This week’s Monday Morning Brew opens with Geckøs, a new project featuring Howe Gelb, M. Ward and Mark McCausland of The Lost Brothers, also in the mix: Msafiri Zawose, James Yorkston, The Barr Brothers, Orchestra Gold, Madi Diaz, Jeff Tweedy, The Mary Wallopers, The Innocence Mission, Nat Myers, Junior Brother, Joseph Decosimo, John Smith, Natural Information Society and more.

Pioneering British folk artist John Smith will celebrate his 20th anniversary in music with his new album, Gatherings, releasing October 17th. The record revisits and reimagines cherished songs from his early career with guests including Lisa Hannigan and The Staves. The first single and video, a beautiful new version of “Salty and Sweet” featuring Hannigan, is out now, offering a first taste of the celebratory project.

Indie rock stalwart Kurt Vile teams up with Nashville songwriter Luke Roberts for the new five-track EP, Classic Love, out today, July 25th. Released via Verve Records, the concise and infectious collaboration was heralded by a playful music video for its title track. The project is an unvarnished entry in Vile’s canon, embodying an energy he describes as “sad and funny at the same time.”

Italian sound artist Luca Formentini will release I Am Ghosts on October 10th via Curious Music. The album compiles his personal ‘Ghosts’ EPs, a journey through ambient, electro-acoustic, and experimental soundscapes that suggest rather than dictate. Exploring themes of absence and the unseen, the release will be available on vinyl and as an expanded digital collection featuring new immersive mixes by Robert Rich.

Californian guitarist Mason Lindahl announces dual albums, “Joshua / Same Day Walking,” arriving 24th September 2025. Listen to the lead single “Little Sister” which is out now. The albums chart distinct territories: Joshua is warm and hazy, while the Iceland-recorded Same Day Walking is windswept and stark. Lauded as “the greatest living guitar player” by Hayden Pedigo, Lindahl supports the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on 29th July.

Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist Patrick Shiroishi announces his new album, Forgetting Is Violent, out 19 September on American Dreams. Building on his work reckoning with racism, the record features collaborators for the first time, including Aaron Turner and Gemma Thompson. The mournful lead single, “There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening”, featuring otay::onii, confronts how the ignoring of painful history allows injustice to persist.

Cory Hanson delivers a rare combination: clever arrangements and emotional heft. ‘I Love People’ feels like a continuation of 2023’s Western Cum, conjuring up dusty roads and shimmering horizons with rolling country-rock and mature piano ballads. Nailing this many styles is tough, but Hanson’s surefooted songwriting weaves the disparate elements into a vivid, unapologetically American tapestry with an almost magical precision.

Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) and guitarist William Tyler have released their new single “Spider Ballad” from their debut LP, “41 Longfield Street Late ‘80s” (out Sept. 19). The single lives up to the duo’s forward focus, as Tyler’s deconstructed guitar hangs like a ghost over this shimmering piece of psychedelic IDM, perfectly poised for late-summer listening.

Yorkshire’s Lukas Creswell-Rost shares a new video for “Correspondent,” from his album Weight Away. Inspired by a BBC radio show, the song equates loss with a reporter sending back memories from afar. The video beautifully mirrors this, featuring scenes of Creswell-Rost traversing German and Swiss landscapes. It’s a poignant introduction to an album that masterfully balances grief with lush, ambitious pop.

James Yorkston has released “Oh Light, Oh Light,” a poignant new single featuring Johanna Söderberg of First Aid Kit. Accompanied by a music video, the track is from his forthcoming album, Songs for Nina and Johanna (out August 22nd), which also features The Cardigans’ Nina Persson. Recorded in Stockholm with The Second Hand Orchestra, the album is a heartfelt and life-affirming meditation on family, love, and parenthood.

Recorded live in just three days, Sean Pratt’s Prairie Whistle Call captures a purity often lost in modern recording. With no bells and whistles, you get a recording of remarkable honesty. Pratt merges timeless sounds with modern sensibilities, speaking from the heart and distilling the wind of the plains into simple truths.

RAKEL, a singular presence in the Icelandic music landscape, has released “rescue remedy,” the lead single from her forthcoming debut album, a place to be. Set for release in October on Ólafur Arnalds’ OPIA Community label, the single offers a compelling introduction to an album that promises not resolution, but a space for being—a room, a landscape, a place to be.