Tag Archives: Fresh Juice

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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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 12th May 2025

Galactic & Irma Thomas – Puppet On Your String

Irma Thomas is the goddess of New Orleans soul music, in fact you can go even further than that and claim she is the true queen of soul. It seems barely comprehensible that she was making classic R&B as far back as the fifties and can still, in 2025 at the age of 84, be involved in a collaboration project like this and deliver vocals with that voice still sounding as devastatingly wonderful as it ever did. She has made an album with fellow New Orleans chameleons Galactic called ‘Audience With The Queen’ and it is possibly already the essential soul release of the year. If you don’t know Irma Thomas then I urge you to go deeper, music does not get much better than that which has her name attached to it; maybe start with ‘It’s Raining’ and then move on from there but do not ignore this, a 2025 pleasing teaser for sure…

The Waterboys – Hopper’s On Top

Mike Scott’s Waterboys have just released a concept album built around the life, work, reputation and legacy of Dennis Hopper and despite my initial reservations, it has proved to be a well structured, frequently deviating and surprising journey in song and sound. I think my initial caution might have had something to do with this video, packed with magic carpet riding cliches and literal lyrical representations but then I have to remember, it is often the direct route that Mike Scott takes with his writing that results in so many songs that I love. And so it is here, if Mike wants us to know he thinks Hopper was a genius he’s not going to subtly weave it into a poetic yarn with indeterminate meaning, he is just going to come right out and sing it; but then love, sincerity and focus are all ingredients that have fed into the greatest Waterboys tracks of our lives and that is no different here, genius!

Samantha Crain – B-Attitudes

Taken from her new album ‘Gumshoe’, this track seems to be about the feeling you get when the idea of finding your own home, your own little space in the world speaks to you the loudest and you set about realising it. That is definitely something I am experiencing in recent times after finally settling in a town and a home that feels like me. Samantha is dependably addictive here, clearly still in command of her easy fluency in singer-songwriter craft that has been under serious threat in recent years, not least after a car accident left her unable to play her guitar, an injury that thankfully she was able to find a long path to recovery with. Here is a singer working out her life stuff through music that is regularly a thrill to hear…

Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts – Big Change

This is Neil’s first release backed by the Chrome Hearts, taken from the forthcoming album ‘Talkin To The Trees’. It feels absurd that in such unsettling economic and political times, especially in the US and Canada, that it is still the old guard like Neil Young who are planting their flags in the protest ground. He is whipping up a storm here, offering a rallying cry of big change in a moment when it’s inevitably going to come along anyway whether you like it or not so you might as well try and fight for something good to emerge. Like the late great Phil Ochs, Neil Young really cares a lot and badly wants his music to get inside folks heads and make something happen. Unlike Phil though, he can accept that the preferred option may not necessarily arrive and so can console himself with the visceral thrill of a loudly cranked guitar and amp to get him through the day. Whatever it takes…

White Rose Motor Oil – Hit In The Face

If the previous track feels like a bit of a slap in the face to shake some action, then this tune is the soundtrack to the moment of impact and the reverberations of all that follow. It is a rollin’ and tumblin’ rockin’ rockabilly thunder crack of a tune that revs its engine delightfully with every repeat of the “you’re gonna get hit in the face” chorus line. They are a red hot duo from Denver with a fire lighting zipper of a female vocalist and a love of playing fast and loud. Together they surf the waves between cowpunk and garage rock which is a pretty exhilarating place to be if you can manage to catch it, so do not miss out on this one…

Silver Synthetic – Rosalie

A couple of years ago Silver Synthetic caught my ear with a debut album that occupied a very pleasing little side street situated between the late period of the Velvet Underground and seventies FM country rock. It was a lush sound that they played with belief and proficiency and it is a welcome return that I flag up here as the band offer similarly breezy Americana on a brand new song, which also happens to be the title track of the new Silver Synthetic album…

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 5th May 2025

Jeffrey Lewis – Sometimes Life Hits You

Here is some welcome new music, accompanied by a UK tour I should add, from a US cult songwriter whose superb DIY aesthetic, whose biting satirical lyrics and observational dexterity, not to mention his effortless facility to grab an earworm melody or hook, has seen his catalogue grow to near iconic status. He is pitched somewhere between the English whimsy of a Robyn Hitchcock or the charming outsider wackiness of a Jonathan Richman without being too much like either. He comes packed with visual stimuli as well thanks to a prolific dedication to creating comic book art. Jeffrey is a one off basically, criminally under-rated to this day but to paraphrase the mans own ‘Cult Boyfriend’, even if he never fully makes it out of the club gig circuit you can guarantee there will always be some people in the know who are really going to love his work. I count myself among them…

