The first of this week’s six picks is Jolie Holland’s latest, Haunted Mountain. It’s a beckoning, confronting place; at once ancient and of the moment, it hums with literary and political interconnections. The songs illuminate states of dispossession and alienation, lust and pollination: a state of reciprocity with our living planet. The record is a…
Beautifully produced and rich in scope, Iechyd Da is Bill Ryder-Jones’ most ambitious record to date: at times joyous and grand, at others intimate and heartbreaking. The past few years spent producing other artists have provided that gentle nudge to expand into new territory, from kids’ choirs and tender strings to dramatically re-contextualised disco samples.…
This week’s blockbusters open with The Harmony Codex. This seventh solo album by Steven Wilson takes you on a trip: it’s a genre-spanning collection that opens up like a musical puzzle box, presenting a series of endlessly beautiful vistas that roll out and shift in front of you. Arguably the best album Wilson has made…
The surprise companion to The National’s April release First Two Pages of Frankenstein, Laugh Track is the band’s most freewheeling, all-hands-on-deck album in years. If Frankenstein represented a rebuilding of trust between group members after 20+ years together, the vibrant, exploratory Laugh Track is both the product of that faith and a new statement of…
First out of this week’s box of delights is João, a collection of songs made famous by Bebel Gilberto’s father. João Gilberto, widely regarded as the father of bossa nova music, passed away in 2019 after a 70-year career in music. Bebel began singing with him as a small child and the songs she sings…
Polaroid Lovers is the seventh studio album from four-time Grammy-winner Sarah Jarosz. Produced by Daniel Tashian, Polaroid Lovers is a bold creative statement that sees Jarosz exploring new sonic territory. The 11 songs on the album, all co-written by Jarosz with songwriters including Tashian, Jon Randall, Ruston Kelly and Natalie Hemby, touch on themes both…
The first of this week’s late summer sizzlers is Race the Night, the eighth studio album from Ash, which comes 29 years, 18 hit singles, seven studio albums and an unfathomable number of tour dates since their appearance on the 1994 Crazed and Confused compilation. Race the Night is both a party with old friends…
They say long live the king and all, but nothing’s ever set in stone. A quarter of a century since his self-inflicted coronation, and self-released debut solo album, Kenny Anderson – DIY pop voyager, ancestral seaside home restorer, squeezebox lothario, Fife for lifer, diamond miner, hijacker of hearts, and the man also known as King…
First out of this week’s treasure chest is An Ever Changing View: an expansive, immaculately conceived project that presents trumpeter, bandleader and composer Matthew Halsall’s signature blend of jazz, electronica, global and spiritual jazz influences. Halsall, who has been hailed as one of the leading figures of the UK jazz renaissance, has never seen himself…