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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 28th July 2025

Anoushka Shankar – New Dawn

The music of this sitar master has evolved into a thing of vibrant grace, she can simultaneously evoke Indian tradition with a looping hypnotism that references electronica and flashes of western melodics. This is a performance of the closing track on the second in a trilogy of mini-albums Anoushka has released since 2023; the first was serene and introspective, the second a Grammy nominated piece with ambient sonics touching on vulnerability and transformation while this years concluding ‘We Return To Light’ leant towards her Indian classical roots alongside trance passages. Her upcoming performance at the BBC Proms will see Shankar present a world-premiere of music from all three editions of the trio in an orchestral setting, fresh with new arrangements in a single uninterrupted Albert Hall session. It promises the be a career defining moment for one of the richest talents in the music scene today.

Annie & The Caldwells – Wrong

This gospel/soul stomper is the lead track from Annie & The Caldwells 2025 album ‘Can’t Lose My (Soul)’ released on Luaka Bop Records. This may be the first trace I can find of them on vinyl but they are a multi-generational family band from West Point, Mississippi whose powerful lead vocalist Annie Brown Caldwell first sang with the Staples Jr. Singers in the 1970s. Along with her husband Willie she formed this band in the early 2000’s, partly to enable their children to sing in a spiritually grounded setting. It is one of those children, Deborah, who takes the attention grabbing lead vocal on ‘Wrong’ and it heads up an album, recorded in a local church, of instantly likeable songs focusing in on family, faith and resilience.

Mairi Morrison & Alasdair Roberts – Màiri nighean Dòmhnaill

This is a live performance of a track from Mairi and Alasdair’s album ‘Remembered in Exile: Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia’ available from Drag City Records. The broad mission of the pairs collaboration is stated in the album title, an idea that came about after a trip to Canada in 2023 when the Nova Scotian bassist and arranger Pete Johnston invited them to explore traditional songs with Scottish roots. With many of the songs first collected in the 1940s, the Gaelic speaking Morrison and prolific folk collaborator Roberts were drawn to the themes of exile and migration and set about shining some fresh light on this material in a 21st century setting.

Throwing Muses – Summer Of Love

Without losing an ounce of their piercing intensity, 2025 has seen the welcome return of Throwing Muses who released their new album, ‘Moonlight Concessions’ earlier this year on Fire Records. Still fronted by singer and songwriter Kristin Hersh, she recalls that this song began life as a bet with a guy for a dollar that revolved around the idea that the seasons don’t change us. I like the way she resolves each chorus with a concession that she lost the bet, later explaining “he said we aren’t just planted here, stagnant, we’re in flux, responding to love like octopuses moving across the ocean floor. Turns out he was right, and I still owe him a buck.”

Niamh Bury – Geordie

The brilliant GemsOnVHS continue to build a treasure trove online archive of filmed performances with this latest edition, shot in the Dublin home of singer Niamh Bury, as she gave them another essential nugget for their inventory performing this traditional folk tune. In the lyric a lover pleads for the life of the songs main character and Niamh injects raw emotion and feeling into her rendition. She has recently caught the attention of these pages with her 2024 debut album, ‘Yellow Roses’, which was one of the best albums of the year in our opinion, not just for its folk bedrock but also the way it pulled in suggestions of wider, disparate musical influences such as alt-rock and classical. This is a timely check-in for a brief snapshot of her ongoing journey as we wait for future releases.

Paul Weller – Pinball

Paul Weller’s new album ‘Find El Dorado’ is a typically eclectic and revelatory cover versions set well worth digging into. The relatable thing about Weller is he never loses that crate digging, new discovery thrill that all us record collector types permanently live with. And the other thing I can say about him is he generally has impeccable taste. This is a song originally written and recorded by Brian Protheroe in 1974 and it certainly proves what a fertile period that late sixties, early seventies era remains for music hounds. This one was apparently only a recent discovery for a lifelong hunter like Weller and it reminds us that those rare and wonderful finds do not always have to be the high value pieces, the original Chrysalis 45 of this song can be easily picked up on Discogs for the £1/£2 mark, so never give up the search.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 21st July 2025

Kathryn Williams – Personal Paradise

This remarkable new work from a songwriter who potentially has yet to reach her peak, such is the ongoing maturity and evolution of her music, is taken from forthcoming album ‘Mystery Park’. This is a song arriving as if, like the title suggests, it is going to be a soothing wave of serenity but it takes us somewhere far more unsettling and darker. The accompanying video enhances this considerably, Kathryn looking for all the world like someone dazed having just escaped a traumatic situation as the lyrics begin to imply. Whether she has left a damaging place of anguish to build a safe haven for recovery or she finds herself cut loose from domestic comfort trying to find a way back in remains unclear. The way the music erupts with real abrasiveness in the sonics does indicate that this is not a picture of tranquillity at all. As always with Kathryn, there are many layers of intrigue inviting proper engagement with this brilliant music.

