Beth Orton – Waiting

Beth Orton’s new album is a stunning left‑turn from an artist who has spent three decades refusing to sit still. ‘The Ground Above’ demonstrates how she has moved beyond folktronica tags and past expectations to create something raw, spacious, and beautifully unguarded. The album is a suite of eight songs that feel more like living, breathing meditations than traditional structures. It is Orton at her most fearless: lucid‑dream songwriting, communal studio energy, and a voice carried by air, memory, and emotional truth. This is a recent live session of one of the records most gloriously uplifting numbers, ‘Waiting,’ and you can get the whole album here: https://amzn.to/4f6RbRE

The Junipers – When She Turns

This is a track from the Junipers scintillating latest album ‘The Solid And The Hollow.’ As ever, they lean into the vintage psych vocabulary without ever sounding like revivalists; this is awash with chiming guitars, drifting harmonies, and that unmistakable Junipers haze that turns a simple tune into something quietly transportive. This live film of ‘When She Turns’ catches the band at full radiance, bending time a little, opening a door to somewhere warmer, stranger, and beautifully their own. You can get the whole album here: https://amzn.to/4xUwlwo

Aaron Lee Tasjan – Science Friction

This is Aaron Lee Tasjan in full neon‑wired, art‑pop mischief mode; a taut, hook‑bright track that crackles with the restless intelligence running through his new era. Built on jittery rhythms and a sly melodic twist, the song feels like Tasjan peering at modern life through a warped magnifying glass. He is buzzing, slightly off‑kilter but as always irresistibly catchy. It is also one of the first signals of where new album ‘Get Over It, Underdog’ is heading. Tasjan has always been a shape‑shifter (glam troubadour, cosmic Americana poet, indie pop experimenter) but ‘Science Friction’ suggests a sharper, more playful futurism. The production is lean and alert, the vocals glide with his trademark wry charm, and the whole thing moves with the confidence of an artist who knows exactly how to bend his quirks into pop gold. You can get the whole album here: https://amzn.to/3SAyHQP

The Forty Fours – Now She’s Gone

This is the first proper glimpse of The Forty Fours, a London‑based trio stepping out on Blow Up Records with a debut single that feels both sharply defined and steeped in classic beat group aura. Cut as part of the label’s Blow Up 45 Series, the track arrives on a limited 7″ backed with a raw take on ‘Baby, Please Don’t Go,’ signalling a band who understand the weight of tradition but are not remotely beholden to it. Recorded at Fish Factory in Willesden and finished at Soundbody Studios, the song captures the band’s tight, live‑wired chemistry; Oliver Harriss’s guitar and vocals out front, Jason Bazeley’s bass locking the pulse, and Andrew Stander’s drums giving everything a lean, propulsive edge. There is a vintage snap to the production from Roman Jugg and mixer Nick Terry, but the energy is direct, unfussy, and built to hit. With sixteen tracks already in the can and a debut album due later in 2026, ‘Now She’s Gone’ is a sharp, confident first strike from a band clearly ready for a bigger stage. You can buy the vinyl single via this link: https://www.blowup.co.uk/records/news/the-forty-fours-now-shes-gone-debut-vinyl-7-available-to-pre-order-now/

Nectar Woode (feat. Elton John) – Wine Into Water

I will admit I checked this one out because of the Elton John involvement, whilst his name cannot be called a guarantee of quality when he collaborates (let us not forget that he once worked with Blue) at least his interest in new music is sincere and his tastes are deep, so you never know. And that ear has served him well here because this is an emotive, soulful ballad that deserves the leg up Elton’s involvement will undoubtedly give it. His contribution is solely at the piano but that lush early seventies playing style of his turns out to be exactly the kind of organic bedrock this track needed. The song is due to appear on a forthcoming Nectar Woode album, ‘Naturally Mixtape,’ and you can find out more here: https://www.nectarwoo.de/

Raffy Bushman – Renaissance

This is the tune on which Raffy Bushman’s debut album really shows its pulse; that deep, unshakeable groove running through jazz from swing to Blue Note to hip‑hop, channelled into something sharp, modern and alive. The track opens with a spring‑loaded bass line before Bushman’s piano pushes it into a rolling rush of ideas, the trio moving with a looseness that still feels impeccably controlled. When the rhythm section drops out, he spins a mesh of looping, almost Bach‑like figures that play with time and tug the ear in multiple directions, before the band snaps back in for an exhilarating climb. It is Bushman at full clarity; complex yet immediate, rooted in tradition but lit up by his own instinct for forward motion. You can purchase the album here: https://amzn.to/4vAwWBI