Albums

When things begin to stagnate, the answer is to shake things up, which is what Zach Berkman needed to do on The Heart of. An album that examines that complex dance of human existence, and that endless search for connection.

Joseph Allred’s New Jerusalem shifts between the cosmic and the cosmopolitan and results in a multilayered album that is often intriguingly dense but never far away from a state of euphoria.

On Sweet Revolution, the superb new album from Hannah White, the honesty of her words, music, and voice makes all the hurt within somehow beatific and transformational.

Even among the darkest moments of Kristen Grainger & True North’s ‘Fear of Falling Stars’, there’s a light somewhere on the horizon, bringing you back to listen again and again.

On ‘Look Over the Wall, See the Sky’, John Francis Flynn unropes songs from their historical moorings and lets them barrel downstream…Refreshing and vividly utopian, these songs exist in liberated states that have the feel of radical statements.

On ‘Cat Power Sings Dylan’, the audience’s reaction is an outpouring of love and gratitude deservedly raining down on a timeless set of music and an artist with the depth of understanding, integrity and feeling to pull it off. What a night this must have been.  

Fascinating in its simplicity while constantly shifting focal points, with Nightwater/ all the dead do is dream, Gabriel Birnbaum creates worlds that are the perfect antidote for whatever the day has brought.

Bryony Griffith & Alice Jones’s ‘Wesselbobs’ casts a light on treasured Yorkshire traditions, tales, and winter rituals. A charming seasonal offering that any folkie would be happy to find under the tree.

On ‘When the Roses Come Again’ Daniel Bachman returns to the past and does a wonderful job in skilfully blending his electronic touches with traditional music. Of his whole quartet of recent work, starting with 2018’s Morning Star, this is his strongest.

Dipped in an attractive psychedelic West Coast vibe, Half Stack’s latest offering, Sitting Pretty, shifts from previous whiskey-soaked rock to an overall more relaxed mellower feel.

Joined by Neilson Hubbard and Will Kimbrough, Dean Owens’s Pictures is an album haunted by ghosts and anchored by love, it might just well be the best he’s ever made.

The lack of musical constraint is a big part of what makes Frankie Archer’s ‘Never So Red’ such a persuasive, innovative release. Sounding both modern and traditional, it’s quite unlike any other folk music release out there today.