Carson McHone – Idiom

Welcome back and happy new year to all. I am starting the Fresh Juice feature for 2026 with half a dozen selections that I did not squeeze in during the 2025 editions. Kicking the year off, it is Carson McHone whose ‘Pentimento’ album was released in the autumn on Merge Records. Now based in Ontario, Canada, this was McHone’s fourth solo album in ten years of releasing records created in collaboration with Daniel Romano. It is a real audacious treat of a folk-rock album, ram-packed with the kind of structurally strong songwriting that stands shoulder to shoulder with the giants of the genre, but also infused with a mysterious alien spirit that lends the record an air of the unknown, like a broadcast from another star. This is superb.

Mclusky – People Person

Returning in 2025 with their fourth LP record and their first album in twenty years were late 1990’s, early 2000’s noise-punkers Mclusky. The record ‘The World Is Still Here And So Are We’ was released via Mike Patton’s Ipecac Recordings and locked straight back into the abrasive style they were always known for. Front man Andrew “Falco” Falkous continues to bring the noise but not without some regrettable toll on his hearing. Of the above track he said it’s “the song that gave me tinnitus, so asking me about it is really cruel. it’s probably about being overwhelmed by the world because that’s what all of our songs are about.”

Jon Cleary – Zulu Coconuts

This may not be the music to suit the weather on this snowy January morning but then again, perhaps this is exactly what we need. I defy you to listen without tapping your foot at the very least, but a hip swaying frug across the floor would be far more appropriate. Maybe if Jools Holland’s ‘Hootenanny’ had booked Jon Cleary instead of the friggin Kooks I might have seen the new in with a smile rather than a grimace. This song had actually been doing the rounds for a couple of years but finally got an LP release in 2025 on Cleary’s ‘The Bywater Sessions’ album. At the New Orleans Mardi Gras, the Zulu Parade takes place on Fat Tuesday and this innuendo laced song is a nod to the prized hand-painted coconuts thrown to crowds during the parade.

Sam Shackleton – O Death

As featured on his independently released 2025 album ‘Scottish Cowboy Ballads And Early American Folk Songs’, this brief home recording offers a tantalising taste of the authenticity in Shackleton’s music. He says of this that it is “on the banjo by the fireplace at my mother’s house on the lovely Isle of Harris, Scotland. This is a great American folk ballad and is commonly sung in the Appalachian region, where it descends from much older Scottish and English folk ballads carried there by the many thousands of emigrants that made the long voyage. I really hope you enjoy.”

Ben l’Oncle Soul – I Got Home

This was a wonderous, funky single taken from l’Oncle Soul’s seventh album released in 2025 called ‘Sad Generation’. It was a real-deal slice of retro soul that wore its classicist’s style with pride safe in the knowledge that the track is a killer that would grace any dancefloor. Ben is a French soul singer from Tours who is nothing new to attention grabbing cuts; he previously turned heads in 2010 with a cover of The White Stripes ‘Seven Nation Army’ and has built a deserved acclaimed reputation as a live performer who can deliver the Motown and Stax goods with a modern day cut and thrust.

Snarky Puppy & The Metropole Orkest – Chimera

Recorded live in January 2025, at KABUL à GoGo in Utrecht, The Netherlands, this is an addictive rendition of a piece from the album ‘Somni’ released on GroundUP Music. This was the second collaborative release between the award winning jazz collective and the Metropole Orchestra following the 2015 Grammy winning project ‘Sylva’. Bandleader Michael League had composed a deep, progressive even, piece that certainly warranted the grand cinematic treatment a full band and orchestra arrangement offers. ‘Somni’ could perhaps be called a concept album, exploring as it does the various dream stages of sleep in a sequential order that runs from falling to sleep to waking up. But, to be clear, this brilliant music will not make you nod off, quite the opposite.