Joe Armon-Jones feat. Yazmin Lacey – One Way Traffic

Seen only last month at Glastonbury in one of his many alternative guises as the keyboard wonderkid in London Jazz heroes Ezra Collective, this undeniable gear change towards the soulful and chilled is taken from Joe’s new double LP ‘All The Quiet (Parts I & II)’. This one features the vocal talents of Nottingham based soul singer Yazmin Lacey who is beginning to prove her credentials, building on the promise those who encountered her early have known about for years; something which really demanded our attention after 2023’s ‘Voice Notes’ album. Here she takes the dubby, mellow bedrock of Joe’s playing and pulls us down a one way street of sunny sonic bliss.

Lola Kirke – Hungover Thinkin’

This is a gorgeous live solo acoustic version of a track that is a centrepiece of Lola Kirke’s latest album ‘Trailblazer’. It is a modern country album that successfully fuses the introspective singer-songwriter leanings of Lola’s music career thus far alongside the eighties pop style that she ushered in on 2022’s ‘Lady For Sale’. Maybe best known to some for her previous acting work in things like ‘Mozart In The Jungle’ and ‘Gone Girl’, Lola has nevertheless, for nearly ten years now, been focusing primarily on music with authentic story songs such as this fully justifying that shift in emphasis.

Kashus Culpepper – After Me?

While I am out breathing the country music air I will briefly play catch up with a tune that is new to me but was actually released in 2024. Kashus, from Alabama, is justifiably touted as one of the truly credible and gifted rising talents in country music and this song in particular has won him notable praise and attention, including from Samuel L. Jackson, resulting in his signing a recording deal with Big Loud Records. As with Lola on the previous track, he is tapping into the genres rich tradition of story telling in song although it may prove to be the rough edged, real-deal grit in Culpepper’s voice that sees him embraced by a much wider musical community as one of the well-founded recipients of ‘next big thing’ type praise and predictions.

Nels Cline – The 23

Probably best known to rock fans as the technically adept guitarist in the band Wilco, Nels Cline has built himself a platform to really stretch out his exploratory playing and experience that weightlessness he admits to seeking in live performance. His jazz quartet have released the album ‘Consentrik Quartet’ on the famous Blue Note Records label and the finished work shows Cline enjoying a free range of a canvas to pursue his love of free and avant-garde jazz. The way this live session clip opens says it all; they enter with a massive crescendo of collapsing noise, as if in order to begin they first must to destroy all that was built in the space previously and reduce it to rubble, before finding a groove on which they can build a red hot new found land.

Anna Lapwood – Interstellar

The Proms Season has opened at the Royal Albert Hall this week and for the final clip we have one of the solo instrumental performers set to appear later in the series of concerts. Anna is an esteemed organist and conductor who will be curating and performing one of the more unique and unusual concerts the Proms has ever produced. ‘From Dark Till Dawn’ will be an all-nighter fuelled by plenty of coffee in which Lapwood will play organ works on the famous Albert Hall instrument as part of an immersive, intimate experience that will also feature classical, choral and folk traditions in a nocturnal setting. Here she is performing a suite from Hans Zimmer’s score for ‘Interstellar’ alongside the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Anthony Gabriele, on the very instrument she has such a personal connection to having previously shared social media videos, viewed by millions, of her practising on the organ late at night.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 14th July 2025

Madeline Kenney – Semitones

We kick off with some emotive and sonic intensity this week as Madeline Kenney makes unflinching eye contact with the viewer through the camera lens leaving you in no doubt as to the conviction in her song. ‘Semitones’ addresses, in Madeline’s words, the moment when you “start to dread someone instead of love them”. This is so much more than a looking through you moment though, Madeline is in equal parts playful, mocking and savage in her assessments and absolutely revelling in the sonic palettes she uses to paint her vivid audio pictures with. This is taken from her fifth album, ‘Kiss From The Balcony’ set to be released on July 18th on her long-time label home Carpark Records but for now, get a taste for the main course with the intense ‘Semitones’.

