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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 8th June 2026

Bedouine – Long Way To Fall

‘Long Way To Fall,’ is one of the standout moments on Bedouine’s new album ‘Neon Summer Skin.’ It arrives as the record’s first true exhale, a gorgeously gliding, quietly devastating song that gathers all the album’s themes of memory, yearning, and emotional inheritance into one graceful sweep. Initially the record has a sense of someone moving through the half‑lit corridors of childhood, before ‘Long Way To Fall’ steps forward with this blue-sky melancholy: piano flourishes that seem to hover in mid‑air, guitar lines bending with George Harrison‑like tenderness, and a vocal performance that feels both weightless and full of ache. Bedouine’s reflections on family, distance, and the slow realisation that childhood does not end cleanly crystallise into something approaching the devotional. You can buy the album via this link: https://amzn.to/434ckFA

The Giant Robots – Spooky Signs

This is the new single from long‑running Lausanne garage‑rock outfit The Giant Robots, arrives as a limited‑edition 7″ on Rogue Records, released in May and pressed in an edition of 500 copies on black vinyl. Backed with the B‑side ‘Goodbye,’ it continues the fardisa organ drenched, fuzz guitar assault on the classic garage band that they have been plugging into since the mid-1990s. In the Fruit Tree Records universe it is also an out-and-out pop banger, but then we live in a place where distortion is welcomed when delivered with this kind of intensity and being slightly out of time with the masses is positively celebrated too. Just follow the link: https://roguerecords.bandcamp.com/album/spooky-signs

Mama’s Broke – The Nameless

This is the lead single from Mama’s Broke’s forthcoming album ‘Reunion,’ which is going to be released on Free Dirt Records and Forward Music Group with an accompanying 16mm video filmed in Halifax by Nicole Cecile Holland. The track also appears as an advance digital single on Bandcamp ahead of the album’s 21st August release, continues the Nova Scotian duo’s tradition of stark, unflinching folk storytelling. They have been on my radar for a number of years now and with new work like this arriving, it stands as a positive affirmation that all their early promise really is growing into something with depth, nuance and above all, a natural musicality. Check them out this way: https://mamasbroke.bandcamp.com/album/reunion

Konyikeh – Jealous

This superb track released on FAMM as part of Konyikeh’s EP ‘Cinere,’ stands out as one of the project’s most tightly wound emotional snapshots. Issued alongside this official video, the track arrives in the same burst of creative renewal that shapes the EP’s broader palette, a blend of R&B and soul inflections with the sharper rhythmic edges Konyikeh has been exploring in recent years. On ‘Jealous,’ she channels that mix into something lean but also intense, her voice cutting through the arrangement with a clarity that mirrors the EP’s theme of rebuilding from the ground up. It is a compact but potent piece of songwriting that signals how confidently she is moving into this new phase of her work. You can find the EP to download here: https://amzn.to/3Qb0ztW

Joel Ross – Trinity (Father, Son And Holy Spirit)

Originally featured on Joel Ross’s album ‘Gospel Music,’ released on Blue Note Records earlier this year, it is a 17‑track project that marks the vibraphonist’s fifth release for the label and features his expanded Good Vibes ensemble. The album frames Ross’s writing within a spiritual and narrative arc, drawing on the musical language he absorbed in church and filtering it through his increasingly intricate, conversational jazz vocabulary. Within that context, ‘Trinity’ functions as one of the record’s central pillars: a piece built around interlocking lines and shifting harmonic light, shaped by the sextet’s responsiveness and Ross’s instinct for letting melody and rhythm bloom together. Heard inside the album’s broader exploration of faith, community, and musical inheritance, the track becomes a kind of structural hinge, setting the emotional and thematic tone for everything that follows. You can get the album via this link: https://amzn.to/4o05uug

Visible Cloaks (feat. Ioana Șelaru) – Intarsia

This is one of the most arresting moments on Visible Cloaks’ long‑awaited return ‘Paradessence,’ it distils everything strange, inviting, and quietly disorienting about the duo’s world‑building into a single, shape‑shifting piece. After an album that drifts like a weightless suite of experimental ambience, dissolving familiar song structures, bending time, and slipping between warmth and alienness, ‘Intarsia’ plays like the point where their decade of digital craft and imagined ecologies reaches a kind of fevered clarity. Scraping violin textures, uncanny vocal bursts, and the sense of something pressing against the edges of the mix make it feel as though another dimension is trying to break through, echoing the album’s broader fascination with memory, futurity, and sonic habitats that reorganise themselves as you listen. It is a track that captures the duo at their most transportive, reminding you why their music rewards the kind of deep, curious listening that reveals new contours each time. You can buy the album via this link: https://amzn.to/4uLaF3O

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New Release Reviews

Visible Cloaks – Paradessence

The more head scratching you do when first exposed to some albums, the better they turn out in the long run. That is definitely the case with the work of Visible Cloaks, a forward thinking duo who have just released their first full length album in nine years. They obviously come from other planets, I am not even going to attempt to question that, and their calling card has the word ‘experimental’ splashed across it in bold, large lettering. And yes, they have solar systems of ambience in their sonic kit bag, if you want to predict what music beamed in from outer space is going to sound like, I put my money on it being something like this. The forms and structures we associate with songs or indeed most pieces of music are nowhere to be found, these audio offerings are not bound by anything so restrictive as time signatures, beginnings, middles or closing passages. It is hard to define just what they are doing, the whole 14-track suite flies past our hearing senses in less than 45 minutes and you are surprised that amount of time has passed, in much the same way as we cannot see our planet spin, so too the music of Visible Cloaks comes and goes without any tangible hint of motion whatsoever.

