Albums

The Weather Station’s ‘Humanhood’ is a sharp-edged bulletin from the 2025 frontline. Within, hope can be found, not just in the human spirit but also in the boundless forward-motion energy that creativity offers us all…there might yet be light at the end of the tunnel.

For all its apparent familiarity, The Purple Bird is a country record that nobody else could have possibly made. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy is still doing things entirely his own way, and he sounds as good as ever. Long may it continue.

RÓIS’ MO LÉAN is a masterful album with incantatory soundscapes that leave you for dead. “It’s as though Bjork was actually from Fermanagh and got really into ‘keening’.”

David Allred understands that negative emotions are defined by their positive flipsides and vice versa, and his music reflects that understanding. The pieces on ‘The Beautiful World’ are emotionally complex but admirably light of touch…its quiet power is nothing short of amazing.

Although now in his 81st year, Mulatu Astake demonstrates in his latest album, Tension, that his appetite for pushing his musical envelope in new directions has not diminished. It’s a vibrant, uplifting listen, and the musicianship is of the highest order.

On How to Rescue Things, Bill Orcutt plays his four-string Telecaster over recordings of old RCA easy-listening music…although he often resists going full pelt into his guitar strings, he flirts with the idea, reminding us that he still has plenty of fire in his fingers.

While the latest in the Ceremonial County Series is entirely wordless, both convey striking and very different stories: Bridget Hayden’s mythic and haunting, Daniel Weaver’s inevitable and personal. Rarely can so much have been said, and so eloquently, in half an hour of instrumental music.

Compter Les Dents strengthens the notion that Tartine de Clous’ music is something shared, something that exists in the world with lasting meaning. It’s so refreshing to hear music that is not overtly performative and not intended primarily as a product to be consumed.

Six years after their eponymous debut, Julie Fowlis, Éamon Doorley, Zoë Conway, and John Mc Intyre return with Allt Vol. II: Cuimhne, an album harmonious in every aspect: magnificent vocals, classy musicianship, and absorbing airy arrangements.

The performances on Bridget Hayden’s ‘Cold Blows the Rain’ are spellbinding. It’s an album as distinct and vivid as its characters are dark and illusory.

Sam Amidon’s Salt River is an album whose full kaleidoscopic experience is revealed through repeated listens. Eclectic is an easily applied word, but here we have an artist releasing a groundbreaking, spirited and adventurous album that is genuinely worthy of the description.

Everything The Memory Band do, however varied, is done to a high level. Their music is always interesting, often strange, and usually beautiful, and A Common Treasury is the perfect place to hear it.