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.