But I come back to those words ‘experimental’ and ‘ambient,’ for the beauty in this record is less with these aspects, instead the beating heart is the multitude of moments that feel warm and familiar. I might even lean into the word nostalgic, for there are times here that the early days of electronica, when the plugged in vibrations were still audibly having their dials turned by human hands, are vividly recalled. And as the stars begin to explode into glorious meteor showers, so too the music suddenly enters the realms of the familiar. The track ‘Slippage’ for example, is about halfway through when the sound of something metallic rattling around an empty tin bucket falls away to reveal firstly, an ever-widening expanse of deep space but then secondly, some rousing melody played on electric keys with more than a sideways hint of the bagpipes to them. Later on, the track ‘Shapes’ introduces some delicate acoustic piano notes to the mix alongside distant horn sounds evoking memories of early twentieth century, northern industrial England. Quite unexpected for sure, but still one of the many elements that hold your attention as our journey into the stars becomes ever more probable by the day.

The path to ‘Paradessence’ traces back through a decade of sonic world‑making by Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile, whose work as Visible Cloaks has always hovered at the intersection of digital craft and imagined ecologies. From the prismatic surfaces of ‘Reassemblage’ to the luminous collaboration with Yoshio Ojima and Satsuki Shibano (who also appear here), the duo has treated electronic composition as a form of speculative architecture. Doran’s curatorial and soundtrack projects expanded that vision outward, revealing a deepening interest in how music can hold memory, landscape, and futurity at once. On ‘Paradessence,’ those threads converge into pieces that seem to breathe and reorganise themselves, as if the album were modelling its own evolving habitat. This sensation hits a pitch by the time we reach ‘Intarsia’ (featuring Ioana Selaru), wherein the scraping violin textures and sudden bursts of simultaneously familiar and alien voice sounds all merge to suggest that something is banging on the walls of another dimension. And maybe that is exactly what happened? Closing track ‘System’ may have the soothing presence of familiar sounding keys and wind instruments, but it also suggests that we need to explore new ways of playing them from this point on. I could not find any dictionary definition of the word ‘paradessence’ but just like the music this album contains, it still somehow makes sense. So, just as unfamiliarity must not be mistaken for confliction, so too must we have faith in the evidence placed in front of us today, that the Visible Cloaks are opening us up to a quite wonderous place.

Danny Neill

You can buy a physical copy of the album via this link: https://amzn.to/49puZ25

Visible Cloaks by Jonathan Sielaff
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Music Mixes, Uncategorized

New Mix: Fruit Tree Records – Sixties Garage Vol. 2

My journey into collecting and loving ’60s garage rock began more than thirty years ago, long before I fully understood what the term meant. By then I was already a devoted fan of sixties music in general (The Beatles, Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, The Velvet Underground) and as I branched out to bands like The Pretty Things and The Kinks, I realised their most thrilling records carried a rawness that had been polished out of pop by the 1980s. I’d seen “garage rock” used in the music press, I remember a weekly paper applying it to the Velvets when they reformed in 1993, but I took it almost literally: music with the grit and ground‑level authenticity of a band rehearsing in an actual garage. In truth, my early‑twenties self was still navigating music through the big rock historians, following my instincts but completely unaware of garage rock as a distinct sub‑genre. When I did stumble across it, like Jane Wiedlin covering ‘I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night’ on TV, I knew I liked it, but I had no idea what it was.

When the door to garage rock finally swung open for me, it happened through an act of generosity I still think about decades later. I spent most weekends in the ’90s trawling Record Fairs, and while some dealers later took pleasure in reminding me that my CD compilations were nothing compared to their impossible‑to‑find original 45s, this encounter has stayed with me. At a fair in Southend, a seller kept spinning a vintage‑sounding rocker I did not recognise. By the fourth or fifth play, its savage electric‑keyboard motif had lodged itself firmly in my head, so I wandered over and asked what it was. “‘Thirteen Women’ by the Renegades,” he said, delighted that someone else had noticed it and continuing “it used to be a Bill Haley b-side, but this is version is so much better, it’s that keyboard riff, isn’t it?” He did not have a copy to sell, but he remembered which fair I’d be at next, turning up with a homemade cassette filled with that track and two sides of similar mid‑to‑late‑sixties gems. I loved almost all of them. That tape changed my musical life, and the sad truth is I cannot remember his name and never saw him again to thank him.

So, I spent the next few weeks driving around with that cassette a fixture in my pick-up trucks tape deck (an open backed truck not ideal for buying vinyl collections in certain weather conditions, but I mostly made it work) and let the fuzzy sounds wash over me. The band names included people like Destiny’s Children, Michel & The French Canadians and the Rockin’ Ramrods, I had not heard of any of them, but the music itself began to burn into my DNA. Foolishly I believed that there would be easily acquirable compilation albums enabling me to source better sound quality on these tunes, little did I know that such collections were scarce underground artefacts themselves and many that were available had a question mark over their legality. These were not albums re-mastered from the original studio tapes, often an old vinyl 45 would be the best source available meaning that, in quite a few cases, I already had the best fidelity audio available on my cassette. Finally, the handwritten track list on the tape cover was misleading because my mysterious friendly compiler had called it ‘The Gathered Grunge,’ which did not help. Maybe it was another curator attempting to connect the original garage scene with the current US grunge movement? Or was it the record dealer himself attempting to hook the younger generation (as I was back then)?