Oracle Sisters – Riverside

I was previously writing about this trio on this site in 2023 when their debut record caught my attention thanks to its subtle reliance on quiet melodicism and gentle contours of lift and abandon to grab the listener, rather than more blunt attention grabbing techniques. Later that year I would catch them at the End Of The Road festival and was rather blown away with how their delicate charms could still command the attention of a sizeable crowd and convincingly occupy a large main stage. They are back in 2025 with a new album called ‘Divinations’ and continue to display their deceptively modest musical loveliness here, down on the riverside…

Joy Crookes – I Know You’d Kill

I first encountered Joy Crookes by accident back in 2016 when she was supporting Benedict Benjamin in a small London club venue aged just seventeen. I remember writing back then about how much promise she showed as well as noting an impressively eclectic blend of influences from soul to jazz to hip-hop, all collected up in a joyous melting pot all of her own making. Today Joy continues tapping into a retro soul groove and summoning the vocal style, a little of the attitude too, of Amy Winehouse which is wonderful to hear nine years down the line. How great, not to mention important, it is that there is still space and time for an artist like this to grow and find their own voice. Joy Crookes is really starting to deliver now…

Lael Neale – Tell Me How To Be Here

I have written about the new Lael Neale album over at KLOF Mag a couple of days ago and correctly, I believe, identified it as the must-hear new release of the week. On the record, ‘Altogether Stranger’, this track works as the emotional centrepiece in a dizzying and yet refreshingly concise collection of songs that meditate on various states of belonging and isolation. As before with Lael, the sound is a heady mix of Velvets drone and minimalism with a definite retro pop sheen and an all encompassing shimmer. See exactly what I mean with this…

Blake, Butler & Grant – Bring An End

This new trio of old hands are Bernard Butler, a celebrated guitarist with numerous credits to his name but most notably Suede and McCalmont & Butler in the nineties; Scottish songwriter James Butler, best known for fronting the band Love & Money in the mid-eighties to the nineties and Norman Blake who is, of course, best known as the ever-present front man of Teenage Fanclub. I caught the trio last summer when playing an ear catching set at the Cambridge Folk Festival and noted then how well their newly composed material sat alongside well known hits and covers. This track demonstrates exactly what I was talking about and can be heard on the new self titled album, already released on 355 Recordings…

Alabaster DePlume – Invincibility

Taken from the new ‘A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole’ album and as a complete work it is quite a different beast to what one might expect from a jazz saxophonist. It is far more geared towards the poetic composer and even activism strain of DePlume’s work as the entire album plays like something of a healing mechanism for the troubled modern times we live in. Not quite a protest album, certainly not a political statement but a meditation on the feeling of, well, everything not being quite right with the world and as the title itself ponders, if something is not whole it cannot fulfil its intended purpose. Oh and I probably should warn you, as wonderful as the video below is, it is definitely a bit of a heartbreaker so tread carefully…

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 28th April 2025

Echolalia – In The Pub

To mark the regular return of this sites Fresh Juice feature, I would ideally have liked to follow the tradition of sourcing the best video clips to represent the song choice but for this, I also wanted to return with something that has a bit of punch and this certainly has that. Echolalia are Spencer Cullum, Andrew Combs, Dominic Billet, Jason Lehning, Eli Beaird, Jordan Lehning and Juan Solorzano and their debut album is a thing of pastoral beauty and strong songwriting, with each of the four writers among the collective getting an equal portion of the album track space. But tucked away right at the close of the record is this hilariously sparky hidden treasure. Quite out of sync with the remainder of the album, this is reminiscent of a mockney Britpop classic, all boozed up geezerish chat that brilliantly captures the alcoholic fog of an afternoon in a spit and sawdust old English ale house. Maybe its best explained by Spencer Cullum, who for all his current residential status as a Tennessean was actually born and raised in Romford. If that is his voice to the forefront of this track, that kind of explains it all really. Let’s get emotional.l.l.l Terry!!!!