Tombstones In Their Eyes – I Am Cold

Atop that crunching psych-rock bedrock, the insistent pounding rhythm and the slow smoky rise of the layered vocals there is something actually quite gorgeous going on here. There is a yearning to this song, an ache in the turbulence of the lyric that resolves with the chilling statement of the song title. As much as all psych influenced music can be traced back to the sixties, I am equally reminded of echoes from twenty-five years ago and a song like ‘Winterlight’ by Clearlake, something in the icy melodicism and sense of air and weightlessness leads me there. Either way, this is a quietly wonderous tune from these LA psychedelicists that is available now on Kitten Robot Records

Cochemea – Ancestros Futuros

Were Sun Ra still around today he would probably be making music that sounded something like this. This is both futuristic jazz and traditional in its respect of melodic patterns and tropicalia rhythms but whatever references one might be inclined to pin to this music, it is absolutely essential. It moves, it shifts, it rises, it falls, it bangs! This is sensational (I’m writing as I listen by the way, that’s probably obvious). Cochemea is a multi-instrumentalist and composer and this is the third and final part of a trilogy to be released in September on Daptone Records. It has been recorded with an octet of NYC percussionists along with Daptone alumni and is anchored in the cultural fabric that has nurtured him from the beginning through his Yaqui ancestry.

Allo Darlin’ – My Love Will Bring You Home

Here we have a cool recent live rendition of a rather Springsteen-like rocking ballad from Allo Darlin’s newly released album ‘Bright Nights’. This is a welcome return from Allo Darlin’ being the first new music released since 2014 after which they went on a decade long hiatus. Originally a London based outfit evolving out of a solo project built around the songs of singer Elizabeth Morris, their full band sound became a delightful amalgamation of lo-fi indie aesthetics and warm tune heavy guitar-pop writing. Happily, it is this that they appear to be tapping back into upon their return.

Big Thief – Incomprehensible

And here is another old favourite making a return, although on this occasion it is a band who have been rather prolific over the past ten years. Now listed as a three piece consisting of Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek & James Krivchenia, Big Thief are set to release a new album called ‘Double Infinity’ on 5th September, via 4AD and if this teaser is anything to go by, their hot streak is showing no sign of letting up yet.

Lael Neale – All Good Things Will Come To Pass

I will finish this week with a live performance of a track from one of the best albums of the year so far, Lael Neale’s ‘Altogether Stranger’. At the time of release I wrote of this track specifically that it enters with some steam train chugging guitar as the repeatedly sung title line makes for a pure fairground delight of a chorus hook. The juxtaposition of celebration and loss is central to the magic at play in Lael Neale’s music and those elements of light and shade are set to the foreground here to stunning effect. If you are not onto this album yet, or the music of Lael in general then I would suggest that these oversights are rectified at your earliest convenience, why you could even start now with this.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 7th July 2025

Lois Levin – Sugar

Taken from her new EP ‘Motions’ released on the Baltic Jazz label, this is a lovely soulful ballad to kick off the new music selections this week. Lois has been slow building a catalogue of jazz inflected songs via single and EP releases for a couple of years that started to catch the attention of 6music and Jazz FM radio DJs and deservedly so. She first came to more widespread attention with a version of The Clash’s ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’ on the Baltic Jazz ‘Re:Visioned’ album but it is her own evolving, genre-blending music that is most likely to lead to the answer ‘yes’, this is an artist who should definitely stay!

Dutch Interior – Sandcastle Molds

“My sandcastle molds all came without shovels”. Well we’ve all been there haven’t we? This one slipped past me earlier in the year but maybe I needed the summer months for the words to resonate? That is nonsense of course, unlike this song, a rattling, unsettling, shuffle that mixed inside the buoyancy and horn-burst fanfare of the sound is an uncertain melancholy asking the unanswerable questions. For a band that have been labelled “freak Americana” maybe that is the least that you would expect but let there be no doubt, this Los Angeles based collaborative writing collective are coming up with the goods right now.

Ryan Sambol – Friend Of The Show

This one has an unvarnished folksy singer-songwriter feel thanks to the way the harmonica is used as a lead instrument with the acoustic guitars and piano chords being thumped out all around amidst some gripping building of tension. There is a simplistic raw energy to this one, a primitive purity to an instrumental number that would make perfect talk-over intro or outro music for a radio show (I should make a note of that) but is worth a play in its own right anyway. Ryan released this album of the same name back in February, a record that has old-time blues sensibilities, a departure from the garage rock sounds he produced as front man of Texas cult heroes The Strange Boys in the early 2000’s

Stereolab – Aerial Troubles

The return of Stereolab this year has been a most welcome futurist-retro resurrection. As can be heard on this, the first offering from new 13 track album ‘Instant Holograms On Metal Film’ released on Duophonic UHF Disks and Warp Records, their signature groove driven electro adventurism remains switched on to full power. Founder members Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier have imprinted their creative vision all over this new work which has led to another instalment of an impressive back catalogue with a real clarity of vision and purpose but above all, brilliant bittersweet music that still somehow sounds like no other.

