Albums

Following a landmark year that saw his seminal 1980s band, The Loft, finally release their debut album, Everything Changes Everything Stays the Same, indie icon Pete Astor delves deeper into his personal archives with Unsent Letters (Home Recordings 1984-2024). Released on July 25th via Tapete Records, this new collection offers an intimate and unvarnished glimpse into a forty-year songwriting journey, a perfect companion piece to his band’s recent forward-facing return.

Emerging from dislocation and a traumatic break-up, Yoshika Colwell’s “On The Wing” is a raw, disturbed song cycle. This profoundly heartfelt and honest album explores challenging feelings with unflinching intensity. The elegant, baroque folk-pop, with echoes of Nick Drake, analyses a turbulent life chapter, allowing cracks of hopeful light to break through its elegant melancholy in a work that feels honest and real.

Cory Hanson delivers a rare combination: clever arrangements and emotional heft. ‘I Love People’ feels like a continuation of 2023’s Western Cum, conjuring up dusty roads and shimmering horizons with rolling country-rock and mature piano ballads. Nailing this many styles is tough, but Hanson’s surefooted songwriting weaves the disparate elements into a vivid, unapologetically American tapestry with an almost magical precision.

Recorded live in just three days, Sean Pratt’s Prairie Whistle Call captures a purity often lost in modern recording. With no bells and whistles, you get a recording of remarkable honesty. Pratt merges timeless sounds with modern sensibilities, speaking from the heart and distilling the wind of the plains into simple truths.

Several years after his last release, folk and blues artist Jason Steel returns with Studies Volume 1. This intimate 6-track collection was recorded live to a single microphone in East London, blending original songs with traditional arrangements. Rooted in folk and country blues, the album explores themes of memory and resistance, drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Elizabeth Cotten, Cormac McCarthy, and Paul Klee.

Following the release of their bold and confident 2022 debut, Owen Spafford and Louis Campbell were ones to watch and their follow-up confirms this; “Tomorrow Held” is a beautifully constructed album that swings from calm and tranquil to the gnarly and abrupt. It is a considerable step forward for Spafford Campbell in terms of creative ideas; they have talent to spare and are not afraid to use it.

The latest edition of the Ceremonial Counties tape series from Folklore Tapes features Bristol and Hertfordshire. Musician and visual artist Jake Blanchard tackles Bristol, the first part likened to Faust and Steve Reich in a competitive morris dance. Side two features Geology Disco and is devoted to Hertfordshire. While little is known of Geology Disco, the future of New Weird Britain is in safe hands.

On Columbia Deluxe, Fuubutsushi sound simultaneously like a bunch of musicians who have never met and a group who have been playing together for an eternity. These tracks, in a live setting, have developed a life beyond the logistical constraints of their conception. Beautiful and increasingly complex, they have become a celebration of live performance and a reminder of how music still plays a vital role in human interaction.

When an illness stole her ability to sing, Chicago artist Gia Margaret turned to her synthesizer for comfort. The result was “Mia Gargaret,” her stunning 2020 ambient album. Weaving field recordings with immersive soundscapes, it’s a deeply personal document of self-healing and a powerful testament to the restorative nature of creating music.

Throughout Spider Towns, Will Hansen (Old Pup) finds profundity in the everyday, shrugging off the ephemeral and delivering delicate, melancholic hooks. The album captures moments of quiet absurdity, heartfelt earnestness, and pastoral mystique, leaving listeners entangled in its beautifully crafted web.

It feels like Mike Polizze has unlocked some doors with ‘Around Sound’. There is a tone that unites the whole record: a celestial, dreamy mirage of sound that shifts with the elements from bright sunshine heat to breezy clouds casting darker shadows. Where he travels next may be as hard to predict as ever, but if the results are as fine as this, then we must follow him.

The World Is But a Place of Survival: Begena Songs from Ethiopia is the latest compilation offering from the London-based record label Death Is Not The End, which delves into the deeply spiritual and rarely heard music of the begena, a large ten-stringed lyre intrinsic to the Amharic heritage of Ethiopia.