Lael Neale – Must Be Tears

From the album ‘Star Eaters Delight’ which is out now on Sub Pop Records. A few of this weeks half dozen recommendations have had tracks featured on earlier Monday editions of ‘Fresh Juice’ this year and Lael Neale is one such repeat name; but I am picking tunes on merit here, so if an artist is constantly dropping great songs that catch the Fruit Tree Records ear, then in they go and this is another winner in my opinion…

CMAT – Whatever’s Inconvenient

Been exposed to Eurovision and fearing for the state of new music? Fear not, there are plenty out there who can present with flair, style, humour and zest whilst remembering the importance of wrapping it around a well written song, as the wonderful CMAT proves once more with this new offering…

Juan Wauters (Ft. Frankie Cosmos) – Modus Operandi

Pushing up the anticipation for a new album from Juan Wauters is this achingly lovely piece of weightlessly elegant acoustic melancholia accompanied here by appropriately disorientating city scenes in the video. This is short but sweet and definitely leaves us wanting more…

Wednesday – Quarry

Already featured once this year with the incredible ‘Chosen To Deserve’, here another stand out track from the album ‘Rat Saw God’, released on Dead Oceans, proves that the abrasive Wednesday sound is absolutely on an upward trajectory with some essential songs punching their way through the fuzz…

Nighttime – Curtain Is Closing

The album ‘Keeper Is The Heart’ was released on Ba Da Bing in January of this year; here this fantastically tranquil tune with an undercurrent of impending doom is accompanied by a suitably gothic film which has been shot with a very effective hazy, vintage shimmer, lovely stuff…

Norah Jones & Anoushka Shankar – Traces Of You

The original studio version of this can be heard on Anoushka’s 2013 album of the same name and it is actually quite a rare treat to see and hear the sisters playing it together. Their individual careers are radically different in style but equally essential in their own right; somehow this collaboration captures the essence of both, this is really lovely indeed…