The Flying Hats – Night Bus

It is brand new retro sounds of an altogether different stripe with this one as we enjoy a live studio version of this Flying Hats debut single. With these chilled soulful reggae and Caribbean vibes this has to be an ideal sound for the hot summer weather. It is taken from the bands album ‘The Return Of The Flying Hats’ released on the ATA Records label. The UK based band were formed by drummer Sam Hobbs and bassist Neil Innes, a cooking rhythm section who both have musical history as collaborators in the rootsy Afro-American dance scene.

Kendra Morris – Dear Buddy

So we retain the easy vintage soul textures on this weeks final selection, a jazzier offering and a ballad that carries some proper emotional weight. New York based Kendra has been ploughing this vintage pathway for a good fifteen years or more now, known for a songwriting style that has the grit and bite of real life mainlined into its veins, leading to favourable comparisons to the likes of Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones. Like these late-greats, she too has an ear for the modern music world to match her old-school leanings, past collaborators include hip-hop collective Czarface but still it seems to be the straight ahead classicist compositions in her catalogue, as felt right here with ‘Dear Buddy’ (a tune from her latest three-song single ‘If I Called You’), that pack the firmest punch.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 23rd June 2025

Bruce Springsteen – Repo Man

If there is anyone doubtful that Bruce Springsteen deserves to be mentioned alongside the great writers of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era then this coming week might just press a few of the doubters into submission. He is about to release seven completed albums of previously unreleased, mostly unheard, material at the end of this week and if nothing else, they go a long way to re-writing what now looks like the misconception that Bruce ever really went off the boil or had a quiet patch. His 1990s alone are about to be plunged into a wholesale revision as from what I have heard and judging by the initial reactions he was as inspired and creatively engaged then as at any point in his fifty+ year career. The unreleased albums cover electronic ambience, film soundtrack work as well as out-and-out rockers but the selection I offer up here is upbeat killer country from the record entitled ‘Somewhere North Of Nashville’. I cannot wait for this latest Bruce deep dive on the horizon.

Margo Price – Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down

I will keep it country with the exciting news that Margo Price, one of the most authentic voices on the US scene these days, has a new album ‘Hard Headed Woman’ out on August 29th. Of this top new tune Margo says “with all that’s going on in the world, I hope this song will be a battle cry for the downtrodden and create unity and action for those facing oppression and hardship”.

James McMurtry – The Black Dog And The Wandering Boy

This is the stand out title track from the new James McMurty album ‘The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy’, which is out now on New West Records. James is widely considered, by those in the know, to be one of the most under-rated songwriters playing in the country-rock scene and that is an opinion that his quietly floating around since the 1980s. Well if he is new to you or this new music prompts a return, this is a fine album to get into so check it out but meantime, the clip featured here is a recent (lo-fi audio quality) live outing.

Kristina Murray – Watchin’ The World Pass Me By

This new laid back, care free and real world baiting cracker is a proper country lament taken from Kristina’s latest album ‘Little Blue’ out now on Normaltown Records. The video leans into some cheesy literal interpretation and is all the better for it, showing an artist not taking herself too seriously whilst delivering a song that under that lush veneer packs a bit of a punch, reflecting as it does on the tough reality of those creatives who have to fight to reach their potential in an industry that can kick down on those less fortunate unable to buy their way in with looks, wealth and the right contacts. Luckily for us, there are still a wealth of artists, like Kristina, who do it for the love of music and creative expression.

Wednesday – Elderberry Wine

The alternative pockets of US country are also alive with promise and talent in 2025. This is especially true of North Carolina rockers Wednesday, led by Karly Hartzman with guitarist MJ Lenderman, bassist Ethan Baechtold, drummer Alan Miller, and pedal steel player Xandy Chelmis, who I was raving about on these pages a couple of years ago after they released the still superb ‘Chosen To Deserve’. Here they are recently making their national television debut in the US and their first airing of new 2025 music.

Ringo Starr – Time On My Hands

And in the end… the best new country album of 2025 might still have been made by Ringo!!!

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 16th June 2025

Ron Sexsmith – Don’t Lose Sight

Canadian songwriter Ron continues to evolve and refine his craft with another new album called ‘Hangover Terrace’ set for release in August. His music can be as laid back and sleepy sounding as that weary expression he seems to perpetually wear on his face but that should not obscure the fact that his stock is song composition of the highest order. Ron can command the channels interlinking the major and minor keys with a melodic stitching that is deceptively advanced and the end result is frequently a song, such as that heard here, that was waiting for the right artist with enough range and dexterity to pull it into existence; don’t lose sight of the great songsmith’s still in our midst.

BC Camplight – Where You Taking My Baby?

