News

Anna McLuckie has shared a video for “Blackberry Love”, the opening track from her album “The Little Winters”, filmed by Lucy McLuckie. The song lists the five plants: “…like a kind of spell. It’s a practical magic, but all the more enchanting for it”, writes KLOF’s Thomas Blake.

Golden Samphire Band share a video for “Waking Moment,” from debut album “Dream Is The Driver,” out now via Wayside & Woodland Recordings. Junkboy’s Mik and Rich Hanscomb, joined by Hannah Lewis, trace the song back to wild swims in Seaford Bay, paired with a grainy, VHS-to-NTSC video for a hazy, half-remembered summer feel.

Caleb Nichols has announced “Stone Age Is Now: Poems from Lithic”, his new album out via Royal Oakie Records this October – listen to his latest single “A Feeling of a Feeling of a Feeling”. Across twelve tracks, Nichols interpolates poems from his book “Lithic: A Hyperballad” with songs from “Stone Age Is Back”, tracked in five days with engineer Jay Pellicci.

Los Angeles duo Big Trouble — Justin Kohlberg and Daniel Talamantes — share debut single “Mel” ahead of their first album, “On Elephant Hill”, out September 18th via Royal Oakie Records. Inspired by Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree”, the song explores the cost of committing to a cause, with the album drawing on influences from Kate Bush, Juan Gabriel and Paul McCartney in equal measure.

Jason Dungan and Johan Carøe have shared “Mornings with Rita”, the second single from “Routine”, their first album together. Built over several years, they traded home recordings between Copenhagen and rural Sweden, setting zither, clarinet and cello against tape, drum machine and a Yamaha DX7. Out on Tonal Union on September 25th.

Angela Autumn releases her second album, “Believer”, on September 11th via Gar Hole Records, and shares its opening track, “Heavy Tobacco”, with a video she choreographed herself. The song came from thinking about tobacco as both a purifying spirit and a habit that turns harmful, and about choices that carry consequences both ways.

Lee Ranaldo has reworked “The System”, his score for Joris Postema’s documentary on three climate activists, resequencing it to fifteen tracks and adding two pieces held back from the 2025 release. Out today on Bandcamp via Silver Current Records, with vinyl in October, and featuring Leila Bordreuil, Jim Jarmusch and Brian Chase.

Glen Hansard has died aged 56 following a motorcycle crash in Dublin on Wednesday 29th July, just over a month after releasing the second half of “Don’t Settle”, a live retrospective cut at Berlin’s Funkhaus. Tributes have come from President Catherine Connolly, Bruce Springsteen and Bono.

Charlie Parr will release “Rooming House”, a seven-song folk opera, on Smithsonian Folkways on 16th October, and has shared an animated video for the title track. Drawn from Parr’s years in Minneapolis rooming houses, the album follows people facing poverty, illness and unstable housing, and the small generosities that keep them going. Dave King of The Bad Plus is on drums.

Flora Hibberd has shared “Shelley”, the latest track from her second album “Mammoth”, out 16th October via 22TWENTY. Built on lush minor-key chords, pedal steel and close harmonies with J.E. Sunde, it’s a country-leaning turn she describes as a boxing match around the kitchen table. The video was filmed in Paris and elsewhere, in summer with pals.

“Made In Senegal” is Orchestra Baobab’s first album in over ten years, out October 23rd on Strut/Madoky. Second single “Ana Maria” was written by the late Rudy Gomis for the grandmother who alone supported his career in music, drawing on Casamance Creole imagery to send the wind as a messenger between generations.

Elanor Moss has shared “Fixer”, the final single before her debut album “The Knife, The Needle”, out 21st August on Merge Records. It opens the album and gives it its name, the chorus turning a knife into a needle that might stitch the wound instead. The video is by H. Hawkline.