Tag Archives: Josienne Clarke

Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 18th May 2026

Angine de Poitrine – Sarniezz

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

Irma – Black Sun

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

Cole Berliner – The Black Door

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

Ruti – I’ll Be Your Friend

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

Brother Wallace – Gone With The Wind

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

Josienne Clarke – Banks Of The Sweet Primroses

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

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 16th March 2026

Elles Bailey – Better Days

This rousing slice of modern Americana is taken from Elles latest album ‘Can’t Take My Story Away,’ an album that oozes a sense of catharsis and healing. It was written by her late friend, Matt Long, the singer, guitarist and songwriter for the award-winning band Catfish. Matt tragically passed away in October last year, 18 months after being diagnosed with bowel cancer. He and Bailey emerged onto the UK blues scene around the same time, crossing paths at festivals and on tour. “It felt like we were climbing this wild musical ladder together,” she said, “and then he got diagnosed with cancer.” During that time the whole community came together to help raise funds for his treatment. When he died, his parents showed her a song he’d written, ‘Better Days,’ which Elles gives the full on conviction the song deserves. As well as finding the tune on our latest ‘Fresh Juice’ Mixcloud show https://www.mixcloud.com/dannyneill714/fruit-tree-records-fresh-juice-2026-vol-2/ you can also grab yourself a physical copy of the album here: https://amzn.to/4brtznX

Howling Bells – Sweet Relief

When this band originally appeared on the scene with their self-titled debut in 2006, they had plenty of stiff competition for attention within the guitar pop world. This was, lest we forget, the time of ‘Landfill Indie,’ as wave upon wave of edgy, arch, angsty and sardonic four or five piece groups with second hand attitude filled the declining CD store racks with miles and miles of mostly uninspired, generic yelping produce. But Howling Bells always had a little something that pushed them above the general pack, a music that their singer Juanita calls a “kind of narcotic, bluesy, dreampop.” The band had a good initial run of nearly a decade before life and other projects took them quietly, although not permanently, out of view. Now they return with new music in 2026 and are clearly still as tight a unit as before, especially on ‘Sweet Relief’ which, in its own way, passionately resurrects all the energy and fire they first broke out with twenty years ago. This too features on the latest ‘Fresh Juice’ Mixcloud show https://www.mixcloud.com/dannyneill714/fruit-tree-records-fresh-juice-2026-vol-2/ and you can get a physical copy of the album here: https://amzn.to/4rx7FWo

Pokey LaFarge – Arkansas

I hope Pokey LaFarge enjoys the kind of national treasure status he deserves in the US because he certainly can make you long for a country that, in other ways these days, can come across like a place to avoid. He remains a prolific and dependably authentic purveyor of Americana roots music played with a style and swagger that has been time vortexed from around 100 years ago. His latest release is a six track EP on Boxer Boy Records entitled ‘Travelin’ With Poley LaFarge: Voice And Guitar Vol.1.’ As well as ‘Arkansas’ it also features intimate performances with his wife Addie Hamilton adding to the overall shift towards some more personally reflective sounds after 2024 album ‘Rhumba Country.’ You can get yourself a copy of the EP via this link: https://amzn.to/4bbjOeK

Josienne Clarke – Katie Cruel

Josienne is back on the road right now reviving her successful Sandy Denny show from 2025. It is that same Denny-like pure yearning in her voice that she brings to this bold re-interpretation of a traditional arrangement possibly best known, to me at least, via Karen Dalton’s recording. Playing to her strengths, Josienne takes an already heavy‑hearted song and drags it into even darker, more turbulent waters, drawing out every last drop of the lyrics’ harsh, irreconcilable truths. Not only that but she also honours the folk tradition of re-interpretation by writing some new verses of her own. Of the accompanying film, director Alec Bowman-Clarke says he “explores how time distorts our sense of self. We see the ‘young’ and ‘old’ Katie existing in the same physical spaces, separated by a veil of memory. This symmetry suggests that the song is not just a linear journey of decline, but a circular trap where the ghost of who she was constantly haunts the reality of who she has become.” You can get yourself a copy of the new ‘Katie Cruel’ single here: https://josienneclarke.bandcamp.com/

Melissa Aldana – La Sentencia

This easy and sumptuous, soulful jazz is the lead track from Melissa’s latest release on Blue Note Records entitled ‘Filin.’ The whole record is a study in the style of the records title; a romantic, harmonically rich Cuban song form that bridges bolero, trova, and jazz. Playing alongside pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, she shines with a simmering, minimalist intensity that pushes melody and subtle textures into the foreground. Aldana is a Chilean-born, Grammy-nominated tenor saxophonist known for her deep tone, introspective improvisation, and lineage‑driven approach to jazz. She grew up in a family of saxophonists, studied at Berklee, moved to New York, and has since become one of the most respected modern voices on the instrument. The album is available to buy here: https://amzn.to/40uwKpU