BC Camplight is the performing identity of songwriter Brian Christinzio and he has used this platform to heart-wrenching effect in recent times to produce a piano-led style of confessional indie-rock that seems to delve deep into the mental, emotional and psychological core of his very being. That journey is clearly still unfolding on the new, soon to be released on Bella Union, ‘A Sober Conversation’ album in which, as heard here, among other concerns Brian deals with the trauma of re-connecting to loved ones following therapy brought on by fall outs, lost contacts, misunderstanding and hurt. If all this sounds heavy going though do not turn away, for his flare on the piano and ear for a tune in general make the music of BC Camplight a reliably deep, entertaining and ultimately rewarding experience.

Girl Group – Yay! Saturday

This is taken from Girl Group’s debut EP ‘Think They’re Looking, Let’s Perform’ and is buzzing with the same kind of feminist, hook driven pop energy previously heard from Wet Leg or Lily Allen. They are a relatively new five piece who, on this evidence, are alive with ideas and capable of painting vivid audio pictures that present animated versions of the lives they and their peer groups experience, in this case a long night out that gets messy. It is worth noting too that they are all singers and each member contributes to the writing too, so potentially the ideas will never be in short supply with a well of creative energy like this, there is a lot of promise here.

Night Beats – Behind The Green Door

And the beat goes on with another fine release from an ever dependable name in psych-inflected bluesy rock, Danny Lee Blackwell’s rollin’ and tumblin’ electric circus that is the Night Beats. ‘Behind The Green Door’ is the bands latest single and is out digitally now and on limited 7″ vinyl. Even though the backbone of Night Beats music is always retained, the primitive beats and the ubiquitous green fuzz of the guitar, there is always something different to delight in as well, on this occasion a decidedly Lynch-like panorama and a widescreen cinematic sound that could place this in the soundtrack to some obscure sixties b-movie, if not for the fact that it belongs firmly in the here and now as well.

Kathleen Edwards – 6 O’Clock News

The news that Kathleen Edwards is releasing a new album called ‘Billionaire’ on August 22nd produced by Jason Isbell and Gena Johnson, is very welcome indeed. It is described as harking back to her very first album, ‘Failer,’ with razor sharp lyrical observations and relatable real life tales. Two new songs, ‘Save Your Soul’ and ‘Say Goodbye, Tell No One’ are ready to hear online already and I will get to them soon enough but for now, let’s enjoy this recent live performance of the opening track from that aforementioned brilliant 2003 debut release.

Edith Frost – That’s What It’s Like To Be Lonesome

And to finish things off this week, here is another highly rated artist who has made a return in 2025, but this time it is someone who has ushered herself back into the ring with very little fanfare or hullabaloo. Edith Frost was one of the essential American Singer-songwriters around the start of the 2000’s earning herself deserved comparisons to singers like Elliott Smith but her new album ‘In Space’, which I am going to be checking out for the first time this coming week having only just come across it way below the surface, is her first in nineteen years. Here she is posting on her own YouTube channel a cover version of an old Jean Shepard song and it is as lush and moving as I always recalled Edith to be a couple of decades ago, it feels good to come across her once more.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 9th June 2025

The Milk – I Need Your Love

Top new retro soul tune taken from this now well established band’s fourth album ‘Borderlands’. The only thing that gets in the way of music that references another era is if the style outweighs the substance but if, as is very much the case here, the backbone is a great song then things really do start to happen. I first caught sound of The Milk back in 2012 when their anger fuelled ‘Broke Up The Family’ really spoke to a personal situation unfolding for me at the time but real class tends to be permanent and thirteen years later, here they are proving to be one still tasty milk that has definitely not gone off with time.

Natalie Bergman – Dance

Add this insistent little beast to the quite fertile crop of grainy, sixties go-go inspired alternative girl pop splendour currently abounding, most recently witnessed here in the hands of Lael Neale. The thing I cannot escape with Bergman’s music is that underlying current of sorrow and melancholic reflection which even manages to seep through on a groove driven dance number like this one. Delve deeper into her back story and some unspeakably tragic events are not too far from the surface, events which she was working through during the healing hymns of her last album ‘Mercy’ but here the life and light at the end of that tunnel feels like it is within touching distance. New album ‘My Home Is Not In This World’ is coming soon on Third Man Records.

Richard Dawson – More Than Real

Speaking of hymns, this really does have that sombre meditative quality that prompts a listener to stop and just listen, to absorb and reflect. Taken from Richard’s latest album ‘End of the Middle’ released on Weird World / Domino which to these ears is a work of outsider genius. Richard’s style is akin to that of a primitive painter, you know the kind that get dismissed by people saying “I could do that”, but his uninhibited melodic lines and wayward form defying structures cut straight to both the minutiae and emotional core of everyday and, as in this song, overwhelming real life traumas and situations. I find it impossible not to be moved by the identifiable realities he touches upon in his work and believe him to be a genuine national treasure.