Initially I failed to find what I was looking for. The closest I came was a collection on the See For Miles label called ‘The Great British Psychedelic Trip’ which at least was in the right ballpark but, as I would later find out, UK Psychedelia from the same era is a whole other wormhole, for all the compatible cross pollination between bands across the Atlantic. Eventually I did hit my target and gain an entry level understanding that I was pursuing ‘garage rock’ from its original golden age, when browsing a compilation at a fair called ‘Pebbles.’ On this volume a track by The Nervous Breakdowns called ‘I Dig Your Mind’ leapt out at me because finally, I had found evidence that one of the tracks on my cassette actually existed in the debris of musical back catalogues, my tape was not some inexplicable glitch in record collecting consisting of songs that no one else could find or prove existed. Here it was, a route in, a long running series of albums absolutely rammed with similar buried treasures fuelled by the same uninhibited, primitive energy. And because it was the music that was important to me far more than rarity value, I dived head long into the ‘Pebbles’ series and never looked back. From there I moved to ‘Nuggets’ and the ‘English Freakbeat’ series on a road that still has no end. And the greatest thing about this underground movement is that, for me, there is always a thrilling new discovery waiting around the corner. Three decades later and it inspires the crate digger in me still.

What is it about sixties garage rock that hits me so hard? There are countless reasons, but the first is its sheer sense of life. In an age of clinical, airbrushed audio, these records breathe; you can feel the human touch in every dusty groove, and that rawness gives them a potency modern perfection can’t match. Then there is the creativity born from limitation. Most garage bands had no budget, no studio tricks, no string sections on call; if a song needed yearning or atmosphere, they simply sang the oohs and aahs themselves, proving that nothing is more emotive than the human voice. And crucially, these groups worshipped The Beatles, The Kinks and Dylan; songwriting mattered. That’s why tracks like The Brogues’ ‘I Ain’t No Miracle Worker’ or The Squires’ ‘Going All the Way’ still sound like pop classics waiting for their moment in the sun. This scene is full of gold: brilliant, unvarnished music built on timeless foundations, burning bright long after the moment of creation. For this mix show I have included as many of the tracks from that original cassette as I have been able to find over the past thirty years. Regrettably, the cassette itself seemed to vanish from my life about thirteen years ago amidst the upheaval of divorce. The only good thing about this is that I still, very occasionally, experience the adrenaline rush of sheer delight when chancing upon a long-lost track that I recognise from that tape. Kind of makes me hope that I never find all of them.

Danny Neill

Tracks – Fruit Tree Records – Sixties Garage Vol. 2

The Collectors – Destiny’s Children

Give Me Your Love – Beau Allen

I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes – The Blues Project

Bad Way To Go – The Bruthers

Bright Lit Blue Skies – The Rockin’ Ramrods

Never Thought You’d Leave Me – The Pleasure Seekers

Thirteen Women – The Renegades

Always Blue – 4th Ammendment

I Dig Your Mind – The Nervous Breakdowns

I’ll Keep Searching – The Ides Of March

‘Cause I Believe – Michel & The French Canadians

I Ain’t No Miracle Worker – The Brogues

Hey Conductor – Sonny Flaherty

I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time – The Third Bardot

Green Fuz – Green Fuz

I Live In The Springtime – The Lemon Drops

It’s A Cryin’ Shame – Gentlemen

Going Away Baby – The Grains Of Sand

Voices Green And Purple – Bees

Iye – Fenwyck

Ain’t No Friend Of Mine – The Sparkles

No Good Woman – Tree

I Can’t Beat Your Drum – Fever Tree

I’m Cryin’ – Odd Persons

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New Release Reviews

Meiko Kaji – Otoko Onna Kokoro No Aika

Wewantsounds’ ongoing excavation of Meiko Kaji’s early‑’70s catalogue continues to reveal just how much more there is to her legacy than the cult‑cinema mythology. Best known internationally for Lady Snowblood and the Stray Cat Rock films, Kaji was also a striking vocalist, capable of turning pop melodrama and noir‑shaded groove into something that was easily identifiable as her own. ‘Otoko Onna Kokoro No Aika,’ originally released in 1974, captures her at a moment when Japanese pop, enka, and cinematic orchestration were colliding in vivid, stylish ways. This is evident right from the outset with ‘Akashia No Ame Ga Yamu Toki‘ boasting a string arrangement straight out of the mid-twentieth century widescreen, panoramic manual as well as a lead vocal that soars above the backdrop with grace, tension, and satisfying release. It is in every way a scene setter for the musically rich journey that follows.

