Albums

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.

Jeremie Albino’s Our Time In The Sun, his first for Dan Auerbach’s label Easy Eye Sound, is the stuff of jukebox diners, a singalong soundtrack to nights of pain and passion…it’s also huge on melodic pleasantries. 

Karl Blau’s Vultures of Love is an album that deserves to be listened to all the way through: when taken together, the hectic elements that make up each individual song coalesce into something whole (and strangely wholesome), and that’s a beautiful thing to experience.

Past sounds have never sounded so thoroughly born of the present as they do on Jerron Paxton’s raw and wonderful ‘Things Done Changed’…a finely crafted album for today made oh so skilfully with the tools of yesterday.

On The Neon Gate, Nap Eyes songs drink deep at the wells of philosophy and literature, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it from a cursory listen. They seem to create a different niche for themselves with every new album; long may it continue.

Snowgoose’s third album, Descendant, is said to offer  “a reflection on the beauty and pain of impermanence”, but their intoxicating music is a far from transitory experience. Outstanding.