The Latest
To celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which signals the end of Ramadan for Muslims around the world, Lachlan Dale, the manager of Worlds Within Worlds record label, has shared a new video session with Mustafa Faizi (vocals and harmonium) – one of the leading Afghan classical vocalists of his generation, now residing in Sydney, Australia. Mustafa is accompanied by Maharshi Raval on tabla.
On “sentence structure in the country,” more eaze leans into her love of song and embraces her upbringing as a folk-oriented fiddle player. Collaboration is key, with Wendy Eisenberg and others helping shape an album where trademark contrasts feel more subtle and fluid than ever. A bewildering array of influences leveraged into a sustained, emotionally resonant and surprisingly compact work of art.
Rua Rí has announced his debut album “Tell Your Mother I Saved Your Life,” out 1st May via Soft Boy Records, alongside new single and video “Johnny Workman.” Rooted in the streets, fields and familiar settings of Cobh and Cork, the album — produced by Kean Kavanagh — captures the fleeting moments of youth with warmth, humour, and grounded introspection.
Marisa Anderson shares ‘Sarvi Simin,’ the second single from “The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music, Vol. 1,” out May 22nd on Thrill Jockey. The track — an ecstatic duet between Anderson’s guitar and Gisela Rodríguez Fernández’s violin — interprets a piece from a 1977 Melodiya Records release, transcribed while Anderson travelled by bus through southern Mexico.
Frankie Archer has announced her debut album “The Dance of Death,” out 5th June via prrr of the bear. Co-produced with Guy Massey, Archer reconstructs some of the oldest songs in the English canon — warping fiddle lines, processing her own vocals and driving the material with pulsing drum machines and colourful synths into “nu-ancient trad bangers.” New single ‘The Unquiet Grave’ is out now.
White Fence has shared Unread Books, the second single from Orange, due April 24th via Drag City. Where lead single Your Eyes punched and sparkled, Unread Books sinks into droning, heartbroken pop, driven by Alice Sandahl’s hazy synths and Dylan Hadley’s shuffling drums. Produced by Ty Segall, Orange is Presley’s first White Fence album in seven years.
Sam Grassie shares “The Burning of Auchindoun,” a stirring reimagining of a traditional Scottish folk ballad from his forthcoming debut, “Where Two Hawks Fly,” due 10th April via Broadside Hacks. Coloured by ponderous double-bass, mystical flute and compelling fingerpicked guitar, it’s flighted with equal parts fantasy and foreboding. A UK headline tour kicks off later this month.
Spencer Cullum finds comfort in retellings of folk narratives that seek to make sense of the present day. With Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 3, he’s provided a richly satisfying conclusion to his trilogy of albums. Born from a need to reconnect with the place that shaped him, the trilogy has also become a platform for the generous, collaborative spirit of the Nashville community he now calls home.
Many of the songs on Joshua Burnside’s “It’s Not Going to Be Okay” can disarm you or take your breath away from their very first lines. Burnside is the most consistently human and the most surprising of songwriters. Details spring out at you like spiders from the cracks between floorboards. Meteors and energy-efficient light bulbs, blackbirds and bears, spaceships and Peugeots. The profound and the quotidian occupy the same arena.
The video for River Days — visuals by Nina Maria Moslechner — shares the same sun-bleached, grain-softened quality as Natalie Wildgoose’s music: images that already look like memory. The song itself is a midsummer diary entry, caught at its edges rather than its centre. Rural Hours arrives April 15th via state51.
It is more in-your-face than much of their recent work, thematically if not musically. More engaged and more engaging. The sound of a band alive to the changing world with all its problems and all its wonder. News from Planet Zombie is another important dispatch from the Notwist’s entirely unique corner of the musical world, an album full of closely-observed detail that warrants rapt attention.