It is revelatory how much the western production tropes of the period had bled into the music of the east. On ‘Meiko No Yume Wa Yoru Hiraku’ there is a keyboard part laced with a harpsichord texture and a gypsy violin part, not to mention a general sense that the music is primed to leap in any direction, echoing the anything goes attitude of the sixties psychedelic era. It is not a throwback in any sense though, ‘Ginza No Cho’ has the muddier soundboard more familiar to funk soundtracks which would have been ultra contemporary at the time although, once again, there is a little bit of fuzz guitar decorating the instrumental breaks. That said, it is the sensitive, yearning ballad ‘Onno Kokoro No Uta’ that is an early highlight. This is one where the vocal is a tour de force in sweet melodic serenity. This makes sense after I have just done a quick translation into English of the song title, also riffed on with the lamenting album name, it reads as “songs of a woman’s heart.” This vulnerability and tenderness is emphasised on further tracks featuring lush strings, flute, and mournful trumpet accompaniments, all of which add to the satisfying listening experience to these English ears denied the benefit of language comprehension. The music is so vivid and explicit though, it almost does not matter.

‘Tokyo Nagare Mono,’ the theme from Suzuki’s ‘Tokyo Drifter,’ features sharp edged fuzz guitar but it quickly sidesteps, via arresting harmonica, into a unique kind of spaghetti western melange, this music is pretty wild in its own way. It is not all about getting hip with the sonics though, there are some pretty fine, very well composed arrangements here which grab the attention not with dynamism but inviting, deceptively complex, melodic pathways. And for all the interest that awaits in the threads of the music, it is that Meiko Kaji vocal performance that remains the star of the show. Ultimately, far more than a tie‑in to her film work, this album plays like a self‑contained suite of Showa‑era torch songs and atmospheric funk, delivered with the same controlled intensity she brought to the screen. Kaji approaches each track as a performance, blending her instincts as a singer with the detail and engagement of a storyteller, moving from the smoky sway of the funkier sections to some sleek seventies reimagining of older material. The result is a record that strikes a perfect balance between tradition and forward thinking, a reminder that Kaji’s artistic range extended far beyond the roles that made her famous.

Danny Neill

You can buy the new re-issue CD via this link: https://amzn.to/4e3JFXc

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 25th May 2026

Alela Diane – Dusty Roses

On her new album, ‘Who’s Keeping Time?’ which was written in the quiet daytime hours of her 1892 Victorian attic, Alela Diane carries the unhurried clarity that arrived when domestic life finally softened around her. Reconnecting with Portland’s creative community, trading guitar lessons with Peter Lalish, sharing tea with Anna Tivel, she found herself easing back into music with a renewed sense of intuition and belonging. That spirit of stillness and rediscovery runs through ‘Dusty Roses,’ just as the accompanying video leans into the family relations that have shaped Alela’s life and progression towards the creation of this wonderful latest record. You can read the Fruit Tree Records full length review here: https://fruit-tree-records.com/2026/05/21/alela-diane-whos-keeping-time/ The album is available to purchase here: https://amzn.to/49NjIc0

Teddy Thompson – Come Back

For Teddy Thompson, songwriting is a kind of magic, the truth in a line either resonates or it does not, and on his new album he writes with a candour that leaves little doubt about its source. These songs have a conviction, as if pulled straight from lived experience, heartbreak sketched in real time as he tries to stay afloat in shifting emotional tides. Opener ‘Come Back’ sets the scene with stark immediacy: a folk‑rock plea from a man reckoning with absence, its lonely verses breaking open into a burst of conflicted longing that captures love’s contradictions with disarming clarity. You can read the Fruit Tree Records full length review of the album here: https://fruit-tree-records.com/2026/05/14/teddy-thompson-never-be-the-same/ You can buy the album here: https://amzn.to/4wOAMIy

Aja Monet – Working Class Musicians

There are a multitude of overlapping tones and templates enveloping the music of Aja Monet, who has just released a wonderful new album called ‘The Color Of Rain.’ She has the pizazz of a street poet lyrically navigating a sound that flies between avant-garde jazz to bluesy soul without ever truly settling in one place, Aja’s style is free in the most literal musical sense of the word. She emerged from New York’s Lower East Side spoken‑word scene as a prodigious talent, later becoming a Grammy‑nominated poet and a genre‑defying artist capable of incorporating improvisation, and political imagination. Now, with years of global performance, acclaimed writing, and community‑rooted activism feeding her muse we encounter ‘Working Class Musician,’ another testament to her commitment to resistance, collective memory, and the lived realities that inform her art. You can buy the album here: https://amzn.to/4dYQlWF

Kelley Stoltz – Not Gone

Kelley Stoltz has long carved his own lane in American underground pop, a DIY lifer whose refusal to play the industry game only adds to the mans appeal. His nineteenth album, ‘If You Don’t Know Me, Buy Now,’ leans into that maverick streak, hook‑laden and witty in a way that is unmistakably Kelley’s. ‘Not Gone’ channels the muscular pulse of his Echo & the Bunnymen years, its pounding drive a reminder of how deftly he reshapes his influences into something singular. This is Stoltz at full voltage: sharp‑edged, melodic, and proof that his creative spark remains alive and kicking. You can read the full Fruit Tree Records review at: https://fruit-tree-records.com/2026/05/15/kelley-stoltz-if-you-dont-know-me-buy-now/ The album will be purchasable, when it gets a full release, from this link: https://amzn.to/4nMYAsd

