Alex Gallacher
Alex Gallacher
KLOF Mag Founder, Editor-in-Chief, Head Janitor, Mix Master & Playlist Curator, Music Hunter, Film Photographer, Avid Reader/Listener, World Cinema, Beat Generation, Underground Culture. On this ship full-time...Steady Ahead
Bristol’s Tara Clerkin Trio share a video for the title track of their new album Somewhere Good, out 5th June via World of Echo. Built from droning harmonium, upright bass and Clerkin’s hypnotic vocals, the album spans avant-pop, modern classical and kraut-folk across forty-plus boldly intuitive minutes — their most fully realised work to date.
Chaz Prymek and Matthew Sage announce Shelter, their first duo full-length in six years, out April 10th on AKP. Built on first-take live improvisations and layered with yearning slide guitar, accordion, clarinet, and delicate synthesizers, the album is a pastoral meditation rooted in the Mountain West. Lead single Hill Blocks View is streaming now.
Animal Collective’s Dave Portner (Avey Tare) and Brian Weitz (Geologist) have announced Croz Boyce, a new instrumental duo project. Their self-titled debut, out May 8th via Domino, was built across state lines — Portner sending guitar themes from North Carolina, Weitz responding with electronics from D.C. Watch the video for debut single Hanging Out With a Blueberry Pop now.
DoYeon Kim has announced Wellspring, her debut album as a leader, arriving May 1 on TAO Forms. Featuring Tyshawn Sorey, Mat Maneri, and Henry Fraser, the album weaves Korean lullabies with free improvisation through Kim’s gayageum playing. Lead single “The Beats of Distant Thunder” is streaming now, ahead of performances across New York and at Big Ears Festival.
L.Y.R. have shared a visualiser for Guernica Jigsaw, the latest single from forthcoming album Dark Sky Reservation, out April 3rd via Real World Records. A tale of unrequited love set amid commercialised art, the track features Pearson’s cascading piano motif carrying an unspoken beauty through vast, impersonal spaces. The band’s largest UK tour follows this spring.
Deer Tick have announced their ninth album Coin-O-Matic, due 5th June via ATO Records, sharing ramshackle lead single Mary Singletary. Named after a mob front company, the album excavates the hidden histories of Rhode Island — mafia underworlds, working-class drama, and Irish-Catholic guilt. It’s the Providence band’s first self-produced record across a career spanning more than two decades.
BIG|BRAVE have announced their tenth album, in grief or in hope, due June 12th, sharing first single, the ineptitude for mutual discernment. With touring bassist Liam Andrews joining Robin Wattie and Mat Ball in the studio for the first time, the album promises to push their particular brand of massive minimalism into its most layered territory yet.
Satnam Galsian has released her new single “Dishonour” on March 8th (International Women’s Day), reimagining the Irish folk song “She Moved through the Fair” from the woman’s perspective to highlight honour-based abuse. All proceeds from pre-orders (until April 6th) benefit Karma Nirvana, a Leeds charity ending honour-based violence. The British-Asian singer-songwriter, recently recognised for amplifying women’s voices, blends Punjabi folk with contemporary feminist storytelling on this powerful acoustic single.
Josienne Clarke releases Katie Cruel, a reimagining of the traditional folk song with two newly written verses aligning its themes of exile and endurance with the realities of an uncompromising artistic life. Built around electric guitar and recorders, the arrangement is spartan and resolute. The accompanying video finds Clarke as two figures on a windswept promontory — mourning black and ghostly white.
This week’s Monday Morning Brew features music from Aldous Harding, Josienne Clarke, Chris Brain & Natalie Wildgoose, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Natalie Jane Hill alongside selections from Shana Cleveland, Nora Brown, Cass McCombs, Marissa Nadler, Nadia Reid, Joan Shelley, Erin Rae and more. Highlights include Brain’s Yorkshire Dales-inspired Big Hill, Clarke’s spartan reimagining of Katie Cruel, and the lead single from Harding’s fifth album.
Our latest Mixtape pairs familiar KLOF favourites with a few artists that caught our attention recently. Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Gregory Uhlmann, Jesca Hoop, Kris Drever, SUSS, Setting, Adam Ross, Brown Wimpenny, Trippers & Askers and Riley/Radley — from Louisville folk to ambient guitar explorations to widescreen Americana, it’s an hour of sideways beauty that earns your full attention. Press play and let it run.