Pulp – Spike Island

Talking of Britpop, this a welcome return from some veterans of the era. Pulp have reformed and are set to release their first new album in 24 years and there is something that feels rather good about this one. It could be that the vast majority of nineties indie band resurrections rarely bring anything to enhance their legacy, more often merely adding fuel to the detractors argument that Britpop was a musically backward looking, conservative misstep. But for all that I can see their point, that is not how I remember it thirty years ago. I was rather swept up in the waves of optimism splashing in from the likes of Blur, Supergrass and the Charlatans. That unfiltered ambition Oasis spouted I got right behind, I wanted all that bland generic boyband shit shoulder barged out of the pop charts by acts writing great pop songs. I remember a time when the radio was reliably peppered with a drip feed of memorable tunes; I am inclined to think Pulp have revived just that on ‘Spike Island’. This is a song on regular radio rotation right now and every play grows on me a little more, just as a killer pop song should. It makes me feel Britpop is ripe for a reassessment, if people think its legacy is merely laying a platform for a band like Coldplay to exist then think again, the industry built the Coldplay monstrosity, Britpop’s incubation was from a far more musically inspired place as we are brilliantly reminded here with Pulp

The Pale White – Final Exit

The Pale White are set to release their ‘The Big Sad’ album, a record that the band themselves say looked like it might not come out for a time. We should be gratified they did find a way to set sail on this ship. Their sound may be out of step with that of a new rock band in 2025 but the feeling of being outsiders they project, something which is heavily emphasized in both this song and video, is offset by some wonderfully inviting and invigorating music. They are not quite a repro of the past even though those late sixties reference points are audible, neither are they a one dimensional rockist assault despite a tendency to grab hold of you and wrestle your senses to the floor until they submit to The Pale White energy. There’s something happening here…

Ty Segall – Another California Song

An artist like Ty Segall makes the others all look like also-rans, especially in terms of his creative work ethic. He has yet another new album coming out on the 30th May called ‘Possession’ and is just about to complete a series of solo acoustic dates which have kept him occupied for most of the past three months, but he won’t be out of view for long as from 5th July he’s off on a full electric band tour that will take care of the largest chunk of the summer. As can be heard here, even when he’s playing with just an acoustic guitar, there is still a kind of liquid energy pumping through every second of his playing and he continues to knock out good songs too. Could he be a little too prolific perhaps? I am as guilty as anyone of paying less attention to an artist who is always producing over one making a rarer, occasional appearance. But ignore Ty Segall and it’s you, the listener, who misses out. You have been warned…

Villagers – I Want What I Don’t Need

Taken from the most recent Villagers album ‘That Golden Time’ which has been out for a while but is being toured right now and well worth investigating by anyone with an ear for acoustic singer-songwriting played by a genuine craftsman. Villagers are the performing name for Conor O’Brien who has been playing under this banner, following the break up of his first band The Immediate, for fifteen years now. In that time he has deservedly won acclaim for the economical poetic flare in his lyric writing in addition to the delicate, refined touch and tone of his guitar playing. Both are on full display here in a song that is a potent reflection on the impulses that drive an individual to passionately achieve the gratification of desires that will ultimately be rendered meaningless whilst acknowledging he will go after them all the same. This is song composing as a very real art form.

Ringo Starr – Look Up

We will end this return edition of Fresh Juice with one more welcome return to the saddle from a much loved pop cowboy with the title track from his latest record. Obviously I have a massive Beatles bias which runs through all my music writing but I have never really had the blinkers on, especially where the solo albums of Ringo are concerned. But this one, with the production muscle and co-writing chops of T-Bone Burnette in its arsenal as well as a cast of top drawer country and bluegrass names like Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle and Alison Krauss among the credits, is credibly being hailed as Ringo’s best ever solo album. Even on the gushing vinyl liner notes written by Elvis Costello, the suggestion is put forth that the ‘Look Up’ album is the natural follow up to ‘Beatles For Sale’. Well that particular claim might not stick but this is as strong a selection of songs that Ringo has ever sung as a solo artist and how great is it that we can still hear a Beatle in this fine a voice in 2025? Did the Beatles era every really end? This one argues persuasively the magic is still alive in ’25….