Jasmine Myra – Likeness And Shadow

Jasmine Myra’s music on new album ‘Where Light Settles’ is built on duality; precision and fluidity, complexity and immediacy, pain and growth. It is her third album and finds the artist fully stepping into her own orbit, expanding her ensemble language into something more cinematic and deeply attuned to life’s bruises and revelations. ‘Likeness and Shadow’ captures that balance beautifully: a piece that blooms from propulsive bass into sun‑dappled movement, its sax and piano lines gliding like light through trees. It is Myra displaying assuredness, translating emotional weather into sound with grace, clarity, and a radiant sense of hope. You can read the full Fruit Tree Records album review here: https://fruit-tree-records.com/2026/05/19/jasmine-myra-where-light-settles/ You can buy the album via this link: https://amzn.to/4dJzHsK

The Waterboys – Don’t Even Have To Say His Name

This is a brilliant new stand alone single from The Waterboys, released on Chrysalis Records, finding Mike Scott in fiercely political form. Written as a direct response to the current U.S. climate, Scott calls it a stand against bullying and a contribution to the wider struggle for decency and democracy. Produced by Puck Fingers and Famous James, the track pairs Scott’s targeted vocal assault with piano, organ, bass, and drums, building a sharp, urgent critique without needing to name its all too obvious target. Arriving ahead of the archival ‘Atlantic Rain’ set and a major arena tour, it is the sound of The Waterboys still burning in 2026. Find the new track here: https://amzn.to/4a5MvZm

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New Release Reviews

Little Barrie – Gravity Freeze

I have always thought of Barrie Cadogan as a Jeff Beck or Ronnie Wood kind of figure in the modern music world. Appearing to be more comfortable as the engine room of the electric guitar rather than the front stage focus, he nevertheless has a facility for conjuring blues and psych inflected magic from his instrument whenever on the stage. Barrie’s is the magnetic demeanour of a magician on hot coals delicately casting spells through his axe, so your attention is naturally drawn to him regardless. That is definitely something that can be said of those two comparisons at the top, but it does not end there, because Barrie is in similarly high demand to his iconic peers of earlier generations. So much so that it has pushed back the release of a latest effort from this three-piece configuration under his own name, a set up long favoured because it allows a settling into the machinations of a band rather than be the sole focus. But the air traffic first had to clear itself of stints with The The, Liam Gallagher, Liam Gallagher & John Squire, The Black Keys, and that is without even look at his studio commitments, before the return of Little Barrie had clearance to land.

Little Barrie’s ‘Gravity Freeze’ marks the band’s first album under their own name since the loss of drummer Virgil Howe, whose death in 2017 left Barrie Cadogan and Lewis Wharton unsure whether the project could continue. I remember seeing them when Virgil was still around and he was a big presence, often doing the lion’s share of onstage announcement a-la a front man while Barrie tuned up. After regrouping through therapeutic collaborations with longtime friend Malcolm Catto, yielding two joint albums, the pair began shaping new Little Barrie material that carried forward their earlier momentum while opening up fresh territory. True to the DIY ethos they had honed with Howe, the songs took shape in a makeshift Dalston rehearsal space before being fully realised at Rat Salad Studios with engineer and co‑producer Rupert Lyddon, a trusted creative ally from past projects. Drummer Tony Coote, whose jazz‑inflected feel and natural swing aligned perfectly with the band’s fuzz‑driven groove, completed the lineup, helping bring ‘Gravity Freeze’ to life with a renewed sense of purpose and continuity.

So, it has been a while but sometimes an enforced brake leads to an eventual return fizzing with punch and solid intent, fuelled by the frustrations of the time that is running away from us. That is certainly where we begin, the propulsive descending bassline on ‘More Bad Miles Of Road’ signalling the arrival of an album that has no inhibitions about leaning into the strengths of the musicians. It even gives a warm nod to the classic psych-rock power trio with a deliberate Jimi Hendrix sonic reference as the number fades. Wearing your influences so proudly can submerge some acts but it is what you do with these affections that counts; Barrie moulds them into his own evolving sound with style, in tandem with an increasing originality over the years. A love of fuzz penetrates ‘It Isn’t Soul’ before ‘December’ hits us with a groove that most definitely is. ‘Luggin’ Hurt’ is a seven-minute freak out in the under-ploughed field The Stone Roses explored on their second album. Side two moves through a palette of smouldering blues, loose shuffles, and driving, in‑the‑room grooves, all threaded with the band’s renewed focus on rhythm and live energy. Cadogan leans into the blues roots that have always shaped his playing, while the groovier cuts tap into a post‑Can sense of percussive momentum. As he puts it, rhythm has always inspired him as much as guitar work, and one of the key grooves here began as a messy loop he wanted to turn into something hypnotic, almost dance‑leaning, yet still swampy and simmering. Best of all, you finish with a sense that Barrie Cadogan has so much more to come with this project, all it needs is for the multitude of other acts who love to eat from his table to give him the time.

Danny Neill

The vinyl edition of ‘Gravity Freeze’ is available via the link: https://amzn.to/3PxxOHI

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New Release Reviews

Alela Diane – Who’s Keeping Time?

