Albums

Formed in a damp rehearsal room with no windows, using pre-loved instruments…, Niall Summerton’s ‘What Am I Made Of?’ emerges like a survival manual for those facing struggles or stigmas. It’s a winning debut album, full of tender stories and real-life truths.

With Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost, Jon Wilks proves once again what a stand-out talent he really is. At its soul is the love of song, of collaborating with friends, and of discovering old tunes and creating new ones.

While Early Works may not be an indication of where Samantha Whates’ next album might be at, the time she devoted to its creation during lockdown was an undeniably sweet diversion.

To echo a line in one of the songs, if old-time Americana is your sort of music, then Low Lily’s debut follow-up, Angels in the Wreckage, flings heaven’s gate wide open.

It may have taken a while, but with ‘We Are Only Sound’, Lucy Farrell has given us a bold debut album of rare sophistication, and a moving document of an emotional few years.

Trapper Schoepp’s ‘Siren Songs’ is a consistently, infectiously melodic album that makes you positively want to head for the nearest highway so you can cruise with it pumping out of the car speakers.

As demonstrated on Garden Party, Ripley Johnson and the Rose City Band are explorers in the best sense of the term, harbingers of spring that take pathways all of their own.

For Jump on It, Bill Orcutt pulled a Harmony Sovereign out of the closet and stripped it of two strings, before recording. With a slightly shorter scale and sweeter tone, the Harmony epitomises the sound Bill achieves here – At once complex, clear, direct and primitive.

Xylouris White’s ‘The Forest in Me’ smacks of confidence and creativity and is happy to shift expectations and deliver a sound so different to previous albums. I’ve enjoyed this duo (trio?) since Goats came along in 2014, but this short, sharp and dynamic project is the one I’ve been waiting for.

New Mexico-based artist Jude Brothers lures the listener into a spellbinding, poetic, surprising world with their album ‘render tender / blunder sunder’. It’s been a long time since I was as enthralled by a piece of music as I was when I listened to this record.

Eric D Johnson takes us home on Fruit Bats’ ‘A River Running to Your Heart’, enabling us to see the world where we live in a light of hope and comfort thanks to those we care about most.

Cloudheads is O’Hooley & Tidow’s most personal and most contemplative work to date; glowing with the consummate musicianship they’ve crafted over the past 10 years, that international profile seems set to grow bigger still.