Sarah Jarosz – Runaway Train

This is the third single release from the new Sarah Jarosz album ‘Polaroid Lovers’ on Rounder Records and it is yet another delight from the Jarosz strings headed straight for the Country radio stations in the US. Even though she is no longer a new face, it has to be said that ever since Sarah worked on the I’m With Her project alongside Sara Watkins and Aoife O’Donovan a few years ago her own solo work has really took off. She writes with the melodic ear of a vintage Country classicist and at this point her music is of a consistently high standard as can be heard definitively right here…

Muireann Bradley – Candyman

On her debut album release ‘I Kept These Old Blues’ Muireann sounds like she has been plucked straight out of time from the previous century, somewhere between 1929 and 1959. Her sound and style favourably echo the acoustic blues greats like Mississippi John Hurt and Elizabeth Cotton and most remarkable of all she is only on the first rung of the ladder, in fact she is still in school. Nevertheless, as this prime TV exposure from the new years eve Jools Holland show proves, there is nothing forced about her sound, it flows as natural as the Mississippi river and is as pure as water…

Sleater-Kinney – Say It Like You Mean It

On what sounds to these ears like their strongest set of songs since the departure of drummer Janet Weiss, Sleater-Kinney are falling back on the sweet spot angular guitar riffage they built their reputation on not to mention some of Corin Tucker’s most upfront and impassioned vocals in years. There is a horrible tragedy lurking in the background to new album ‘Little Rope’, Carrie Brownstein’s mother died after a car crash, which perhaps explains how they sound like a band working through something in this music. Unfortunately, the best art generally does rise up out of suffering and hardship…

Sukie Smith – Into The Light

Just a straight ahead Indie-Pop tune with a great hook, a lot of energy and a steam train groove that just keeps building the momentum. The track is from Sukies’ debut solo album out on 8th March 2024 ‘The Glass Dress And A Ringing Bell’ on ShillingBoy Records via Bandcamp. It turns out she is probably better known as an actress, most visibly in the long-running UK soap opera ‘Eastenders’, but this gear change re-focusing on her music should put paid to that if this song is anything to go by…

Project Gemini – Colours & Light

This is the performing name of Paul Osborne and one listen to this entrancing track is enough to explain why he has already moved on to a sophomore album release whilst catching the ears of the more eclectically inclined DJ’s on stations like 6Music. He plants his seeds in that UK psych sweet spot located somewhere between 1968-1972 but has coppiced away any unnecessary retro excess, instead basking in the self-propelled light of a classic breakbeat groove and a hazy sense that his gaze is to the future, not the past. Get on board…

Billy Joel – Turn The Lights Back On

Yes I know, I can hardly claim to be foraging in the cutting edges of new music if I am going to put a Billy Joel song up as a new music recommendation. But I would argue down anyone who tries to suggest he is not one of the great songwriters of our time and furthermore I have always had respect for the way he spotted his own endpoint as a creative pop songwriter, simply knocking that part of his work on the head as far back as 1993. So a brand new song is indeed a rarity and even with this there is a sense that Billy’s resisting a full scale return to the ring. It would appear that his collaborators on this have got his agreement to complete unfinished music from his back catalogue and I do have to say, the touchstones of his greatest music are all present here; that voice, the easy grasp of memorable melody and the classically infused piano playing. The pop world has always been a better place with Billy Joel in it…