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Fresh Juice

29th April 2024

Leyla McCalla – Scaled To Survive

Leyla has, during the past ten years of solo releases after raising her profile as part of Carolina Chocolate Drops, released some essential albums often thematically linked, be it a tribute to the writer Langston Hughes or a deep dive into the history of Haiti’s first Kreyol-language radio station. However, for her incredible new album ‘Sun Without The Heat’ she has parked the conceptual approach and made space for her more personal singer-songwriter instincts to find a path. And because this multi-instrumentalist, who in a past life would busk Bach on a cello, is so kaleidoscopic in her natural range the resulting album is a pure delight, including this gently lilting song about motherhood…

La Luz – Strange World

Ahead of the release of new album ‘News Of The Universe’ La Luz tease this, a track that suggests the often used “always the same but always different” phrase could easily apply. Some changes are obvious for whilst Shana Cleveland remains at the core this is clearly a different line-up to the last configuration of La Luzers heard on 2021’s brilliant self titled album. Other evolutions are hazier for while that distinct surf-noir sound remains this is definitely a band looking to a more electro-friendly future; albeit a future rooted in the past as it tries to imagine the coming decades through the lens of a 1970s disco flavoured starship trooper…

The Losin’ Streaks – The Slink

This bands 2024 album ‘Last House’ is the record I have heard this year that most authentically captures that scuzzy garage band sound I love so much. If you check out the record I’d suggest going for ‘Last House On The Block’ as the must-hear modern day nugget but as I could not find a video of that online I offer instead this recent live film which deceptively weaves in sixties crowd footage but belongs very much in the hear and now…

AC Sapphire – Weed Money

From the ‘Dec 32nd’ album that I have already predicted on klofmag.com will be one of this years new releases that enjoys a shelf life way beyond 2024. It is a songwriters album that is wonderfully diverse, being neither Americana, folk, desert haze or indie pop even though it has echoes of all and much more besides. ‘Weed Money’ is one of the albums more straight-ahead acoustic troubadour numbers but be sure to go to the long player for the full cosmic road-trip experience…

Pokey LaFarge – One You One Me

Always a delight to report that Pokey has new old-time music on the way. He is a performer who cannot help but put a smile on the face of an audience and so even when he offers up a video of grainy loved-up footage from his wedding day, rather than reach for the sick bag you feel the joy too. After being in the same room as him last year and grinning like an idiot for ninety minutes, I don’t think I’ll ever try and resist the charming sounds of Pokey, now with added rhumba…

Parsnip – Turn To Love

There simply aren’t enough Australian and yet curiously Welsh sounding bands prepared to wear am-dram headwear, pull Wicker Man dance moves and detonate their song with one harmoniously trippy blast in the middle before returning to the church organ hymn-like mantra of the opening never to hit full bloom again. I mean a chorus this grand and lush deserves more than one serving so the only thing to do is go back to the start and bathe in the whole thing all over again…

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Fresh Juice

15th April 2024

Waxahatchee ft. M J Lenderman – Right Back To It

The new Waxahatchee album ‘Tiger Blood’ is out now and a must hear if some springtime alt-country promise is your bag. More than that though, this song especially flows so naturally it instantly sounds like a lolling western standard, so sweetly do the verses sail by ahead of that ear worm chorus. Is it a song of long term loving commitment or the sound of someone with too many questions about the routine of longevity? The key line seems to be “you just settle in like a song with no end, if I can keep up we’ll get right back to it” but I admit I haven’t dissected these lyrics anywhere near enough yet, the music is just too irresistible and seems to say enough anyway. Wonderful song…

Adrianne Lenker – Fool

The new solo album by Big Thief’s Adrianne is called ‘Bright Future’ and already sounds like one of the records of 2024 to me. It is clearly an act of necessity that she keeps a second outlet for her songwriting because Lenker has absolutely been boiling over with new music these last few years. Big Thief’s last long player alone was a bumper fun 20 song effort but following them as I do via live concert clips online, there is rarely any evidence in a slowing up of new ideas. Just like her songs with the band, solo Adrianne presents music that is not always immediate but still gives the listener a desire to keep on playing, allowing her songs to present their many charms over time as layer after layer slowly rises into view…

Charlie Parr – Little Sun

Superb live rendition of the title track on Charlie’s new Smithsonian Folkways released album. This is his eighteenth album and as before, his recording process has focused on capturing the raw and ready feel of live performance. Never a man for lingering studio indulgences, he has all the same admitted that for this record hanging out in the studio felt more comfortable, something which may be attributed to the presence of a producer, Tucker Martine. It is the first Charlie Parr record with such a studio focal point and it has to be said, the end results make for a rather fine singer-songwriter album in the Americana vein, well worth checking out…

