News
Arborist shares “The Taming of Horses,” and announces his first self-produced album, Looking For Love, due via Fika Recordings. Belfast songwriter Mark McCambridge wrote the track during late nights watching Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man. Lush Hammond organ gives the song a sprawling, sophisticated feel — simultaneously disquieting and uplifting.
On their new EP, The Walls Around Ballyfin, the Leeds-based septet Awen Ensemble set sail for Ireland. Listen to their mesmerising lead single and title track, on which they bring a new lease of life to a forgotten folk song and a tune written by their drummer Eddie Bowes’s great-grandfather in County Laoise, Ireland.
Andrew Farmer, aka FRMR, has shared ‘Echinacea’, the new single from his second album, Ochre, out on August 28th via Bluestack Records. The nine-track album continues the ecological songwriting of his 2021 debut, Amelanchier, and broadens its sound alongside contributions from Michael Mormecha, Linley Hamilton, Duke Special, Luke Sital-Singh, and more.
Jake Xerxes Fussell shares “Boney” and “Boll Weevil,” two new singles from “The Old Beloved Path,” out September 18th via Fat Possum Records. “Boney” resurrects a rarely-recorded maritime chantey about Napoleon, while “Boll Weevil” draws from Charley Patton and Blind Willie McTell, reimagining a traditional standard about the invasive bug, but “like so many of us, he’s looking for a home.”
The Black Wizards have shared “Beat,” the final single from “Force Majeure & The Acts of God,” due September 4th via Hassle Records. It’s the only song on the album built drum beat-first, creeping through its shadowy opening before erupting into muscular desert-rock riffs. The Porto trio’s fourth album marks a decisive break from their earlier stoner-rock.
Johnny and Lillie Flynn have announced “Beam Cottage,” their first collaborative album, due 6th November via Transgressive Records. Produced by Charlie Andrew, it features new songs, covers of childhood favourites as well as reworkings from Johnny’s catalogue. Listen to “The Ghost of O’Donahue”, a song written in Ireland almost 20 years ago but now cast in a meaningful new light.
Dean McPhee has shared a video for “Indica Fields” from “Northern Earth”, his sixth full-length album, due 11 September on Bass Ritual. The video uses BFI archive footage from the final edition of the National Coal Board’s Mining Review series. Originally a sold-out limited cassette, the album arrives on 180g heavyweight vinyl — three compositions recorded live with no overdubs.
Laura Misch has announced “Lithic (Live at the Barbican)”, a live recording of her second album captured at her largest headline show to date. Out September 4th via One Little Independent Records, the live album reworks the electronic atmospherics of “Lithic” for a five-piece ensemble — handcrafted, ritualistic and raw. Watch the live video for the lead single “Soften” now.
Joan Shelley will reissue “Over and Even” on October 16th via No Quarter. Her acclaimed 2015 album — recorded across two days in a Kentucky farmhouse — returns with eight unheard demos, unearthed by husband and collaborator Nathan Salsburg from a CD-R of tape machine recordings she made for him in late 2014. “Jenny Come In (Demo)” is out now.
Mali Obomsawin announces “Automatic,” her second solo album, out October 16th via Out Of Your Head Records. Pairing her voice with archival Abenaki recordings processed by turntablist Andrew Broder, the eight-track album grew from a disorienting period following her breakout debut “Sweet Tooth.” Collaborators include Taylor Ho Bynum and guitarist Magdalena Abrego of Deerlady. Title track out now.
Duffy x Uhlmann share “Nylon Waiting Room,” the third and final single from “Hot Creek,” due 14 August on Orindal Records. At fifty-one seconds long and accompanied by a Christina Huang visualiser, it’s the last taste of a record built from two guitars and nothing else, named after a geothermal spring in Mono County, California.