The Latest
Read our latest Substack Newsletter and enjoy our Two-Hour Monday Morning Brew weekly playlist: spiritual vibes from the hippie forefather, eden ahbez, Ethio-jazz, psychedelic folk, and more. Plus, three of my favourite albums on New York’s Freedom to Spend label; a delve into the finely crafted books from German publisher Steidl (including a full-length Documentary); plus a John Cohen Documentary on Roscoe Holcomb, and my latest favourite releases.
This week’s Mixtape is made up of entirely new releases, from indie folk to the ambient and experimental. From our recent album reviews, we’ve got music from Elanor Moss, Alex Dupree and Hana Stretton. Plus, we have new tracks from Jake Xerxes Fussell, FRMR, Arborist, Awen Ensemble, Biita Houdei, and Clara Mann.
On “Run Around,” Chase Elodia turns love-song clichés inside out. The Brooklyn drummer and poet’s vocal debut, “Real Ones,” is due October 23rd on Long Echo Records. After hearing him sing, you can understand why he has been compared to Arthur Russell — a relationship heightened by his new single’s strong percussive elements, calling to mind the groove-driven avant-garde of Russell’s World of Echo.
Marvin Tate’s “Controlled Burn” is a hallucinogenic portal into a world that’s similar to ours, but the furniture is rearranged. Recorded as duo improvisations with longtime collaborator Leroy Bach, then remodelled and refined into the tightest 12 tracks, the method is brave, and the results speak of the angelic geometry of the universe within.
Alex Dupree’s “Talking to the Dog” is outsider-folk made with a completely unique eye for lyrical detail. Dupree moves between country twang, cosmic psychedelia and soulful confession with the ease of a picaresque poet-jester-troubadour. You could pick any couplet and it would stand against the best lyric writing of the last sixty years. Let’s hope he finally gets the credit he deserves.
Elanor Moss’s debut “The Knife, The Needle” balances a quiet, subtle mode of expression with a searing intensity of feeling. Arrangements create an all-enveloping sound in which the little lyrical razor blades are skilfully hidden. There is nothing loose or mild about her artistry. She is in full control of every moment, exposing the soft tissue of human emotion with unerring accuracy.
Biita Houdei shares “Night Fright,” the third single from her debut album “This Bed Was Made For Me”. The track explores parallel relationships, one rooted in difficulty and turmoil, the other blossoming into something effortless and gentle. It’s accompanied by a horror-tinged video directed by Seth Naugle and Sam Falconi.
Clara Mann has shared a video for “All My Devotion”, the second single from her forthcoming album ‘Wishbone’, out October 23rd via state51. She shared: “I wrote it about my instinct to give everything to someone”, and it follows her lead single “News From Home”. Mann performs a live BBC Radio 2 session for Mark Radcliffe tonight, with UK and European tour dates this autumn.
Arborist shares “The Taming of Horses,” and announces his first self-produced album, Looking For Love, due via Fika Recordings. Belfast songwriter Mark McCambridge wrote the track during late nights watching Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man. Lush Hammond organ gives the song a sprawling, sophisticated feel — simultaneously disquieting and uplifting.
On their new EP, The Walls Around Ballyfin, the Leeds-based septet Awen Ensemble set sail for Ireland. Listen to their mesmerising lead single and title track, on which they bring a new lease of life to a forgotten folk song and a tune written by their drummer Eddie Bowes’s great-grandfather in County Laoise, Ireland.
Andrew Farmer, aka FRMR, has shared ‘Echinacea’, the new single from his second album, Ochre, out on August 28th via Bluestack Records. The nine-track album continues the ecological songwriting of his 2021 debut, Amelanchier, and broadens its sound alongside contributions from Michael Mormecha, Linley Hamilton, Duke Special, Luke Sital-Singh, and more.
Jake Xerxes Fussell shares “Boney” and “Boll Weevil,” two new singles from “The Old Beloved Path,” out September 18th via Fat Possum Records. “Boney” resurrects a rarely-recorded maritime chantey about Napoleon, while “Boll Weevil” draws from Charley Patton and Blind Willie McTell, reimagining a traditional standard about the invasive bug, but “like so many of us, he’s looking for a home.”
The Black Wizards have shared “Beat,” the final single from “Force Majeure & The Acts of God,” due September 4th via Hassle Records. It’s the only song on the album built drum beat-first, creeping through its shadowy opening before erupting into muscular desert-rock riffs. The Porto trio’s fourth album marks a decisive break from their earlier stoner-rock.
Johnny and Lillie Flynn have announced “Beam Cottage,” their first collaborative album, due 6th November via Transgressive Records. Produced by Charlie Andrew, it features new songs, covers of childhood favourites as well as reworkings from Johnny’s catalogue. Listen to “The Ghost of O’Donahue”, a song written in Ireland almost 20 years ago but now cast in a meaningful new light.
Tiarn is a gorgeous sophomore record by Australian ambient-folk producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Hana Stretton. Like its predecessor, it comes alive off the record, a living and breathing tapestry of sound. Where Soon found its focus on the Australian bush, this latest project casts its gaze on the endless shores of the Pacific Ocean, where Stretton’s boundless textural explorations reflect a world suspended in blue.