Albums

Musically relaxed, melodically infectious, lyrically witty and insightful in equal measure: in other words, precisely what you’d expect of and want from a Steve Forbert album.

On A Shadow Falls Over New Brighton, M G Boulter takes the intrinsically familiar and makes it fresh, vital and poetic. The haunting potency of nostalgia lingers long here. It’s an evocative and entirely hypnotic blend.

In this tiny, rural Swedish town, on an island in the Baltic Sea, amidst medieval defence walls and Viking ruins, Victor Mucho began to discover who he was. Moonlight in Visby is a soundtrack to the stillness and isolation that enveloped him.

Leyla McCalla’s ‘Breaking the Thermometer’ is both a tribute to Jean Dominique and Michéle Montas and an impassioned defence of democracy in present-day Haiti and a quest towards personal understanding… It’s an extremely intelligent album, but it is also a warm, hopeful, angry, questioning one.

Valorie Miller’s ‘Only The Killer Would Know’ is part ecopolitics-activism (a sort of musical equivalent to the film Dark Waters), part-excursion into troubled relationships, it’s an at times swampy slow burner that progressively gets deeper inside you the more you play it.

The music of Tone of Voice Orchestra defies description or categorisation, combining Scandinavian roots with indie folk, jazz and global influences, exceptional harmonies and sophisticated lyrics; they will draw you back again and again. An exceptional debut.

Based out of L.A., Stand True is the second full-length album from The Americans, showcasing their roots-rock Americana in solid style and making a good argument for them to be considered up there with the best of the new standard-bearers.

Katie Spencer’s ‘The Edge of the Land’ doesn’t feel the need to over-embellish its sound; it has the spontaneity that live performance captures combined with arrangements that are unfussy but quietly adventurous. Let this one live with you for a while to discover its powers.

Reflective and reverent, with Nine Waves Ye Vagabonds prove once again to be at the forefront of an ever-evolving, flourishing Irish folk scene and have done so in the most understated and inspired fashion imaginable.

If you think you know what ‘joyous’ means, you will think again when you’ve heard ‘Not Leaving Quietly’ by Joe Broughton’s Conservatoire Folk Ensemble. It’s breathtaking.

You don’t have to be religious to feel the spirit that imbues the songs on ‘When Do We Get Paid’. The Staples Jr. Singers have put it in every groove of the original record.

Lily Henley wasn’t interested in blazing a trail with her new album Oras Desaoradas. She was trying to interpret a tradition. This is music that deserves not just your attention but your commitment to ensuring this tradition continues and thrives.