On Junior Brother’s third album, The End, Ronan Kealy displays real genius in the way he links ancient themes, such as the album’s underlying central motif of fairy forts, to our contemporary plight. “we can do nothing other than hang on his every word, words that slip from calm to fervid to agonised. It’s a journey we are willing to take again and again.”

This week’s Monday Morning Brew features Kevin Morby & Waxahatchee, Katy Pinke & Will Graefe, Shannon Lay, Sam Grassie, Marlon Williams, Joan Shelley, Shabason, Krgovich, Tenniscoats, Geckøs, Jackie West, Lefty Parker, Sabine McCalla, Anna Tivel, Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, Andreas Werliin and more.

Brooke Sharkey shares a live video for her new single “Guardian,” filmed at a unique artist collective in Norway. The song is from her upcoming album, Under Stones, which documents her journey of settling into a new country. The album, out September 4th, is a blend of musical collaborations and field recordings inspired by Norwegian landscapes and renowned poets.

Scottish folk duo Donald WG Lindsay and Alasdair Roberts announce their first duo album, Welcome Home My Dearie. Recorded live in Glasgow, the album features a unique blend of pipes, guitars, and vocals, with traditional and original songs. The duo is currently fundraising to cover production costs for a 500-copy CD run. Watch them perform a set of jigs and a bothy ballad, Jock Hawk’s Adventures in Glasgow.

On Animal Poem, Anna Tivel’s latest album, she asks, “In the face of endless avarice and cruelty, how do we talk about the realness of love? How do we talk about destiny from the balcony of a nation in decline? How does our attention shape the way we touch the natural world?” It’s a masterclass in subtlety and emotional depth that doesn’t demand your attention but instead earns it.

Sam Carter’s new single, “Tubal Cain,” is a powerful take on a traditional song, exploring themes of responsibility and the consequences of our creations. Released ahead of his autumn tour, the single showcases the BBC Folk Award-winning artist’s signature intricate fingerstyle guitar and narrative-rich songwriting. His tour starts on September 12th.

Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin’s Ghosted I and II freewheeled across a matrix whose corners were marked by krautrock, ambient, jazz and freely improvised modernism, III adds even more dimensions. It’s the sound of a band who know each other well enough that they can begin to concentrate on the things they don’t yet know, the unexplored musical directions that open up when they play together.

Wao is living proof that Joseph Shabason & Nicholas Krgovich and Tenniscoats, two utterly distinctive musical acts, can collaborate successfully and create something new without losing any of their own potency in the process. This outwardly unassuming album is as wise and beautiful and unexpected as anything currently happening in the furthest-flung outposts of music.  

Folk musician Jon Wilks is releasing his fifth album, Needless Alley, on September 19th (Grizzly Folk Records). His third single, Montagu Whaler (a boat used by the Royal Navy from the 1900s to the 1960s), is the only non-original song on the album and is released tomorrow, ahead of which, you can watch the accompanying music video.

Oakland duo The Saxophones announce their new album, No Time For Poetry, out November 7th on Full Time Hobby. Listen to their first single, “Too Big For California,” with its evocative imagery of “trampling the lupine” and “the shanty towns are burning,” which paints a picture of a modern California grappling with deep-seated issues like homelessness and wildfires.

Midlake returns with their sixth studio album, A Bridge To Far, on November 7th. Produced by Sam Evian, the album features the new single and video “The Ghouls,” a song born from a period of uncertainty that ultimately inspired the band to move forward. The record is a profound meditation on hope, featuring guest vocals from Madison Cunningham, Hannah Cohen and Meg Lui.

Pareidolia is a subtle and teasing record, beautiful and sometimes bewildering. It has an engrossing element that resembles the arc of a story, which is difficult to achieve in improvisational music but which gives you an insight into how closely and how well Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O’Rourke work together, and how much background work they put into this intuitive, cohesive album.