Albums

Suspended in time, yet charged with a power and purpose for today, Tobacco City’s ‘Horses’ examines running free to the sound of pedal steel guitars and the timeless vibrations of youth.

Chris Brain’s ‘New Light’ feels like spring; from the first notes of the opening title track, there is a lightness of touch that gives the songs a sense of freshness and optimism…a deeply satisfying listen and his best work to date.

Echolalia is a unique album that repurposes the glory days of English acid folk and pastoral, rural progressive music into a 2025 context. We could use some more of this good stuff in the world right now.

Ahead of their European tour that kicks off tomorrow, tunng’s Mike Lindsay talks us, track-by-track, through their new album – ‘Love You All Over Again’ – “it’s our way of going full circle.”

The Burning Hell’s ‘Ghost Palace’ may sound like an acceptance of Earth’s fate, but there are subtle signs that life…in a way, the diversity that artists like Kom bring to the world is one of the things that make it a future worth fighting for. 

Gigspanner Big Band’s ‘Turnstone’ is a great example of how traditional song can provide a template for exciting new musical discovery. It’s also a career-defining release from one of folk’s most powerfully creative groups.

Daniel Bachman’s ‘Moving Through Light’ is a remarkable recording that turns the guitar soli genre inside out…It is a startlingly beautiful, challenging, painstaking piece of work from an artist who continues to push boundaries and create the work that means the most to him.

Kris Delmhorst’s ‘Ghosts In The Garden’ is an entrancing album not about isolation and emptiness but, as she sings on the title track, how “everyone’s here/no one’s gone”.

Inspired by the magic of collaboration and built around the philosophy of minimalism, David Grubbs’ ‘Whistle from Above’ hits so many moods and emotions that it positively demands multiple listens–a bumper crop of excellent mercurial music from an eternally fascinating artist.

Teeth of Time is Joshua Burnside’s most rounded, complex and layered work to date. That said, the jagged edges and black depths that have characterised his music for a decade are still there, only now they are illuminated by a fragile beauty.

With Hinterland, Gerry Diver and Lisa Knapp wanted to create something ‘raw and real and unrestrained,’ something that flies in the face of the notion that folk music is a static form…this gloriously free-spirited album is the perfect example of folk’s potential for reinvention. 

Frog’s Daniel Bateman is (still) one of the world’s finest, most singularly gifted songwriters. 1000 Variations on the Same Song might dip liberally into America’s grimy gutters or get its sustenance from heartbreak, but I still can’t listen without a giant lunatic grin.