Alex Gallacher

Lancashire songwriter Toria Wooff announces her new album, Aleister, which explores themes of grief, obsessive-compulsive disorder, infertility, and recovery. Lead single ‘The Morrigan’ takes its name from a powerful figure in Celtic mythology, inspired by an old belief surrounding voices heard in the woods. The video, from Manchester’s Light In The Tower, draws on 1970s folk horror to chilling effect.

Joshua Burnside has shared a powerful new video for the title track of his latest album, I’m Not Going to Be Okay. Writing about the album, Thomas Blake wrote: “Burnside is explicit about the role of grief on ‘It’s Not Going to Be Okay,’ but also about the presence of love and hope. His songs have a caressing softness, even as they weep…”

From his forthcoming album, True Violet, co-produced by Nick Waterhouse and Paul Butler, Rayland Baxter has shared his new single, Bolly Plateau, a place anyone seeking escape and respite would envy. Watch the accompanying video.

Taken from her latest album “Who’s Keeping Time?”, Alela Diane has shared two more videos from her Attic Live Sessions. They include the “In My Own Time”, a gentle meditation on how the distractions of the modern world can easily prove to be a thief of our precious time, and “Could Be”. Don’t miss her upcoming Ireland and UK tour dates.

Taken from his forthcoming album ‘Cooked’, which brings together collaborators from Australia, Germany, Japan and Sweden, and drops this Friday on Drag City, Oren Ambarchi shares the entire 22-minute song, Sleight of Hand, in the form of a short film created by Maximilien Luc Proctor…an equal part lucid and fever dream.

This week’s Monday Morning Brew playlist features 22 new tracks, including a shamelessly naked love song from Johanna Warren, plus collaborations between Shawn James and Damien Jurado and Ann Annie, and between Meshell Ndegeocello, Bill Callahan, and Chris Thile.

Today marks the release of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Ghosts of American Psychonauts (Domino Records). The eight-song set was recorded at The Pico Union Project in Los Angeles over Valentine’s Day weekend 2025, just a few weeks after the release of The Purple Bird. From that weekend, Oldham has shared a live video performance of “Trees of Hell”.

Alongside new tunes from Spell Songs and Birdvox, this week’s Mixtape features fishing songs from Charles O’Hegarty and Kings of the South Seas, and cattle and work songs from Buffalo Kin. Cédric Dind-Lavoie blends folklore with ambient, introspective music, and Ruth Clinton delivers a solo number at The Cobblestone Pub in Dublin before joining Poor Creature ft. Cormac Mac Diarmada and John Dermody.

Blair Dunlop shares a live video for “Are You Loved?” ahead of tomorrow’s single release, previewing his sixth album “What Still Survives” (October 30th, Navigator Records). The song confronts social media’s grip on our need to be liked. Backed by Holly Carter, Jason Tebble and Fred Claridge, it names the problem instead of dancing around it.

JP Harris shares a video for “Hang Me,” the final single from his sixth album, “Shaving A Dead Man,” out October 23 on Bloodshot Records. Chance McCoy of Old Crow Medicine Show joins him on fiddle and harmonies. This is so far removed from the sterile, studio-perfect commercial versions out there; they return it to the soil.

Elanor Moss talks us through every track on her debut album “The Knife, The Needle,” out now on Merge Records. She traces “Fixer” from a single sitting at her kitchen table, the tape malfunction that reshaped “Improvisation,” and the George Saunders book that guided her to write by intuition until a voice emerged, then following that voice wherever it goes.

Radie Peat announces her debut solo album “No Human Tongue Can Tell” and shares her new single “The Moon and Stars”, alongside an accompanying video directed by Peter Eason Daniels. The Lankum and ØXN vocalist rewrites a traditional song’s lyrics into a study of betrayal and abandonment. New dates at London’s Barbican and Paris’s La Trabendo have also been announced.

Welcome to the latest Monday Morning Brew, jam-packed with new releases from the likes of Birdvox, Spell Songs, The McMillan’s Camp Boys, Brigid Mae Power, Jude Brothers, Abby Walker, Diket, Hannah Everingham, Misha Panfilov, Colin Stetson & Brìghde Chaimbeul, Jon McKiel, Sean Hayes, Steven R. Smith, Nat Myers, Charlie Parr and more. Plus five new album recommendations ft. African steel guitar, indie twang, kosmiche country and Irish Trad to explore.

Martin Simpson shares a finely crafted solo performance of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” The track also appears on “Some Kind of Jubilee,” his new album marking fifty years since his “Golden Vanity” debut, and is out September 25th on Topic Records, with contributions from Greg Leisz, Zac Hobbs, Liz Hanks, Louis Campbell, and Ben Nicholls.

Featuring Ríoghnach Connolly, watch the accompanying video for ‘Curlew Song’, the new single from Clare Sands, taken from her upcoming album ‘They Tried to Bury Us’, out on October 9th. The album is a collection of songs that gives voice to the silenced: from the endangered curlew to those seeking refuge.

Listen to our special mid-week Morning Brew playlist, celebrating over three years of our weekly playlist series: The Monday Morning Brew. It features over four hours of music spanning folk, psych, soul, jazz, and more.

Bill Nace & Mike Polizze have announced “Live at Pageant : Soloveev”, recorded in 2025, following the release of Mike’s second solo album ‘Around Sound’. Thankfully, Mike captured this taishogoto and guitar face-off on his iPhone, allowing this unhindered exhibition of full-spectrum free string playing in its rawest form to be captured for us all to enjoy.

Emma Lucia and Ship Says Om (Jenny Gillespie Mason) talk us through “Djuphjärtad,” their collaborative four-song EP blending Nordic-rooted folk melodies with ambient experimental textures. Using nature-based field recordings, synths, and organic instrumentation, the Bay Area musicians move between intimate songs of romantic anticipation and elemental sound meditations.