Albums

From uncanny atmospherics to heartfelt emotion, The Declining Winter’s ‘Last April’ offers the perfect example of how the combination of sadness, hope and love can be captured in music, perhaps more effectively than any other artform.

Fortunately for us, Christy Moore’s songs, albums, and gigs keep coming, and on ‘A Terrible Beauty’, the tenderness, empathy, solidarity, and absence of pretension never waver – long may it continue.

For anyone already aboard the Sun Ra mothership, Kingdom of Discipline, the latest release from the man and his Arkestra on Dead Currencies, is going to fast become a key missing piece to the overall puzzle as well as a favoured edition from the catalogue.

Zachary Lucky’s ‘The Wind’ is in the classic mould of an Americana troubadour album – it’s up there with the best, alongside Guy Clark, Tom Rush, and Townes Van Zandt.

Dance of Love feels like it could turn out to be Tucker Zimmerman’s Basement Tapes. Everything about it is fresh and spontaneous, music made on its own terms but with a spirit of collaborative generosity.   

With so many artists trying to recreate the spirit and songs of old-time country, who would have thought that Shetland-born Malachy Tallack’s ‘The Beautiful Atlantic Waltz’ would be one of the year’s best and most authentic sounding?

If her debut announced her as a distinctive new Americana voice, Deep Feeler, with its conflicted raw emotions, simple but effective melodies and imagery, reinforces Liv Greene as being one of the brightest stars in the genre’s constellation.

With ‘How Much Is Enough Volume One’, Iain Matthews delivers another immersive and engaging album from someone who has proven himself a consummate craftsman time and time again, far more than just the ripple in the stream he modestly calls himself.

For her third album, Yasmin Williams hits the collaboration button and pulls in guests on eight of the nine songs–Acadia is a gift of a recording, a rural album of gorgeous tunes with smooth edges that seem only to wish you well.

On Jouer, Annarella and Django weave a dreamlike musical tapestry that pays homage to the griot tradition, encompassing West African melodies, spiritual jazz, Swedish folk tunes and spoken word…a genuinely inventive debut.

A collection of masterfully reworked versions, ‘The Shackleton Trio’ is a nostalgic blast from the past for longtime fans and a perfect, pocket-sized introduction for those yet to experience the pure magic of their storytelling.

Tim Stafford and Thomm Jutz’s ‘Wall Dogs’ is an unfussy, downhome album with its roots deep in the musicians’ personal and musical heritages, played with unshowy skills and warmed by the fire of human connections, longings and lives lived.