Shannon & The Clams – The Moon Is In The Wrong Place

Another title track from a new album, this time a band who I have previously associated with a more retro fifties kind of sound. Here however, the textures have far more of a sixties feel. A sixties guitar band with an eager fascination for science fiction too, think of The Byrds doing ‘Mr Spaceman’, something which can especially be heard in the crackly wireless-like guitar sounds that feature heavily. Later though, the fuzz guitar plugs in and suddenly this is an out-and-out garage rocker. Shannon & The Clams are taking it to other planets…

Keith Richards – I’m Waiting For The Man

There is a new Lou Reed tribute album coming out called ‘Power Of The Heart’ featuring Lou’s music played by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Rufus Wainwright, Lucinda Williams, Maxim Ludwig & Angel Olsen, Rickie Lee Jones, Mary Gauthier, Bobby Rush, Automatic, The Afghan Whigs and Rosanne Cash as well as this incredible version of a Velvet Underground classic by Keith. If ever there was a man who is a nailed on obvious choice to cover this number, they probably found him here and what a job he has done. Every sweaty palmed detail of the after hours back street deal going down in the songs lyric is lived and tasted in Richards vocal, walk it home…

Beth Gibbons – Floating On A Moment

We do not hear from Beth anywhere near enough but at least when that voice does resurface, it is with music that wholly justifies the wait. Be warned though, this song is probably not what you need to hear if you are feeling low or depressed, the message in it is heavy and the sadness in the music does feel low and helpless. But something in Beth’s voice carries it, makes it moving rather than bleak and when the “all we have is here and now” lyric is sung, rather than acutely sensing the emptiness that lies ahead, you might just want to squeeze every last drop out of the here and now and grab life with both hands. Music this good is like magic, it can pull you in opposite directions…

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Fresh Juice

8th April 2024

Hannah Frances – Vacant Intimacies

Hannah has many facets to her art and performance being simultaneously a composer, guitarist, poet, singer and movement artist. Her latest and third album ‘Keeper Of The Shepherd’, released by the Ruination Record Co., is a mesmerising set which manages to pull in influences as diverse as freak folk, progressive rock and free jazz into a set that demands repeated plays. On this new release it is the strength and conviction in that voice that really pulls you in, something definitively on display in this live performance of one of the albums outstanding numbers. All the aforementioned reference points are in evidence here, the untethered spirit of freak folk, the expansiveness and unpredictable melodic changes of prog and indeed some brass embellishments straight out of the jazz bop sound book but this is in no way a mish-mash, it is a fully contained song that rises to a pitch then recedes in a rather irresistible manner. The rest of the album is essential listening too, a strong LP release that we will still be talking about by the years end…

Sabatta – Take You There

Sabatta are a London duo who have been churning up the capitol rock scene for more than ten years now with a vital take on passionate, dirty and loud guitar music. They are Yinka Oyewole on guitar and vocals with Debbie Dee on bass and backing vocals. This track, taken from their most recent ‘How To Get Even’ album, is a firecracker of an electric instrumental with some undeniable echoes of garage rock fuelled with primal blues energy. But it sounds modern too, it is music for the here and now, music that demands to be blasted out of every electric vehicle skimming by in the 21st century city centre. Play this loud…

The Mellons – Make Me Feel

Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, I think it is reasonable to say that The Mellons, who have been on the scene since 2020, have soaked up the rainy day melancholy of the UK every bit as much as they have bathed in the sun drenched warmth of their own back yard. Of course, one listen to this places and you know they are positioned firmly under the sunshine pop umbrella but there is more going on both musically and visually. It is the Beach Boys harmonising to the sound of tea and biscuits late 60s UK psychedelia. Furthermore, there is more than a hint of the Magical Mystery Tour to this play school ram raid of a video. A splendid time is guaranteed for all however because The Mellons have not neglected the most vital component, they have written a quite lovely pop song in the traditional vein…

Nadine Shah – Topless Mother

This attention grabbing first single from Nadine’s latest album ‘Filthy Underneath’ was perhaps the only track sounding connected to her earlier releases. Elsewhere on the album she does push her musical palette into newer, lusher areas but nevertheless, this is arguably the song that shouts loudest and clearest just why she remains an artist worth paying attention to. The period of personal turbulence around the making of the record inevitably looms large, but the way she can channel this raw material into songs with a keen eye for the absurd and humour in otherwise unfunny situations is very well balanced. In this song alone the experience of dark sessions with a counsellor and dead end word association tasks leads to a chorus line that sings “Sinatra; Viagra; Iguana; Sharia; Diana; Samosa; Varuca; Tequila; Banana; Alaska; Medusa; Gorilla”…