In my daily musical listening activities I do come across a lot of new singer-songwriters of an acoustic, introspective flavour. So much so that you could make an argument for this coffee store style of quiet balladry enjoying as much of a trend setting age now as in the early seventies when Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Paul Simon and Cat Stevens coloured the airwaves. But it is not quite the same today, primarily because a circumstantial cause of this movement is the comparative ease of recording music from the bedroom, where a quiet acoustic intimacy is far more attainable than the space required to record a band. And the direct route to online distribution means the old barriers to exposure no longer apply, so we feel an avalanche of guitar and voice melancholia raining down on us every day. Furthermore, when touting their wears these acts know the value of a vintage sound, the emphasis is always on a natural organic creativity, cosy situations more homely than a studio environment and the value of real instruments over electronics. On the downside however, we listeners can feel they would sometimes benefit from a stricter critical ear; three guitar chords strummed slowly and emoted over might feel very sincere when sat on a bed pouring your heart out, but that alone does not guarantee a riveting listening experience. Unless that is, you are playing one of the major natural talents in this field for well over a decade, an artist like Alela Diane for example.  

Even though the aforementioned regulation boxes of a 2026 retro-leaning songwriter album were ticked for this album, the musical quality lifts it high above the pack. Alela had built a daily routine of working up the material in the attic of her 1892 Victorian home, from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, and when the time came to record, she wanted to use the same location. This was partially born from a desire to connect with other local musicians and feel the spark of collaboration in the album’s grooves. She enlisted her pal Peter Lalish, of the band Lucius, to give her guitar lessons and invited Anna Tivel for tea. “It felt imperative to connect with artists I respected and get reacquainted with my own town” she recalled. And so, Alela Diane’s seventh album, ‘Who’s Keeping Time?’ has the feel of a creative project that rose up naturally once life finally quieted around her. You can hear that shift in perspective in the way these songs move; unhurried, attentive, tuned to the small revelations that surface when the noise drops away. She talks about “coming to the end of a season,” a moment when her daughters were older, the sleepless nights had eased, and a rare stillness settled over the house. In that space, she found her thoughts drifting back toward music, circling melodies and half‑formed ideas until they began to gather shape. The record carries that sense of intuition and community, the feeling of someone rediscovering their own internal rhythm and following it wherever it leads.

This is an album that has a sombre awareness of the passage of time, it is rarely low in mood though, more determined to be exhilarated by the wonders of existence and celebrate them. That is an element to Alela’s sound that has hooked me right from the start, how even when pensive and reflective, the overriding characteristics of her voice are magnificently soothing and uplifting. It is an element that remains undimmed by the passage of time and tragedy, a quality we hear on one of the records most poignant of songs. ‘Spring Is A Fine Time’ was written in reaction to the passing, at the age of 83, of fellow Portland outsider musical heavyweight, Michael Hurley. It postulates that spring is the best time to die, with all the natural world around bursting into new life. The track becomes a bright little tribute to her friend, all playful whistles and sly wit, the sort of thing he himself might have delighted in. That same magical blend of mournful grace and mystical awe burns in ‘Endless Waltz,’ a love letter to Alela’s grandparents as they waltz into the unknown, the perpetual motion of time felt in every note.

Across these eleven tracks we journey from the feverish, popping thought bubbles of Alela’s mind on the swirling ‘Galloping’ (written whilst in bed with a fever and you can hear that) to the more pointed political edge of ‘Piss, Coffee, Blood Or Wine,’ a song that builds in momentum the more Diane sinks her teeth into the lyrics. It is a title offered as a visual for the social state of affairs in her homeland today, depicting a slumped figure on the sidewalk with a puddle of uncertain origin forming around its beaten frame. ‘In My Own Time’ holds aloft the albums central theme, it is an ode to pausing and resisting the pull of life’s relentlessly ticking clock. It harks back to the laid-back classicism inherent in this artists work right from the start, the kind of song that feels as natural as water and belonging as if it has been in the world for decades. Which brings me back to why Alela Diane stands tall in such an overpopulated musical field; it is because there is something so pure in her work that just feels right, it always seems like it had a place reserved in the musical architecture that was merely waiting to be occupied. It heralds a new phase in her journey, shaped by the natural shifts in home life and answered with a deeper, ever‑attentive musical maturity.

Danny Neill

You can buy the new Alela Diane ‘Who’s Keeping Time?’ via this link: https://amzn.to/4v79ZWl

Alela Diane by Nicholas Peter Wilson
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Music Mixes

New Mix: Fruit Tree Records – Fresh Juice 2026 Vol. 7

Volume seven of our 2026 new music releases series ‘Fresh Juice’ opens with some timely new, modern day protest folk-rock from the ever wonderful Waterboys before embarking on a journey incorporating new sounds in Psych Pop, Garage Rock, Electro Pop, Folk, Americana, Soul and Singer-Songwriter before ending in some seriously far out instrumental experimentation and ending in the realms of esoteric, improvisational jazz. Far out! So, why not join us as we continue our mission to prove that there are still plenty of freshly minted, visceral audio thrills to be found going forward.