Jorja Smith – The Way I Love You

A real change of pace with this one and the first of this weeks new music recommendations that could be placed in terms of its club friendly sound alone in the modern era. I feel that there is a lot of new R&B with roots and echoes in urban grime culture that loses me with an over produced, all-too-clean sheen airbrushing out a lot of the human heartbeat that makes soul music so special. But there are artists for whom that complaint does not apply and Jorja Smith is one, even with the face-slapping, bass driven, studio template this track is built around. There is still that jazzy voice carrying it, the punch and pull of Jorja’s authentic, un-contrived personality pumping everything that you hear which all serve to make this tune impossible to ignore.

The Horsenecks – Baker City Blues

This duo are an Oregon based husband and wife duo comprising Gabrielle Macrae (fiddle, guitar, bass, vocals) and Barry Southern (banjo, guitar, dobro, vocals) and they play an old time fiddle and bluegrass grain of country-folk. So much of the new music I feature these days might have a style that harks back to a long gone era (like the old soul sounds of this weeks opener or the many sixties garage and psych bands I play) but the thing that always bumps an act up into current relevance is if they are creating something wholly new and original within that framework. That is what the Horsenecks do here, playing a classic sounding tune newly written by Macrae which also appears as the opening track on their forthcoming ‘In The West’ album released on Tiki Parlour Recordings.

Robert Forster – Strawberries

I have just returned from a couple of days of rural escape in North Norfolk during which a meal in a village pub was rendered excruciating by an entitled, middle-class family invading the dining space of everyone else in the room due to their need to set up a phone tripod and film themselves dining and playing cards for Instagram, wilfully unaware as to their invasiveness on the evening of others. They even roped in bar staff to take photos. The mother spent so much time exacting her camera angles and poses that none of her meal was spent actually interacting with her own children, one of whom felt the need to apologise on his mothers behalf to an elderly couple and attempt to explain to them what Instagram is. Anyway, I say all this because this charming new film by Robert Forster and his partner does nothing more than address the very middle class problem of identifying the person who ate all the delicious strawberries. It is delightfully charming and I could not wipe off the cheery smile it put on my face, taken from Forster’s new album on Tapete Records.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 2nd June 2025

Deradoorian – Set Me Free

Angel Deradoorian first gained wide reaching attention as part of Dirty Projectors, especially for her contributions to their outstanding 2009 LP ‘Bitte Orca,’ but it is as a solo artist that her ethereal honey has been allowed to mature into something quite mysterious and lush. Her debut ‘The Expanding Flower Planet’ in 2015 is a fascinating starting point, bringing strands of art-rock and Kraftwerk-esque electronica to the table so it is superb news to report that this evolution continues with a third solo record released on Fire Records entitled ‘Ready For Heaven’. Of the album she says it “is partly about watching humanity erode. It’s about mental struggle, and it’s avowedly anti-capitalist. I mean; would we have all these identity labels we have to live by, if we didn’t live in a capitalist world?” Whilst this outlook might sound rather bleak in tone, it would be a whole lot worse if we did not have redemptive music of the kind created by Deradoorian to help us get by.

Robert Jon & The Wreck – Better Of Me

Sometimes it feels like the biggest present day, and certainly highest selling, country albums do not really sound like country at all. The production is a pop one in all but name and to these ears, a hint of token fiddle and a quick slide guitar drive-by do not a great country album make. Luckily, scratch the surface and there is still some authentic shit-kickin’ southern rock style country to be found as heard here by these Orange County amped-up troubadours. The quintet have been harvesting this good stuff since 2011 and are about to release their tenth LP and on ‘Better Of Me’ they say “it’s a rollicking, heartfelt track about staying true to yourself and moving forward — and will be featured on our upcoming album ‘Heartbreaks & Last Goodbyes’, we are so excited for you guys to hear this one!” They can afford to be excited too, people are going to love this one!

Ewan Currie – Big Pine Key

Where did this one spring from? It is positively fizzing with hot sunshine-pop vibes and a classy production that references the Beach Boys, High Llamas and Stereolab with just a splash of tropicalia, a light breeze of exotica and a flashlight of psychedelia. A little internet research tells me Ewan is best known for his work as the frontman of The Sheepdogs and BROS although I confess these names are not on my radar yet. However, this could be the trigger that is about to change all that because ‘Big Pine Key’ is from an equally superb new album called ‘Strange Vacation’ which is available now on Right On Records.

Tanita Tikaram – This Perfect Friend

Often when an artist has big mainstream chart success early in their career, as Tanita did back in 1988 with her first release, they never reach those heights again because that early burst of inspiration was the pinnacle of their potential and post-success, the motivation that originally pushed-on is lost forever. This is certainly not the case with Tanita Tikaram; if anything the 37 year old ‘Ancient Heart’ record represents her more primitive and unrefined mode for the work she has produced ever since has reliably matured to form a catalogue that is quite outstanding in the eloquent, fervent sophistication of its writing. That she has comparatively flown under-the-radar since her debut remains one of the inexplicable injustices of the music industry for Tikaram is genuinely one of our finest singer-songwriters; this is a live rendition of a song taken from upcoming new album ‘LIAR (Love Isn’t A Right)’ which is excellent news indeed.

