Albums

It’s rare to hear a band creating genuinely new music with a basis in traditional forms, but Erlend Apneseth Trio have managed it on more than one occasion. Lokk is their most vivid and satisfying reinvention yet.

Chloe Foy’s long-awaited debut album “Where Shall We Begin” is an introspective and nuanced work, touching on themes of life and loss, love and fear – a heartbreaking journey that ends in love and light.

An impressive step up from her debut, Rachel Baiman’s “Cycles” is bristling with confidence. Open and honest in its feelings, the album offers an insight into the dynamic of reconciling ambitions with the needs of a personal life.

The enticing combination of Ó hEadhra’s sensitive playing and NicChoinnich’s delightfully sweet vocals, rightly identified as one of the finest Gaelic singers on the scene today, is hard to resist. Càirdeas is a rather gorgeous album, a genuinely soothing and captivating listen.

Go By Feel is the much-anticipated debut by The Hello Darlins. With their mix of Canadian and American influences, they call their sound North Americana; you might just settle for spellbinding.

Justin Sullivan’s “Surrounded” is an album you need to spend time with…there’s a depth of emotion, despair and hope, darkness and light that captures both the isolation of lockdown but also the sense of a universal bond that it has awoken.

Ulster trio TRÚ talk us through their new album ‘No Fixed Abode’, offering a brilliant insight into each of the songs on their new album. It features some great stories and background…including mythology, changelings, faeries and Japanese folklore.

Besides the fascinating history of Graham Rorie’s ‘The Orcadians of Hudson Bay’, it’s also a suite of music that ranks amongst the best that’s recently come out of the Glasgow melting pot.

The release of ‘The Indigenous Afro-Jazz Sounds of Philip Tabane and his Malombo Jazzman’ was a seminal one, expanding the frontiers of African music. Reissued and remastered here on vinyl, it’s an exceptionally rewarding listen which offers subtle nuances on each repeated play.

‘For Morgan’ is a swirling memory of simpler times that manages to be timeless and timely all at once. A charming and intriguing album from Nick Evans, aka Dawn Song – an audio letter from father to son.

Evan Cheadle’s ‘Fault Line Serenade’ is a sorely needed auricular salve for these crazy, cacophonous times. Downbeat, reflective, embedded in sweet melodies, the overall effect is one of solace and campfire cosiness.

An album about salvation, about awakenings and about the warmth of strangers in troubled times that serves as a reminder of a shared humanity in an America torn by divisions, it is both personal and universal and Keating’s finest hour yet.