News

Biita Houdei — the new moniker of singer-songwriter Lisa Houdei (formerly LéPonds) — shares debut single “Life Inside The Hourglass” via Basin Rock and Father/Daughter. Shaped in the shadows and sounds of Topanga Canyon, the sub-three-minute strum dropped into her mind “from a ghost of sorts” and was written in twenty minutes. Produced by Haley Heynderickx in her first lead production role.

Pharis & Jason Romero return on June 12th with “These Are The Days That Turn In To Years”, their seventh studio album for Free Dirt Records. Recorded at the duo’s restored riverside barn in Horsefly, BC, it is, in press notes, “a songwriter’s deep exhale, replete with stories, love, and nostalgia.” Title track “These Are The Days” is out now.

Laura Veirs returns on 14th August with her fourteenth solo album, “Temple Songs”, released via her own Raven Marching Band Records. Her lead single, “Flying Into Darkness”, arrives with a video that Veirs filmed herself during a recent French tour. Written, recorded, arranged, produced and performed entirely alone in her backyard ‘Temple of Bloom’ studio, it’s the most self-contained project of Veirs’s three-decade career.

A final album from Ed Askew is on the way. “The Final Painting,” a posthumous album from the late outsider songwriter, painter and poet, arrives July 31st — assembled in his last years with producer Jerry David DeCicca. Lead single “Gray Air-o-Plane,” featuring Sharon Van Etten, is out today with a music video framed by Ed’s own paintings.

Mallory Hawk’s self-released debut album “Chinook” — named for the twin-rotored helicopter that haunted her Fayetteville childhood — arrives July 31st, 2026. Lead single and accompanying video “Revolver” is a jangly yet lush, yearning love song about being a hopeless sucker for someone, caught in the endless cycles of faulty loyalty. Written entirely by Hawk and recorded at Philadelphia’s Headroom Studios with producer Sam Acchione.

Irish alternative trad/folk group Rattling Ark share “Coleraine Jig,” the second single from their forthcoming debut album “Top of a Mountain.” Led by cellist Kevin Murphy (Slow Moving Clouds), this haunting instrumental piece fuses cello with cascading zithers and percussion — the melody framed before resolving into a trancelike groove.

BBC Folk Award winner Sam Carter has shared a new video for “Canadee-i-o” to herald his live album “Sam Carter Sings Nic Jones: Live At Celtic Connections,” recorded with the Jones family’s blessing. Drawing from across Jones’ catalogue, the album is the latest chapter in Carter’s lifelong devotion to an English folk revival giant, due 26th June via Captain Records.

Félicia Atkinson announces “SANS VISAGE,” a reimagined score for Georges Franju’s 1960 horror “Les yeux sans visage,” out June 26 via Viernulvier Records. Following her recent collaboration with Christina Vantzou, the 34-minute album embeds piano in electroacoustic textures and is dedicated to Gisèle Pelicot. Lead preview “Les Yeux II” is available to hear now.

Trans folksinger Creekbed Carter Hogan announces “Peasants Revolt”, out 24th July via Gar Hole Records. The lead single “Cutbank of Cleves” — paired with a video directed and edited by Lexi Kiecker — finds Hogan playing court jester in the halls of a dying empire, sketching a rollicking medieval-Americana fable for an age of upheaval, transition and collective survival.

Peals — the Baltimore duo of William Cashion (Future Islands) and Bruce Willen (Double Dagger) — return on 31st July via Thrill Jockey with twin live albums: “The Compound 76” on limited LP and “Le Pantoum 46” digitally. Lead single “Essential Attitudes” comes from a 2016 set at Baltimore’s The Compound, with the digital album drawn from a 2013 Quebec City performance.

Sir Richard Bishop returns to Drag City on July 31st with “Hillbilly Erotica”, a sequel of sorts to 2025’s “Hillbilly Ragas”. Eight tracks, one acoustic guitar, no overdubs — and save for the closing piece, entirely improvised. Bishop again wrangles with John Fahey’s “American Primitive” tag, finding clearings, hills and valleys glimpsed in the distance… Watch his video for the lead single “Finger, Tennessee”.

Following his place on KLOF Mag’s Albums of the Year 2025 with “Fiery Gizzard” — leaning into the weird and psychedelic side of Old-time music — Joseph Decosimo returns with a solo guitar take on “Cumberland Gap,” filmed in his Durham backyard amid white-throated sparrows. The multi-instrumentalist (“fiddle, banjo, guitar, droney things”) is also touring the UK this month (May 2026) with Joe Danks.