Camera Obscura – Big Love

Here are a band we are lucky to still have around for after the death of long standing keyboardist Carey Lander in 2015 they understandably went on an indefinite hiatus. Even though they never officially declared an end to Camera Obscura and have played live recently, it would have been no surprise if that had been the end but no, they are about to return with a new album entitled ‘Look To The East Look To The West’ which is set for release next month. As you can hear, none of Tracyanne Campbell’s facility for carving a bittersweet melancholic pop hook has been lost and that voice remains a thing of bruised magnificence. They seem to be making a comeback because the music is sufficiently vital to justify the reappearance, at least that is how it sounds to me, which makes this a resurrection as welcome as it is necessary…

Norah Jones – Staring At The Wall

From the new album ‘Visions’ released on the Blue Note label, which is about as close as you get to an identifiably Jazz reference point in anything Norah does these days. She is far more of an Alt-Rock, Indie-Pop shapeshifter than people often give her credit for. This track is a good example, the rolling momentum of the electric guitar rhythm chunders in and out of focus whilst a howling, whooping lyric-less chorus echoes and thunders as if descending like a cloud of thick smog. Her music probes and cross-fertilizes across the genres and the song writing back bone always remains top drawer. Just like when I talked up the new Billy Joel release a few weeks ago, I am aware that a Norah Jones recommendation steers too close to the middle-of-the-road for some but, for me, there is far more cutting edge in this than your average The Streets release or (insert similar over-praised toss) so have it…

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Fresh Juice

19th February 2024

Kitty Liv – The Sun And The Rain

This is an absolute corker of a tune from the Camden singer-songwriter probably best known as part of the vintage family trio Kitty Daisy & Lewis. When they first got deserved attention on the music scene there was perhaps too much focus on how young they were, just as later the talk would often focus on their clothes and fifties style when really we should all have just been delighting in what incredible songs they were coming up with. We can assume from her solo work that Kitty was central to this creativity, because her own tunes are similarly fuelled by a classic R&B sensibility and an ear for a irresistible melodic hook…

Lavinia Blackwall – Morning To Remember

There’s an altogether different kind of retro vibe on this bouncy new gem but it’s equally as charming and delightful. Lavinia makes a unique brand of folk-pop that appears at first to be structured in a conventional manner and yet her senses are spinning with colours and smells and her surrounding environment which has a splendidly dizzying effect on the music. Perhaps that is best illustrated in this video by some of the dancing, which looks simultaneously all over the place but also exactly in tune with the overall spirited approach…

The Zutons – Creeping On The Dancefloor

Twenty years after these groovy cosmic scousers first shook our trees, what a thrill to have them shimmying back into the spotlight like this, reminding us all what a winning way they had with a killer pop tune. There always was a sense of unfinished business with The Zutons, especially after they vanished from view after their third album release in 2009, which is why it is so great not merely to have them back again but proving right from the off that they really are one of the all time Liverpool greats la…

The Black Keys – Beautiful People (Stay High)

Now this from another great band who began causing a stir over two decades ago and are clearly, if this recent live clip is anything to go by, still cooking today. They have a new album called ‘Ohio Players’ out in April and as always with this dynamic duo, that is cause for eager anticipation…

Katherine Priddy – First House On The Left

Katherine’s new album, ‘The Pendulum Swing’, is a lush and cohesive meditation on the loves, memories, losses and overwhelming melange of feelings that are evoked when returning to an old family or childhood home. This song specifically addresses that very thing but the album as a whole is wonderfully connected in its explorations on these themes, playing with a neatly rounded start and finish point which enriches the whole experience similar to a great book or movie…

Mitski – I’m Your Man

Last years Mitski album ‘This Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We’ was undoubtedly one of the records of the year and this haunting live video performance of one of the stand out tracks really manages to stretch every last fibre of tension out of the song. This film, complete with a wonderful element of hammer horror drama at the end, also proves that you do not always need to crank up the volume to punch hard, sometimes the silence can be just as loud…

