Thomas Blake

A record on which the modern and the classical collide and whose restful exterior conceals a heart of dark, beautiful energy. William Blake would surely have approved.

An exhaustively beautiful paean to place and time. We should perhaps listen to it in the same way that Moult conceived and recorded it: in stillness and solitude, with our minds at sea.

A Year In The Country have done an excellent job of rounding up many of hauntology’s leading lights and, despite the wide range of sounds represented, The Quietened Village sounds impressively coherent. If this the sound of the new epoch then we may not be condemned after all.

The Valley of Yessiree is the debut release of A. Dyjecinski, a spectacularly assured debut album that, for all its minimal aesthetic, is brimming with ideas.

It is tempting to think that Behind The Glass is less of a leap into the unknown and more the natural high point of a set of musicians at the peak of their creative powers. It is their most accomplished work to date, and proof of the vital need for change and experimentation, in music as in life.

Prospect Of Skelmersdale is a rare album that manages to be socially aware without being preachy, sonically vibrant without being derivative, but this one ticks all the right boxes. A superbly refreshing listen.

Jeffrey Lewis’ ‘Manhattan’ is one of his best, and confirms its author as one of the most intelligent, funny and interesting American songwriters in any genre.

The Big Eyes Family Players have an uncanny ability to exist outside of the boundaries of musical eras, one that makes their blueprint such a sonically successful one. OH! finds them at the very top of their game and is perhaps their finest album to date.

The songs on ‘No More Lamps in the Morning’ are, for all their apparent restraint, some of the most compelling and haunting of Josephine Foster’s career.

Avocet is an album to get lost in, but not necessarily one you want to find your way out of. There is a strong case for saying it contains Jansch’s finest work. With any luck this reissue – stunningly packaged in Hannah Alice’s original artwork – will find its way to a new and appreciative set of listeners.

On Everything Behind Us Is A Dream, We/Or/Me, the musical alias of Bahhaj Taherzadeh, demonstrates how clarity and simplicity can create a beautiful album. Don’t miss his London gig this month!

Photographs of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy often show him squinting in the light of a real or imagined sun, his brow shiny with the sweat of the boozer, the fervent preacher, the madman or the honest labourer….on this timely collection we are offered new and tantalising views of them all.