Albums

Eve Adams’s fourth album, American Dust, is a stunning folk noir soundscape that transports listeners to the sun-baked American Southwest, exploring themes of love, family history, solitude, resilience, and the enduring spirit of the American Dream.

Sarah-Jane Summers and Juhani Silvola’s “How to Raise the Wind” presents a collection of beautifully crafted chamber folk music inspired by Scottish and Norwegian folklore. The acclaimed duo blends intricate violin with dynamic guitar, supported by a talented guest quintet. Each track offers a unique listening experience, from high-energy compositions to serene, atmospheric soundscapes. The result is a rich and diverse musical journey that achieves true beauty and depth.

Ron Sexsmith’s 18th studio album, “Hangover Terrace,” is a raw and honest collection that explores themes of friendship, self-examination, and the passage of time. Despite its “wounded” core, the album radiates warmth and optimism through tracks like the tender “House Of Love” and the rocking “Camelot Towers.” The album showcases Sexsmith’s enduring talent and ability to please audiences with his sincerity and soul.

On Junior Brother’s third album, The End, Ronan Kealy displays real genius in the way he links ancient themes, such as the album’s underlying central motif of fairy forts, to our contemporary plight. “we can do nothing other than hang on his every word, words that slip from calm to fervid to agonised. It’s a journey we are willing to take again and again.”

On Animal Poem, Anna Tivel’s latest album, she asks, “In the face of endless avarice and cruelty, how do we talk about the realness of love? How do we talk about destiny from the balcony of a nation in decline? How does our attention shape the way we touch the natural world?” It’s a masterclass in subtlety and emotional depth that doesn’t demand your attention but instead earns it.

Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin’s Ghosted I and II freewheeled across a matrix whose corners were marked by krautrock, ambient, jazz and freely improvised modernism, III adds even more dimensions. It’s the sound of a band who know each other well enough that they can begin to concentrate on the things they don’t yet know, the unexplored musical directions that open up when they play together.

Wao is living proof that Joseph Shabason & Nicholas Krgovich and Tenniscoats, two utterly distinctive musical acts, can collaborate successfully and create something new without losing any of their own potency in the process. This outwardly unassuming album is as wise and beautiful and unexpected as anything currently happening in the furthest-flung outposts of music.  

Pareidolia is a subtle and teasing record, beautiful and sometimes bewildering. It has an engrossing element that resembles the arc of a story, which is difficult to achieve in improvisational music but which gives you an insight into how closely and how well Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O’Rourke work together, and how much background work they put into this intuitive, cohesive album.

In his new album Só Ouço, German-Spanish artist Wolfgang Pérez chronicles a two-year journey through Rio de Janeiro that profoundly reshaped his musical perspective. The project, which started as a formal study, evolved into a full immersion in the city’s rhythms and culture. The result is a vibrant musical dialogue between his European roots and the complex soul of Brazil, born from unexpected collaborations.

Following a diagnosis of a degenerative nerve condition and told he would no longer be able to play guitar, Amit Dattani taught himself a new way of playing, and, several years on, defiantly returns with ‘Wrong Kind of One’, an album that’s as strong as his debut and deserving of further glowing accolades.

With Patterns, Katy Pinke & Will Graefe nail the perfect cover album, hitting an impeccable balance between variety of material and consistency of tone. While covering well-known songs by Bobbie Gentry, The Beach Boys, Elliott Smith, SZA, Frank Ocean, Paul Simon and Jeff Buckley, you could come to Patterns without knowing any of these songs, and it would still be an entrancing and rewarding listen.

Chicago Underground Duo’s Hyperglyph is a stunning return, a masterful fusion of free jazz and otherworldly exploration. Rob Mazurek’s trumpet and synthesizers blend with Chad Taylor’s percussion, creating a relentless, vibrant album that feels both familiar and entirely new. It’s an exhilarating, multi-layered work of pure invention.