ESYA – Heaven

I am concluding this weeks ‘Fresh Juice’ feature with another stylistic jump, this time into some dense electronic shades built on percussive momentum that conjure bleak industrial landscapes of the mind. ESYA is a brand new musical direction for Savages bass player Ayse Hassan who has a debut album on the way in April called ‘Chasing Desire,’ out on AOK Records. It features appearances from Sharon Van Etten, Laura-Mary Carter, Jessy Lanza, Algiers’ Lee Tesche and more. This track is a rousing, uplifting and propulsive piece of dance-floor ready music but lyrically is rooted in anxiety and retreating from a difficult situation. Ahead of the albums release the title track is available here: https://amzn.to/3P9UMEe

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 3rd November 2025

Josienne Clarke – What Do I Do?

Josienne’s latest album ‘Far From Nowhere’ is a record created and recorded in the isolation of a remote Scottish cabin. Deliberately lo-fi and intimate, it is a fine piece of work that sits together well as a suite of songs wrestling with questions, anxieties and motions that play-out as if being processed in real time. There are no easy answers, in fact often there are no definitive explanations at all, just questions, and this song is a good example of that. It also stands as a singer-songwriter album that honours the tradition of artists charting their journey through life via music; when real experience and feelings are the source, it is often reflected in songs that have more bite and depth, as heard in the music of Josienne Clarke

The Len Price 3 – Gypsy Magick

New music is always welcome from a trio with some of the purest sixties garage rock sounds you can find in 2025. As the title of their new latest album ‘Misty Medway Magick’ indicates, they are a power pop outfit from Kent who have been heavily gigging and recording for over twenty years with all original members, none of whom are actually called Len Price. That sound is hard to resist but I never warm to mere retro photocopyists, it is when bundled in with creativity and original ideas in composition, as the Len Price 3 have always done, that the music comes alive, fizzing with energy and vitality. It is a big part of the Fruit Tree Records ethos that design classic sounds and genres can continue to be enjoyed outside of their original eras, provided they are approached with the right attitude. As far as I am concerned, ‘Gypsy Magick’ is just a rollicking 2025 pop record, so dig it.

Tristen – Because Your Love Is Mine

Tristen (full name Tristen Gaspadarek) is an American singer-songwriter and musician based in Nashville, Tennessee who first came to my attention around 2018 with the swooning song ‘Glass Jar’ that appeared on the album ‘Sneaker Waves’. She has released several records at this point and is about to put out the brand new ‘Unpopular Music’ LP on Well Kept Secret. As heard here, the melody driven sounds and personal narrative infused lilt to the lyrics remain at the fore. There is a deceptively gentle, hazy energy to the music of Tristen that ensures any new recordings are always worth checking out. Of this new song she confides it is “about the healing power of connection, something we are starved for in the age of artificial intimacy”.

Neko Case – Wreck

Neko Case first came to my attention when she topped the John Peel Festive Fifty over 25 years ago, the legendary DJ’s championing of new country artists around this time may not have been a huge part of his celebrated legacy, but I think the fact that Neko is still making essential new Americana today proves he knew a good thing when he heard it. Her latest album is called ‘Neon Grey Midnight Green’ and is out now on the Anti- label; she describes is as a “love letter and a testimony” to her friends and influential musicians, producers and activists who have passed away in recent years. In focusing on these departed souls Neko Case has once again produced a work with a deep timelessness that pushes country music into the stratosphere.

Good Flying Birds – Fall Away

Newly signed to Carpark and Smoking Room, the Good Flying Birds are a jangly guitar-pop outfit from the Midwest who have just released ‘Tallulah’s Tape’, a mix of stripped down home recordings that includes this falling tumbleweed of melancholic pop timbre. It features backing vocals from Wishy’s Nina Pitchkites along with Kevin Krauter on drums and demonstrates a fine appreciation of the DIY aesthetic and the enduring persuasiveness of melody and hooks. Earlier this year they sold 300 copies of a self released cassette in under a month but now sound poised to take it to take it a lot further on down the road.

Pino Palladino + Blake Mills ft. Chris Dave – Taka

Blake Mills is a guitar hero with a difference, a genuine sonic explorer and visionary who takes the absence of macho posturing adopted by indie guitar gods and pushes it into progressive territories others could not even imagine are possible. This piece is taken from his second collaboration with Welsh bassist Pino Palladino following on from their first 2021 set ‘Notes With Attachments’. New record ‘That Wasn’t A Dream’ picks up and expands upon the innovations from before, recorded at Sound City Studios it again features contributions from Chris Dave and Sam Gendel. Another dimension to the work this time around is Blake Mills’ use of a prototype fretless baritone sustainer guitar, making for a unique, woodwind-like texture to the sound. ‘Taka’ was the lead track from the album and here we capture them cooking up their magic in the studio.

