LA-based experimental songwriter Julia Holter will score a screening of the classic 1920s silent film The Passion of Joan Arc in the latest commission from Opera North.

Taken from his forthcoming new album ‘Unearth Repeat’, Sam Sweeney has shared his first album single ‘The Old Wagon Way’, also our Tune of the Day.

Scottish folk musician, composer and tutor, Hamish Napier, has announced that his third solo album, The Woods, is to be released on 20th March 2020.

There are, undoubtedly, many out there who, like Joseph back in 1973, remain ignorant of Phil Ochs and for whom, as the notes say, this will afford a nudge forward. That it also happens to be one of Joseph’s finest albums is an added bonus.

Watch Brighton quartet Bird in the Belly performing All You Females live at the Ropetackle, taken from their latest album ‘Neighbours and Sisters’ which features in our Best Albums of the Year.

We have the pleasure in premiering the accompanying video for Dance With Me, the new single from Kirsty Almeida set for release on 10th January 2020.”It’s a video about self love and the balance of the masculine and the feminine within us all.”

Landry’s fifth solo album is described as “reflections and thoughts on the collective hallucination that is America”…it’s a hugely accomplished and at times troubling album that has already earned its place in “Best of” year-end lists.

Cinnamon Tree, the debut album from a teenaged Nora Brown, took me by surprise. I love the tunes and it makes great listening but even more importantly it shows that even the old tunes are still capable of being passed on. It also shows us what a talent for playing and interpretation Nora has.

As Christmas this year was approaching, we visited James Yorkston at The Lexington for the last date of his short December run. He was on grand form as ever and put on a great show which was opened by Uillean pipers Paddi Benson & Grace Lemon.

Celebrating their 45th Anniversary, there’s plenty of vitality on this new release. It’s uplifting, jolly fun all the way, tempered with an easy musicality that doesn’t patronise, and splendidly well recorded.

Danny Neill looks back at 2019 and shares his top ten albums including releases from Mama’s Broke, Vetiver, Sean Taylor, Richard Dawson, The Waterboys, Eilen Jewell, Jesca Hoop, Steve Gunn, Joan Shelley and Anna Tivel.

Framed is a fascinating, moving and extremely well-researched insight into a little-known chapter in the history of the peace movement in the UK, the continuing relevance of which in today’s political climate cannot be denied.