Beebe Gallini – Begged Borrowed And Stealed

OK so, this is a cover of a fuzzy sixties garage tune probably best known to lovers of that retro movement after it’s inclusion on the 1998 expanded ‘Nuggets’ box set being performed by The Rare Breed. While this quirkily re-named version by fuzz fanatics Beebe Gallini may not deviate too far from the familiar 1966 45 (re-issued in almost identical form a year later under the name Ohio Express), it is absolutely played with the right kind of conviction and all the energy and rough edged exuberance can be felt vibrating out of these grooves newly released on Soundflat Records. There is always a place here for garage rock played with unpretentious attitude and this, indisputably, is a band who do it right!

Ebba Asman – Lately

The sound may be smooth and soulful with a production that is equally Jazz FM approvingly plush but over the top is a vocal that is positively teeming with ache, regret, hurt and loss. Ebba Asman is singing this like she means it which is very often the one element that can lift something out of the realms of background music and into the kind of music that grabs you by the ears and demands an emotional response. Ebba Asman is a Swedish trombonist and songwriter who is on the first rung of the ladder career wise but is definitely showing enough here, with a tune from her newly released ‘When You Know’ album, to mark her out as one to watch.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 26th May 2025

Sunny War – Cry Baby

Singer Sydney Ward has her latest album, ‘Armageddon In A Summer Dress’, out now on the increasingly reliable New West Records and it continues the astounding cutting edge this folk-punk agitator was showing on her previous, also highly praised, LP from 2023 ‘Anarchist Gospel’. This time around she has continued her exploration of roots music and incorporating a fuller band sound into her work and the end result is some of the best singer-songwriter fare you will find today. But she is authentic too and the side of her music that rose out of her early love of punk, especially the band Crass, can still be detected in her hard line message to listeners to live and act true to their beliefs and not bow down to social pressures. This is a recent live performance of a song which on the record also featured Valerie June…

Louis Philippe & The Night Mail – Pictures Of Anna

To my shame I have only just discovered that this artist, whose music is a lush hybrid of Brian Wilson referencing sunshine pop underpinning finely tuned melodic writing with an ear and eye for a vintage 1920’s aesthetic whilst retaining a foothold in the melting pot of the 21st century, is only an alias; his real name is Philippe Auclair. That name is known to me in an entirely different context as an Arsenal football fan and it is in the world of knowledgeable, classy sports writing that I have encountered his name before. It is clear however that the music world is where the consummate talent lies and latest album ‘The Road To The Sea’ on Tapete Records is one of the must-hear outlier curio albums of the year thus far…

Matthew Nowhere (ft. Lunar Twin) – Transforming

Here is San Francisco’s Matthew Nowhere’s latest video shot in California and Italy and it’s electronica is so lush behind the stirring, cloudy singing of Lunar Twin’s Bryce Boudrea. Nowhere says the video “is deeply resonant and captures something ineffable about the experience I was trying to convey with the song itself”. This is delightfully modern sounding in the way that futurism appeared in the 1980s, as such it has the human touch production feel that pioneers like Kraftwerk and Arthur Baker injected their work with. Matthew Nowhere’s debut album is out now…

Lavinia Blackwall – The Making

The new album of the same name from former Trembling Bells chanteuse Lavinia Blackwall is released this week and you can ensure you collect a copy of the vinyl LP on her bandcamp page. Lavinia is the living, breathing essence of that late sixties, early seventies gothic folk sound and she deserves some wider recognition for the songs she creates continue to expand that particular canon and find a home in our modern day musical landscape. And she is sincere too, there is no fakery on display here, Lavinia’s musical DNA is sourced from period Pentangle, Steeleye Span and Fotheringay albums and the like from which a sublime old-England magic still rises, as can be heard and bathed in wondrously here…

Sam Amidon – Big Sky

It’s a talented artist who can remove all trace of Lou Reed from a Lou Reed song and still end up with something fresh, deep and mesmerising but that is exactly what Sam has done here. It is a track that appeared on his ‘Salt River’ album, released earlier this year on River Lea, in which Sam approaches the use of synthesised textures and modernism from the perspective of a folky campfire setting to come up with an album that is impossible to pigeonhole and easy to become entranced by. As for the ‘Big Sky’ song, it was originally kind of buried as the closing track on Lou’s 2000 album ‘Ecstasy’ and a real up-tempo rocker to boot but, as with all the best writers, Reed’s work contains multitudes and Sam has found an altogether more mystical realm for the piece here but no less legitimate; in fact it has the potential to be the definitive version people refer to in years to come…

