Albums

Available as a limited edition EP, Music/Nature extends the themes of finding hope and meaning amidst an atmosphere of division, and the many forms of fragmentation explored on Atomise.

Horsham showed its true colours with a near sell-out crowd for Skerryvore, there was a buzz around the theatre well before the house lights dimmed and with the band’s appearance on stage, the buzz turned into a roar.

This is more like a coming-out party for an artist no longer content to be one of many. With Not Alone, Birnbaum has exposed himself as a full-fledged artist in his own right, one deserving of a much wider audience.

The Portage, the latest album from Scotland’s Rant is something truly special. At points haunting, at others carefree and light, this is powerful and evocative music that is invigorating, bewitching and beautiful.

Glasgow duo Iona MacDonald and Paul Tasker, mark their fifteenth anniversary as Doghouse Roses next year, but the celebrations start early with this, their fourth album which ‘shines like a beacon’.

Illustrating the creativity flowing between these two performers, Little Common Twist is a very skilfully played and arranged piece of work which balances its many flavours like an accomplished chef.

Dig into the lyrics of ‘Bonfire and Pine’, the new album from Hope in High Water, and you are instantly hit by the weight of human emotion conveyed in the lyrics from childhood trauma to Grenfell, it’s an album of healing and truth.

Rustic, pastoral and suffused with a sense of tranquillity and of being one with the landscape, Endersby has crafted a quietly enrapturing album about navigating your way through life’s labyrinths with the healing power of nature as your guide.

Too often tributes such as this can fall flat, but on this occasion the obvious respect and love shown by all concerned to the memory and musical acumen of Jack Bruce is well-documented.

For their fourth album, Canadian trio West My Friend enlist a full symphony orchestra and choir to augment their melodic brand of guitar, mandolin and accordion flavoured folk.

In All Weather feels like a high watermark (so far) with the promise of great, and greater things to come. It is an artistic triumph, and certainly Josienne Clarke’s most assured work to date. A remarkable, impeccable collection.

Their first new material since 2017’s debut album, Go Get Gone, this five-track EP finds The Worry Dolls in fine form. Hopefully, a new full album will be surfacing some time next year, on the evidence here it should be hefty stuff.