Albums

Baltimore, the second album from North Carolina duo Tacoma Park, finds John Harrison and Ben Felton in more focused and confident form. Formed from lengthy remote sessions and edited with considerable discipline, the album balances acoustic Americana with electronic strangeness — simple melodies blending seamlessly with electronica and dance beats across forty cohesive, deeply enjoyable minutes.

Frog have always been brilliant at exposing the emptiness and hollowness at the heart of things, and filling it up, at least temporarily, with their own brand of heartfelt Americana. Eight albums in, and that continues to be the case. Frog For Sale, with its Beatle-baiting title and condensed, pining, piano-oriented sound, is a welcome hit of literate indie wistfulness from one of America’s most consistently impressive bands.

Kris Drever’s “Doing This For Love” is an artfully crafted meditation on the unglamorous reality of 4am alarm clocks and quiet sacrifices. Infused with northern grit, it stands as a powerful tribute to the working lives it depicts. These songs are born of struggle but elevated by love, each with the potential to secure a lasting place in the folk canon.

“…an album that flits so easily between past and present, whose songs encompass fluttering beauty and quietly looming presences.” The Little Winters is an album worthy of the clàrsach, with all its historical and cultural importance, and Anna McLuckie, with her clear voice, poetic songwriting and precise, fluid playing, has announced herself as one of British folk music’s most formidable talents.

With its cast of crows and references to wild rain and leaden skies, Natalie Wildgoose’s ‘Rural Hours’ is music for the high moorlands and windswept hills. The loose structures and unorthodox arrangements of her songs remain, but they are brought into focus by a small ensemble. Her songs are intentionally ephemeral — part of their appeal is the charged silence they leave in their wake.

Jim Moray — folk music’s errant prince — returns with Gallants, his eighth solo album. Traditional ballads are teased into stunning new shapes, the self-penned Three Gallants fits seamlessly among them, and the imposing Omie Wise drips with pathos and tenderness. A stunning closer backed by Maddie Morris and the Trans Choir seals an uncompromising, deeply immersive collection.

Félicia Atkinson and Christina Vantzou’s “Reflections Vol. 3: Water Poems” is a breathtakingly beautiful world of hushed, swooning sonics and suggestive spoken word. The duo describe personal moments but present them as shared worlds, as if exploded by magnification. Its every moment rings with care, craft and impressive sonic exactitude. An utterly compelling musical journey, out April 10th via RVNG Intl.

Juni Habel’s Evergreen In Your Mind is an absolutely wonderful record. Eleven songs of comforting timelessness built on homely nylon guitar and subtly deployed production — from the perfection of Stand So Still to the mesmeric suspense of Gitarhum. This is 41 minutes of sumptuous music that cleanses the mind and reconnects you with the things that matter in life.

Brown Horse’s third album, Total Dive, is a bigger, bolder beast than anything they have attempted before. Snarling guitars and weary pedal steel carry songs steeped in isolation, loss and defiant dark humour, with nods to Neil Young, Jason Molina and Uncle Tupelo running beneath the scuzz. A pinnacle, reached in just three albums.

The Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties series continues with Vol.XXII: Tyne and Wear | Somerset. Maryanne Royle’s “The Stone Throat” takes listeners into Newcastle’s Victoria Tunnel, blending social history, hauntology and post-industrial soundscape into one of the series’ most atmospheric pieces. Paddy Steer’s “Swerving Coach” is its perfect foil — a fidgety, fascinating folly from Somerset’s most haunted corners.

Wendy Eisenberg’s self-titled new album is a distinct departure — gorgeously orchestrated baroque folk-rock of remarkable maturity and complexity. With lush string arrangements from co-producer mari rubio (more eaze) adding warmth and depth throughout, these ten exquisite songs trace a fine line between agonised self-examination and celebration. It’s the kind of album that scratches an itch you didn’t know you had.

Mixed and mastered by Jim O’Rourke, Tommy Peltier’s “Echo Park (The 70’s Sessions)” catches the moment a jazz lifer reinvented himself as a songwriter in 1970s Los Angeles. Recorded in a hillside house near Echo Park Lane, these eleven tracks brim with melodic invention — each could be convincingly sold as a long-forgotten seventies hit. Out now via Drag City.