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Fresh Juice

5th February 2024

Sarah Jarosz – Runaway Train

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

Muireann Bradley – Candyman

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

Sleater-Kinney – Say It Like You Mean It

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

Sukie Smith – Into The Light

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

Project Gemini – Colours & Light

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

Billy Joel – Turn The Lights Back On

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

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Fresh Juice

2nd October 2023

Quantic featuring Andreya Triana – Run

Quantic is the creative and performance identity of musician and producer Will Holland who has an incredible back catalogue with his unique melting pot of Latin, Disco, Soul, Jazz and Electro hybrid sounds which are invariably a delight to the audio senses. He first caught my attention over ten years ago on an album with Alice Russell called ‘Look Around The Corner’ which sounded for all the world like a lost Motown classic with disorientating echoes of the future. Incredible stuff and that is merely the tip of the iceberg yet still today it is more than apparent that his ear for an authentic soul voice and indelible groove remains intact thanks to this stunning tune made with Andreya Triana. Andreya herself is an artist I have kept an ear out for since her equally impressive debut from 2010 ‘Lost Where I Belong’ and today she remains one of the outstanding, authentic vocal talents in the soul world; all in all, a musical marriage that works for everyone…

Joanna Sternberg – People Are Toys To You

As we hit October I am starting to think about the albums that will make up the list of my top twenty records of the year and it is already beyond doubt that Joanna’s ‘I’ve Got Me’ LP will have a high place in the run down. They are a US singer-songwriter and visual artist who seem to have such a natural flair with the craft of melodic music composition. There is a quirkiness to Joanna’s sound which may regrettably push them to the ‘outsider’ fringes of the music scene which is wholly unjust because there is a classicists eloquence to the work way beyond the reach of most pop balladeers and two-chord strumming acoustic coffee shop poseurs. I flipping love Joanna’s album and sincerely hope it is heard and picked up by the large volumes of people it deserves, if Taylor Swift could make a record this good the critical establishment would be queueing up to call it a masterpiece…

Teleman – String Theory

In recent years Teleman have always been a dependable band for superior sounds in the indie-rock world. They released new music on the ‘Good Time / Hard Time’ album earlier this year but found there was still a lot of top-drawer material left in the tank and so a new deluxe-edition of the album is on its way. Tom from the band explains “we were aware of these extra songs that were knocking around; songs that should have/ could have made the cut but for one reason or another got left off. As well as that there was the usual big pile of demos and alternative versions that we always have when we come round to making an album. So we thought that a Deluxe version of the album was in order- all the bells and whistles- and to top it all off, we went back into the studio and recorded a brand new track called ‘String Theory’ which came out really well”. It certainly did, here it is…

Romy – Loveher

Romy Madley Croft is perhaps better known for her music as part of The XX who have won widespread acclaim and success over the past 13-14 years with their bass heavy, quite dubby variant of indie/electro pop. Here Romy is branching out on her own, albeit with XX bandmate Jamie XX listed as part of the production team, revealing a side to her work heavy influenced by the dancefloor. Far from being a blatant shot at mainstream solo riches however, this classy track has the soulful injection you would expect from a classic house 12″ and consequently is rather wonderful indeed, dig in to this one immediately…

The Coral – That’s Where She Belongs

I have been writing new music recommendations on this site for a few years now and it is possible that The Coral are my most frequently suggested band. They have just released a wonderful new album ‘Sea Of Mirrors’ from which this is taken, one of two new LPs they are spoiling us with in 2023. It is not that I have a bias towards them, I really don’t, I haven’t even seen them live since 2002 but the reason they deserve such regular shout outs is simply the quality of their work. They seem to exist in a sweet spot where they have had a deserved amount of success, but nowhere near enough for it to spoil their creativity. The Coral clearly still live and breathe through their music and as much as I’d imagine that’s a rewarding place for the band members to exist, the real winners are us, the listeners. They simply keep on giving us the most wonderfully written and recorded albums to enjoy and obsess over, please never stop…

Hania Rani ft. Duncan Bellamy – Don’t Break My Heart

I have only recently written about Hania Rani and her glacial splendour as a creator of deep, expansive and immersive instrumental mediations on the piano. Her work comes from other planets and as such you need to receive it and give it the attention it demands in order for the vibrations to work their magic. However, it seems she is increasingly moving towards songwriting with lyrics too, as heard on this new release, which given the superior quality of the work can only be a good and welcome development; do not miss out on this one…

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