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Fresh Juice

24th April 2023

The Routes – No Good

For my money the most vital and punchy sounding pop music still sounds like it was made in a garage in the sixties, that template and energy are a design classic. There is a reason why fresh young bands are still making that sound today whilst Freddie & The Dreamers or Herman’s Hermits soundalikes are nowhere to be found. Stylistically the idea of ‘popular’ music has evolved into something different, it is only in my head unfortunately that records like this are troubling the ‘top ten’ but who really cares about that stuff nowadays anyway? The Routes are Japanese renegades based a long way south of Tokyo in the mountains of Oita who actually first formed twenty years ago as The Facials, so maybe my use of the word ‘young’ is stretching it a little. Their journey may have been a bit off/on in those years, with some inevitable line-up changes along the way, but their recently released ‘Lead Lined Clouds’ album on Soundflat Records demonstrates that none of the raw power that first ignited them into action has been lost, quite the opposite in fact, this is pure primitive pop excellence…

Josienne Clarke – Anyone But Me

Josienne Clarke’s musical journey has seen a massive gear change after busting out of an acclaimed folk duo set-up which appears to have collapsed for her both creatively and personally. The way she is fighting back from that deserves attention as her solo music of recent times feels so honest and committed. Part of that regeneration is on display with latest album ‘Onliness’, released on Corduroy Punk Records, as Josienne revisits songs from throughout her back pages offering them up for reinterpretation and some spectacular relighting. That is especially true of this song; the accompanying video is a black and white, tense and vintage style delight. I love the humour buried in the details, just look at the headlines on the back of the newspaper relating to football and cricket. As a fan of both I probably shouldn’t find such a blatant dig at my two favourite sports so funny, but when an artist is expressing themselves as eloquently as Josienne Clarke today, then you just sit back and give them the floor…

BAILEN – Call It Like It Is

Here are a band of siblings out of New York with a genuinely infectious tune built around a simple clubby bass and drum groove, brought to life by a gritty lead vocal married to a melody that leaves its insistent imprint in your head. BAILEN are Julia Bailen on vocals and guitar, David Bailen on vocals and drums and Daniel Bailen on vocals and bass. They describe ‘Call It like It Is’ from the new album ‘Tired Hearts’ as “an anthem for anyone who refuses to be taken advantage of. It unmasks the ugly truth behind shiny veneers.” Sometimes simplicity exposes a lack of ideas, other times it is a strength when a song is so good it blossoms on the core elements alone, ‘Call It Like It Is’ is definitely the latter…

The Nude Party – Cherry Red Boots

This North Carolina sextet are releasing their third album, ‘Rides On’, on New West Records and the great news is that none of the rollicking good-time Americana vibes they are noted for have fallen away. If anything they are even more loaded with the good stuff today. Listening to The Nude Party for the first time in 2018 was a joyous experience as it felt like I should be marking every single song as an album highlight. The same thing happened with ‘Rides On’, their secret seems to be that in addition to bottling satisfying echoes of The Rolling Stones and The Byrds, they overload us with fantastic new songs just as they are overwhelming us with denim in this new video. The songwriting is where so many bands with reference points to the past fall short, but The Nude Party are shining bright today with good reason…

Gramercy Arms – Yesterday’s Girl

This is a stripped back acoustic performance from Gramercy Arms of a song featuring as the opening track on the collective’s new third album ‘Deleted Scenes’, released on the Magic Door Record Label. The bittersweet sound of Big Star is unmistakable on this duet between Dave Derby and Renee Lo Bue, which should come as no surprise as the modus operandi of Gramercy Arms is all about the hazy sunset sounds of America’s greatest sunshine pop mixed with gorgeous, happy/sad acoustic melancholy. The project leaves plenty of space for collaboration too, in fact this song was a co-write with Lloyd Cole, so with an abundance of influences and influencers thrown into the melting pot, the Gramercy Arms project remains a subtle little indiepop delight smoking out of the cracks in the US music scene…

Lakecia Benjamin – New Mornings

The New York alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin is working a look with more than a casual nod to the futuristic cutting edge worn by Miles Davis at the onset of the 1970s in this live performance clip. With her band she plays one of the stand out pieces from new album ‘Phoenix’, released on Whirlwind Recordings, a stunning follow up to 2020’s ‘Pursuance: The Coltranes’ and a very welcome return after a serious 2021 car accident left her with a broken jaw, broken ribs, a perforated ear drum, concussion and presumably multiple concerns for her music career. Not only that but the Covid pandemic left a devastatingly tragic toll on Lakecia’s family. But as the album title suggests, it was music fuelling her momentum on the road to recovery as, in tandem with a striking visual presentation, she continues to make some of the most vital sounding Jazz on the scene today which ‘Phoenix’ testifies so stylishly…

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