Tracks – Fruit Tree Records – Fresh Juice 2026 Vol. 7

Don’t Even Have To Say His Name – The Waterboys https://amzn.to/4dC8DMb

All That You Are – Ray Bull https://amzn.to/4fxDgEQ

I Remember – Teddy Thompson https://amzn.to/3Rot9Z6

Hope Of Fools – Brother Wallace https://amzn.to/4uykfGY

Hang It On The Shelf – Jalen Ngonda https://amzn.to/3PzglhR

Oh Yeah – Low Cut Connie https://amzn.to/3PzgFNB

Bible Belt – Kevin Morby https://amzn.to/4dUADf7

Down To The River – Blood Sucking Maniacs https://amzn.to/4wCnqyY

Monopolar (Tom Furse Remix) – Strange Fruit https://strangefruit.bandcamp.com/album/drips

Faith In The Brakes – Sharp Class https://amzn.to/4eXNQ8a

Evaporating Love – White Fence https://whitefence.bandcamp.com/album/orange

Spooky Signs – The Giant Robots https://roguerecords.bandcamp.com/album/spooky-signs

Turn The Earth – Kelley Stoltz https://amzn.to/4dC9wEg

Always Losing Track – Pharis & Jason Romero https://amzn.to/4dQwGYV

At The Edge – Lemoncello https://amzn.to/4nIsC0e

Intarsia – Visible Cloaks https://amzn.to/4nCstLE

Ezekiel’s Vision – A Mysterious Place – Merkabah Brotherhood https://mississippirecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-merkaba-brotherhood

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New Release Reviews

Jasmine Myra – Where Light Settles

The key word here feels like ‘duality,’ as there are doubled-up, parallel layers surrounding this music in abundance. Firstly, the beauty of the sound itself, this is very much a composed piece of work in which the textures and intricacies are many and they have been applied with precision and clear intent. And yet, there is a fluidity at play as well, these are pieces that have a natural grace to them and a free-flowing air. What at times appears complex can also sound undeniably immediate, offering the listener instant payback and audio pleasure. I am considering these facets before even getting to the inspiration, the ignition from the artist that brought these tracks to life. Clearly saxophonist Jasmine Myra was both bemused and infused with fascination at the punches and blows we encounter on our journey through life. How pain must be part of the process but also how learning and wisdom can come from those experiences, not to mention an arsenal of coping strategies and a maturity that helps us arrive at an appreciation in the wonder of it all. In fact, Jasmine pointed to these very thoughts herself in the build up to this album. “Pain is unavoidable” she reasons, “and you’ll have hardship no matter what, but you don’t grow or learn about yourself or the world around you without it. The duality is the growth and coming out the other side. I had the concept from the start.”

So, this is the third Jasmine Myra album, and she is an emerging talent no more, we had better start thinking of her as an artist settling into their own gravitational field. After the warm reception to ‘Horizons’and ‘Rising,’ she arrives at ‘Where Light Settles’ with a clearer sense of purpose and a broadened musical vocabulary, drawing on years spent shaping a distinctive approach to ensemble writing and instrumental narrative. This new record finds her expanding that language with a larger group and a more cinematic sweep, recorded live in a single room to preserve the charged, collective focus so essential to bringing this music to life. “This album is so much about energy. We had to be able to see each other,” she says. Now based in London but still closely connected to the Leeds scene that nurtured her, Myra steps into the role of producer for the first time, guiding a 15‑piece band through arrangements that place her alto saxophone as part of the details. It marks a turning point because more than merely composing backing for her sax expressions, every aspect of this construct, through the strings, piano, flute, guitar, vibraphone, and harp, has been dreamed up and inspired with cohesion by the dynamic Myra imagination.

The elegant, expanded piano chords that usher in ‘Opening’ set the tone for the lush nine-track journey we are about to embark on. It feels natural even before the guitar and wind instrumental passages enter the picture. The one other aspect of this whole work that shines through from the start is Myra’s love of nature, specifically regular trips to North Wales, the Lake District, and the South Downs. “I just love those landscapes. It’s the duality: nature can be brutal but beautiful and I love that juxtaposition.” That these have been built to play as a suite of songs is also apparent early on, the segue into second track ‘Reflections,’ which also has some beautiful piano arpeggios laying a groundwork, is quite seamless. The only way to experience this album is as a nine-part listening experience in the sequence presented here. From the early morning rise at the outset, vividly evoked when we first hear some Myra sax, to the eventual dimming of the day on ‘Where The Light Settles,’ this is music that belongs as one and will undoubtedly reward the time spent experiencing it if played that way.

‘Likeness And Shadow’ hits full bloom from a bedding of propulsive bass and as the lead instruments fully flower, not just sax but some crucial baton grabbing from the piano too, you can almost see the sun cracking through the trees as shadows glide across the landscape. ‘Some Rain Must Fall’ progresses with a similar, yet far more forlorn, double bass plucking and in moments like this I am awe struck by the magic of music, how so much can be said without words; this song did not need a literal title to tell me what we are feeling. I can see the ripples of the suns fading reflection shimmering on the freshly fallen puddles in the pavement. Jasmine has self-declared influences in artists like Fabiano do Nascimento, Arooj Aftab and Alabaster Deplume which can be detected when hitting her hypnotic peak, something in that gentle mesmeric tension speaks to her musical tastes, but the track ‘Echo’ actually pulls in folk music textures too. ‘Breath’ is a tranquil interlude before ‘Fragments’ is almost ‘Tubular Bells’ like in the way it builds sonic variations on top of the most inviting of piano figures. Finally, the resting title track is described by Jasmine as “a metaphor for hope, and for me, it’s the perfect title for this album. It communicates the energy and the meaning behind it; and it ties in with the theme of duality.” It is a twin setting that carries right to the end because, as well as being a perfect circle closing return to the start, it also leaves you hungry to take this glorious ride once more. ‘Where Light Settles’ is a Jasmine Myra album that primes her for an impressive future just as it whets our appetites for so much more Myra related listening to come.

