KLOF No. 94 opens and closes with Cynefin, whose “Shimli” album draws on the Welsh tradition of farmers singing as their oats baked. Trá Pháidín contribute two tracks from “An 424,” their musical map of South Connemara’s bus route. Deep shelf-digs unearth Espers, Eliza Carthy & Tim Eriksen, Berangere Maxmin, three cuts from a 2006 John Fahey tribute and more.

Mama’s Broke’s Amy Lou Keeler and Lisa Maria discuss “Reunion,” their latest album, one of stark emotion and stunning but subtle playing. Born from Nova Scotian roots, Appalachian tradition and Eastern European influences, their deliciously dark folk resists easy labels. The pair talk origins, co-writing, folk as political expression, and the collective feeling that keeps their collaboration fresh after a decade on the road.

Rowena Wise’s “Bad Things Feel Good*” expands on her impressive debut with quiet sincerity and intimacy as calling cards. She moves between swooping maximalism and spine-tingling closeness, juggling contradictory elements. The mess has been transmuted into something beautiful, with a skillfully directed emotional sting—the bigger picture without losing sight of small details—the perfect soundtrack to contemporary emotional life.

Dean McPhee has shared a video for “Indica Fields” from “Northern Earth”, his sixth full-length album, due 11 September on Bass Ritual. The video uses BFI archive footage from the final edition of the National Coal Board’s Mining Review series. Originally a sold-out limited cassette, the album arrives on 180g heavyweight vinyl — three compositions recorded live with no overdubs.

Garefowl return with “Things That Vanish,” their second album, recorded on St Kilda’s main island at night. No synthesizers were used — drones were created from X-ray diffracted rock and bone samples. Nine tracks, each named for one of the archipelago’s threatened seabirds. Out 2 October via AD 93.

Max Subar’s “Anything Could Be” started with ten days alone in a house on a frozen Wisconsin lake — just a mobile rig, live vocals and guitar. Back in Chicago, a small cast of collaborators gave the recordings flesh without crowding them. Loose, lived-in and radically patient, Subar walks us through his Merge Records debut track by track.

Laura Misch has announced “Lithic (Live at the Barbican)”, a live recording of her second album captured at her largest headline show to date. Out September 4th via One Little Independent Records, the live album reworks the electronic atmospherics of “Lithic” for a five-piece ensemble — handcrafted, ritualistic and raw. Watch the live video for the lead single “Soften” now.

Nora Stanley’s “Glass” is a quietly gorgeous debut. Previously known as an instrumentalist, Brooklyn-based Stanley has found her feet as a songwriter with remarkable speed and apparent ease, her primary muse the poet Anne Carson. As the album progresses, personal and political themes twine inseparably around each other. Perfectly timed and executed with a grace and lightness extraordinary for a debut.

Joan Shelley will reissue “Over and Even” on October 16th via No Quarter. Her acclaimed 2015 album — recorded across two days in a Kentucky farmhouse — returns with eight unheard demos, unearthed by husband and collaborator Nathan Salsburg from a CD-R of tape machine recordings she made for him in late 2014. “Jenny Come In (Demo)” is out now.

Mali Obomsawin announces “Automatic,” her second solo album, out October 16th via Out Of Your Head Records. Pairing her voice with archival Abenaki recordings processed by turntablist Andrew Broder, the eight-track album grew from a disorienting period following her breakout debut “Sweet Tooth.” Collaborators include Taylor Ho Bynum and guitarist Magdalena Abrego of Deerlady. Title track out now.

Duffy x Uhlmann share “Nylon Waiting Room,” the third and final single from “Hot Creek,” due 14 August on Orindal Records. At fifty-one seconds long and accompanied by a Christina Huang visualiser, it’s the last taste of a record built from two guitars and nothing else, named after a geothermal spring in Mono County, California.

“Allison de Groot & Rich Ruth” started as a plan for Rich Ruth to produce a solo banjo record for de Groot. Over a year in his Nashville studio, it became something else — a collaborative debut where clawhammer banjo runs through loops and delay into synthesizers. Acoustic tradition and electronic texture are inseparable from the first note.

Carson McHone is our latest “Off the Shelf” guest, picking ten objects from home ahead of her UK and European tour. From a Langston Hughes poetry book held together by duct tape to a Robin Williamson painting and a Swedish flea-market tambourine that sounds terrible — stories of travel, family and creative life.

Setting have shared “Your Destiny Distresses Me,” a Bandcamp-exclusive single from the same Drop of Sun sessions in Asheville that produced their self-titled album for Thrill Jockey. The nearly eight-minute track draws on acoustic sound sources and dense binaural synth — a piece the trio recognised early as belonging in its own isolated context.

Lael Neale has shared “Slip Away,” the first single from her new album “As Killers Do,” out November 20th on her own new label, Consensual Sound. The song comes with a stop-motion video built from her own paintings, and the album was recorded on a cassette 8-track in an Echo Park kitchen. She tours through September, including Green Man Festival.

Bill Baird shares “Karma Loan,” the latest single from forthcoming album “Life Creates Itself,” due September 25th on Royal Oakie Records. Recorded at Sear Sound in New York City in a single day, produced by Jasper Leach and mastered by KRAMER, the album draws on Doug Sahm, Roky Erickson, Arthur Russell and Captain Beefheart, marking Baird’s return to San Antonio after years of wandering.

Black Duck and Elena Setién share “Funeral in My Brain,” the final single from “Black Duck with Elena Setién,” their collaborative debut out August 28th via Thrill Jockey. The track draws on Emily Dickinson’s 1862 poem. The quartet came together on shared Spanish tour dates in early 2025 and recorded at Palisade Studio in Chicago.

Steven R. Smith will release “Half Light Unfolding” on September 4th via Eiderdown Records. A departure from three decades of dense psychedelia and layered overdubs, the album is built around Spanish guitar and piano — ten tracks recorded at his Los Angeles studio. Music journalist Marc Masters calls it “a true landmark” in Smith’s career.