Emma-Jean Thackray – Maybe Nowhere

Taken from her second album ‘Weirdo’, a record which has been recorded and written amid tragedy after Thackray unexpectedly and suddenly lost her long term partner. It followed her 2021 album ‘Yellow’ which had received widespread acclaim for its bold jazz futurism and eloquent groove based explorations. All things considered, it would have been entirely understandable if her subsequent work had taken an introspective turn but, although you could argue it still has, she has instead stared her trauma down with an intentionally earth pounding, afro-jazz swinging, indie-dance grooving explosion of an album. It can be heard clearly in this tune, that sense of loss and confusion burns through every layer of sound, but the need to squeeze every last drop out of the life you still have stands tall as well, this is brave and beautiful stuff…

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 19th May 2025

Kassi Valazza – Your Heart’s A Tin Box

The warm hazy country shimmer in Kassi’s music certainly caught my attention in 2023 with her wonderful ‘Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing’ album and she has pushed on further up and further in with this years ‘From Newman Street’ LP. That same analogue tone remains but do I detect a little more bite and punch this time? That jumps out of this song with an opening lyric that seems to pull its own limbs out in frustration at the state of the music business now. Honestly, if I won the lottery I would make sure artists like Valazza are worrying a lot less about making ends meet and just focusing on their craft as they should be. You hear too much these days about artists playing sell out shows and still running at a loss and I guess this song is evidence that Kassi endures similar battles. What we fail to understand is that the real artists are in it because their craft is a calling, they do not see it as a ticket to wealth and luxury. They just have to make their music. We should be glad that Kassi Valazza is doing just that, this is the authentic sound of country in 2025 and it is pretty damn marvellous…

My Morning Jacket – Half A Lifetime

Jim James and his rootsy rocking band are reliably dependable when it comes to new music. There may not be reinventing the Southern rock templates they perpetually swim around in but their music is full of crunching melodic groove and to this day, every time they put out a new record (as they have here with ‘Is’) you can be sure there will be at least a handful of classic sounding pop/rock hooks to stimulate the senses of the listener…

Greentea Peng – Raw

Here is another artist who I have raved about in the past, in this case around the time of her stunning ‘Man Made’ debut LP back in 2021. Well, Greentea Peng has now released ‘Tell Dem It’s Sunny’ and in addition to reporting on it being a sharp, confident and attention grabbing step back into the ring, it is also thrilling to observe how her sound is evolving. Where before I would say the dominant vibe was a dub heavy throbbing rumble, in 2025 there is a real soul in the voice breaking out of these tracks and the music itself, as heard on this undeniable live clip, is a tasty mix of trip-hop and jazzy motions. Dig into this right away…

Father John Misty – I Guess Time Just Makes Fools Of Us All

Not exactly a new one as it appeared on the Father John Misty album released late last year, ‘Mahashmashana’, but it is new to me and jumped out of the radio speakers the other day demanding some attention and love. The Misty baroque chamber pop aesthetic remains, as you would expect, but it is just such a head turner when an artist can occupy this space with songs that sound so simultaneously fresh but also like they have been around forever (well since 1971 or thereabout anyway). Sometimes it happens that a songwriter stumbles on a bit of low hanging fruit, a title that surely has to have been used before but it is available and they then tack a brilliantly crafted new song to it, which seems to be what has occurred here…

St Vincent – Violent Times

While the Fresh Juice weekly offerings were away for a time on this site, I guess I missed quite a few releases and tracks I would have loved to have featured. So, here is another recent live performance by an artist whose 2024 album ‘All Born Screaming’ has subsequently won Grammy awards but even more significantly, remains a worthy inclusion in this weeks Fresh Juice half dozen. I personally do not believe St Vincent to have fallen short with any releases for more than fifteen years, which basically covers the whole of their career. Annie’s execution of art-rock presentation alongside beautiful, sometimes abrasive, occasionally challenging but always worth listening to music makes her one of the definitive artists of the early 21st century period in music. Digitally witness her in action on late night TV here…

Wet Leg – Catch These Fists

Finally for this week another selection from the recent highlights of music on TV file. Wet Leg have reawakened and sound like they will not be among those who suffer from underwhelming second album syndrome. Their debut record was three years ago but from what I can see here, the time has been well spent pushing their sound into far rockier, a lot edgier and even a possibly more violent realm? Obviously if you perform on TV with an angry zombie sitting at the back of the stage then you are consciously not presenting something too cute but the jagged edges on display with this one suggest that new Wet Leg album could well be worth waiting for…

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