Danny Neill

Buy the album via this link: https://amzn.to/4wCMR3x

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 18th May 2026

Angine de Poitrine – Sarniezz

First up this week are a Canadian duo who are one of the buzz names in music right now, having become a viral sensation in 2026 leading to sell out shows and massive intrigue. They are an anonymous duo performing as Khn de Poitrine and Klek de Poitrine who claim to be 333 year old time travellers whose music is a melange of stiff‑limbed rhythms with a wink of absurdist performance art. But I am launching with them this week simply because, and unusually for something that has gone viral primarily on an eccentricity ticket, their music is really very good. They say that it is worked up over hours of improvised jamming before developing the ideas that work like microtonal rock missionairies, excavating for those underplayed and rarely heard notes between the notes. There is much here to hook the prog heads for sure, not simply that seventies throwback double necked guitar but the bold spirit of instrumental exploration that gives a nod to both the frenzied psych thrills of King Gizzard and the stricter genre lacerations of King Crimson. Not that they arrived here with anything like that level of pre-planning, even the outfits were an off-the-cuff idea after their main band were booked for a local gig too close in time to a recently played venue, so the hidden identity began as a necessity to bag another paid gig that ended up sticking. The main thing is the music is superb and, if you have suffered the misfortune of being exposed to any of the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend, now might be a good time to remember not all hype it tripe. Buy the album here: https://amzn.to/3Rv7qyB

Irma – Black Sun

Next we turn to another act whose popularity has been boosted by positive internet exposure, this time a singer who in the late 2000’s gained attention by uploading a series of cover version performances on YouTube. Nowadays, Cameroon‑born, Paris‑raised songwriter Irma Pany channels her guitar-driven, soul-pop style into her own compositions as heard here with ‘Black Sun,’ a track with intimacy and confident expression in equal measure. Her early candour is still there and the song’s stripped arrangement leaves her voice to do the heavy lifting, carrying a bright and engaging resilience that has become Irma’s signature. It is a reminder that sometimes just getting the basics right can deliver something that feels massive and widescreen. You can buy Irma’s ‘The Dawn’ album via this link: https://amzn.to/49W3Dke

Cole Berliner – The Black Door

A dose of acoustic springtime promise now with some delightfully shifting tones in this second instrumental piece of the week. This is the first single and title track of Cole Berliner’s album ‘The Black Door,’ out on Drag City on May 29th and if the lilting 1970 era McCartney-esque guitar weaving does not grab hold of you, then the dusty analogue textures surely will. Cole Berliner is a San Francisco born, Los Angeles based guitarist, composer and arranger, long recognised for his work in avant‑rock outfits Kamikaze Palm Tree and Sharpie Smile. Now stepping out under his own name, he brings that same fluid, acoustic‑electric sensibility to his solo work and if you like what you hear, you can get a copy of the album via this link: https://amzn.to/3PrbPCc

Ruti – I’ll Be Your Friend

The opening bars might fool you into believing we have some more acoustic introspection with this one but no, this zinger has an infectious build in momentum before erupting into the most glorious of pop-song chorus lines. Raised in Essex with Nigerian and English roots, Ruti has always had a gift for unforced melody, and here that instinct is paired with a production that plays right into that strength. The track moves with an easy, open‑hearted pulse, part folk glow, part modern pop shimmer, with Ruti’s vocal assured in a way only hinted at before with their more minimal piano-led work. It is the kind of song that suggests a writer growing and finding their voice, pointing to exciting potential going forward. ‘I’ll Be Your Friend’ is available as a download via this link: https://amzn.to/4dNKraO

Brother Wallace – Gone With The Wind

This finds Brother Wallace folding his gospel‑trained power into a smoother soul glide without losing any of the momentum that drives his debut. The Georgia‑born singer and pianist, a lifelong musician who was directing choirs by fourteen and later teaching music, brings the same rhythmic command to this track that animates the album’s harder‑hitting moments. What begins as a softer detour soon reveals its own pulse: a groovy piano break that nods to northern soul footwork and keeps the energy simmering beneath the surface. Wallace’s voice, rich with lived‑in grit and conviction, anchors the whole thing, reminding you that even at his most restrained he still pushes forward with purpose. It is a sleek, infectious highlight from an artist whose late‑blooming debut lands with the confidence of someone ready for this stage all along. Get yourself a copy of his ‘Electric Love’ album via this link: https://amzn.to/4eTdevI

Josienne Clarke – Banks Of The Sweet Primroses

Following up her potent re-working of ‘Katie Cruel’, Josienne Clarke is pushing onwards with her 21st century shakedown of traditional folk material. It is in the bloodline of folk song to be passed forward then re-interpreted with fresh resonance and in the hands of a switched on, emotionally connected artist like Josienne, this music is in safe hands. The video turns a simple stills session into a wry study of how performance erodes privacy, following a musician caught between sincerity and self‑presentation as she tries to decide what version of herself can withstand being framed. Its looping circular motif, part portrait, part trap, underlines the humour and the fatigue, leaving a small, stubborn triumph in the fact that something true survives the machinery of visibility. You can download the track via this link: https://amzn.to/4tGPPBk

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