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…