Thomas Blake

Masayoshi Fujita’s latest work, Migratory, is defined by its sense of flux and of growth. Comforting ambience meets melodic exploration, with the vibraphone and marimba fleshed out by subtle electronics and the sparing use of guest vocalists.

On the latest Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties release, a fuller picture of the hidden history of England emerges as Rob St John covers strange beasts of Durham and Preston duo Powders cover Staffordshire’s ceramic industry, both hitting the sweet spot between ambience and narrative.

Despite its stylistic shifts and variations, Jessica Ackerley’s ‘All of the Colours Are Singing’ feels like a single complete journey, an impressive achievement given the comparatively minimal ingredients she works with. It also demonstrates how deep her talent as a musician, composer and improviser runs.

On Divine Supplication, Derek Piotr weaves strands of strangeness and familiarity together in such a way that the final pieces often feel like heirlooms, half-remembered things retrieved from dusty boxes which spark bright, lucid memories.

Exploratory and constantly changing, Bill Callahan’s ‘Resuscitate!’ is serious music that doesn’t take itself too seriously. His songwriting has a message and truth. It’s Big, and it’s Clever. He’s Leonard Cohen with Paul Auster’s self-knowing postmodernism and Johnny Cash’s charred heart.

Jenny Sturgeon’s paths.made.walking is a wonderful chronicle of sound and a hopeful reminder that there are still places where escape is possible and a connection with the natural world is worth seeking.

The sixth instalment from The Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties series covers Cornwall and South Yorkshire. It passes the creative reins over to experimental-leaning guitarist David A Jaycock and Sheffield-based avant-psych drone merchants Slug Milk to present two very different faces of experimental folk music.

The Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties Vol. V covers Norfolk and West Yorkshire, courtesy of Pefkin and Dean McPhee. If this quality is maintained throughout the series, we will have a stunning and important body of work on our hands.

Chris Cohen’s Paint a Room is an absolute joy, but it’s the uncanny kind of joy, the kind which can challenge you, and perhaps make you see the world in a different way.

Jinxed by Being, the new collaboration from Shackleton & Six Organs of Admittance, is as uneasy as it is beautiful…Collaborations of this quality are vanishingly rare.

Trá Pháidín travel South Connemara’s 424 bus route, creating a musical map that incorporates elements of Irish traditional music, earthy psych, ambient, kraut, free jazz, post rock, field recording and just about anything else you care to mention.

On Midsummer, London, Kate Carr is content to let the streets do the talking, observing the pulses and rhythms which otherwise go unnoticed: the fluvial gulping of the Thames, the polyrhythmic interactions of commuters’ footsteps, the industrial ambience of roadworks.