Albums

In their debut album, Hookahs of the Cave, Danny Riley and Noah Radley deliver an addictively listenable collection of electric guitar and drum excursions. From the acid-tinged, eastern raga-esque grooves of ‘Smoking the Bone’ to the pensive, sparse atmosphere of ‘Enclave of Parisian Cash’, the duo showcases immense depth. Whether through muscular drumming or patient restraint, this collaboration is consistently exciting and atmospheric.

Iron & Wine’s Hen’s Teeth is decidedly darker than its sibling album, admitting emotional ambiguity at every turn. Sam Beam knows that a lot can happen in the span of a single song, and here he leans ever further into the South’s musical traditions, surrounding himself with collaborators who double the vulnerability at the heart of his most open-hearted work in years.

Tōth has always been somewhat genre-slippery; it’s proof of his unwillingness to stay in one place for too long, and that’s something to be celebrated. There aren’t too many musicians making heart-on-sleeve emotional rollercoasters with this much control, poise and skill. ‘And The Voice Said’ moves in all directions at once, and ends up exactly where it should be.

Philadelphia/Chicago duo The Early have mastered a specific brand of improvised music that draws on jazz and hard-edged experimental rock. Across their latest EP, Cusp, and album, I Want to be Ready, Lewis and Nussbaum pass through landscapes, lighting them up and leaving them changed for the better. A resounding success.

The Wave Pictures fashion their touchstones into new shapes: rapid-fire surf-pop, sleazy garage blues, tender slow-burners full of weeping guitars. Tattersall’s playing remains immediately distinctive, incorporating desert rock and spiky proto-punk, sometimes sounding like both Television guitarists at once. From Proustian throbs of memory to blazing solos, “Gained/Lost” is accessible, varied, and endlessly rewarding—another bright star in their constellation.

My Days of 58 finds Bill Callahan embracing uncertainty — and it has made his songs wiser than ever. They are also funnier, sadder, deeper. Live energy, partly improvised performances, a spirit of collaboration: these are the things that make Callahan tick. Over three and a half decades into his career, he is still capable of adding more strings to his bow.

Seamus Cater and Norwegian guitarist Fredrik Rasten have an exceptional ear for space — knowing what to leave out as much as what to put in. Across six unhurried songs, Strange the Grass Grows breathes and blooms with quiet confidence, its traditional ballads and originals handled with such grace and elegance that it stays with you long after the final note.

In the Low Light is one of the strongest albums of its kind this year — a record that puts songs and the emotive stimuli that drove them front and centre. Written in the shadow of profound personal loss, Lucy Kitchen strikes a remarkable balance between darkness and light, unflinching in its grief yet quietly alive with hope.

Almost Proustian in its relationship with memory, Proof Enough goes beyond mere nostalgic effect. Michael Cormier-O’Leary became a father while recording these six songs, and his writing is full of hopes and fears alongside the quiet determination to live well. He has become an exceptional songwriter, alchemising human concerns into low-key poetry and backing it with a nuanced, delightfully off-kilter grasp of song dynamics.

Buck Meek’s The Mirror is the work of a true American outsider, one who understands that creativity is always a collaboration and a lineage. Whether channelling dusty Texan country or something stranger and more introverted, Meek — aided by Big Thief bandmate James Krivchenia’s light-touch production — stretches these songs into unusual shapes without ever losing sight of their warm, beating hearts.

Very few come sprinkled with the kind of magic dust that coats the new album by Georgia Shackleton. A sense of history seeps into every corner of the recording. These songs are timeless and wise, bright and intricate, shot through with polar light and the glint of the sea. “From the Floorboards” is an album with a story behind it, and that story is worth telling.

Shane Parish takes on the music of English electronic duo Autechre, re-imagining ten of the band’s 1990s songs solo on his Taylor acoustic — ultra-minimalist and organic. The intricacy of the numerous patterns becomes clearer with each listen, time signatures and tempos working together to create a tapestry of beautifully accomplished acoustic playing. Super clean, incredibly precise, and simply a pleasure to listen to — Autechre Guitar is a stunner.