII: Tyne and Wear | Somerset. Maryanne Royle’s “The Stone Throat” takes listeners into Newcastle’s Victoria Tunnel, blending social history, hauntology and post-industrial soundscape into one of the series’ most atmospheric pieces. Paddy Steer’s “Swerving Coach” is its perfect foil — a fidgety, fascinating folly from Somerset’s most haunted corners.

Wendy Eisenberg’s self-titled new album is a distinct departure — gorgeously orchestrated baroque folk-rock of remarkable maturity and complexity. With lush string arrangements from co-producer mari rubio (more eaze) adding warmth and depth throughout, these ten exquisite songs trace a fine line between agonised self-examination and celebration. It’s the kind of album that scratches an itch you didn’t know you had.

Watch the video for The Roustabout Song by Old Spot, taken from their new album “Old Spot (II),” out April 24th on Scribe Records. First encountered at a Morris festival singing session, the track traces a transatlantic thread from English folklorist Sandy Paton to songwriter Dillon Bustin, rendered here as a joyful fiddle-and-banjo reimagining with deep political undertones.

Manchester/Liverpool/London folk collective Brown Wimpenny announce their debut album Long Live Brown Wimpenny, due 5th June via Broadside Hacks Recordings, alongside new single Old Molly Metcalfe — a cinematic reinvention of Jake Thackray’s bleak tale of a North Yorkshire shepherdess. Enriching Thackray’s a cappella melody with an eerie, enchanting arrangement, the track opens with a live archive performance from the songwriter himself.

Mixed and mastered by Jim O’Rourke, Tommy Peltier’s “Echo Park (The 70’s Sessions)” catches the moment a jazz lifer reinvented himself as a songwriter in 1970s Los Angeles. Recorded in a hillside house near Echo Park Lane, these eleven tracks brim with melodic invention — each could be convincingly sold as a long-forgotten seventies hit. Out now via Drag City.

We’re premiering the video for “King Orfeo,” the debut single from Birdvox — the new project from Sarah Hayes, Inge Thomson, Jenny Sturgeon and Charlotte Printer. An adaptation of a traditional Orpheus myth with a refrain in the now extinct Scandinavian language of Norn, it’s the first taste of their forthcoming album “Shamming The Drama,” due on Hudson Records later this year.

Alongside this week’s Monday Morning Brew Playlist, our Substack Subscribers get to read an advance copy of an upcoming Off the Shelf feature from Natalie Wildgoose, whose new EP, Rural Hours, is due April 15th via state51. The Brew includes new tunes from Juni Habel, Magic Tuber Stringband, The Deslondes, Lemoncello, Dead Goat, Andrew Wasylyk, Mike Tod, Kris Drever, Emily Portman, Alela Diane, Sluice, tofusmell, Joshua Burnside and more.

The latest KLOF Mixtape moves from Félicia Atkinson & Christina Vantzou’s dreamlike soundscapes anchored in sea, sky and stone to the airy, pastoral improvisations of Prymek & Sage. Alongside new offerings from Sam Grassie, Magic Tuber Stringband, Juni Habel, Pan•American, Buck Meek and more, ancient folk recordings from Tibet and Greece complete a collection for unhurried listening.