ALBUM NEWS: Johnny Flynn & Robert Macfarlane - 'The Moon Also Rises'

For a bunch of reasons, I've been pretty bad at blogging lately. My head is in a bit of a weird place at the moment and being back to full time at work is exhausting - it's hard to find the time around everything, to be honest. I think that I've also perhaps felt a little distant from music/the blog in general lately... I haven't been to many gigs since lockdown, and writing about artists I'd seen live when I was living in Oxford was how the blog really started to take off in the first place. 

Recently, however, I've had a whirlwind couple of weeks of gigs in London: first up, three Stornoway album release shows for their record Dig The Mountain! which came out last week, and just hit #7 in the album sales chart. Incredible! They played beautiful sets at Banquet Records and Rough Trade East and the launch event at WWT London Wetland Centre was such a special afternoon. Next, my forever favourites The Hoosiers playing one of the best shows I've seen them play at London's KOKO (enough said). And earlier this week, Christof van der Ven headlining in London for the first time in a few years and me getting to rub shoulders with blog favourites Bear's Den and The Staves. I'm eyeing up some more gigs soon... music is pretty great, huh? 

I'm feeling a teeny bit inspired by it all, so I'm making a tentative return to trying to ramble about music - and where better to start than the return of one of my absolute favourite musical pairings, Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane. Separately, they're one of my favourite musicians and one of my favourite writers, and together they make art that I adore. Lost In The Cedar Wood is a favourite album and the accompanying performance was stunning, and I loved getting the chance to chat to Rob about it earlier this year at Cambridge Folk Festival, where he told me exactly what I wanted to hear, that they'd been working on more music, and it was imminent...

A few weeks ago, the pair officially announced that they'd made a new record. Hallelujah! The Moon Also Rises is releasing via the beautiful label Transgressive on 10th November, and it features the first single Uncanny Valley: 

In his announcement of the record, Rob wrote: 

It’s about darkness and light, winter & spring, burial and revelation, stories, weather and seasons, ghosts and paths and love and rivers, and other bits and bobs and pots and pans.

We sort of just kept on writing songs after finishing Lost In The Cedar Wood; some of them we found by walking tracks & rainy woods & streams together, & some by noodling in notebooks, & some in poems & stories, & almost all by laughing a lot.

Working & making with Johnny is just one of the great joys of my life. He’s a quiet, gentle, generous genius with a huge gift for making collaborative, creative connections between people. He’s also very funny. 

Charlie Andrew is on producing duties, and the album features much of Johnny's Sussex Wit band as well as the Sheldrakes, Cosmo and Merlin. You basically couldn't imagine a lovelier and more wholesome bunch of creatives to make music together, and the results are unsurprisingly gorgeous. Second single No Matter The Weight is out now. Almost frustratingly brilliant. 

Pre-order/pre-save the new record here.

Follow Johnny Flynn - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

Follow Robert Macfarlane - Twitter | Instagram.

WATCH: MICHELLE - 'UNBOUND'

Quickly - I should mention some blog news which is pretty cool and overwhelming - in an effort to get the blog seen by as many people as possible, I submitted to Feedspot a couple of weeks back, and got an email recently saying that it had been chosen as one of the Top 80 UK Music Blogs. The blog is number 39 currently which is wild. You can check the list out here, and if you sign up to the site, can follow the blog there and subscribe for email updates on new posts.

Back to the music: I am so so so excited about this!!!! A brand new track from NYC collective MICHELLE. They're one of my favourite 2020 discoveries, with their track THE BOTTOM getting a little resurgence earlier in the year, before their single SUNRISE dropped in July. UNBOUND is their second single of the year, and was premiered as the Hottest Record in the World on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show last week, before the video premiered on The FADER. It's glorious to see them getting such brilliant press for it because the track is superb - a giant hit of nostalgia in a slice of 90s-esque R&B. Dreamy in every way. 

Talking about the track, the band shared that "UNBOUND came alive really fast. It's about desire: the kind that oozes for the person you do want and the kind that evaporates for the person you don't. We wanted to make something groovy and colorful, that could access nostalgia while also giving our listeners something new and danceable in a way we haven't before."

Follow MICHELLE - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

WATCH: MICHELLE - 'The Bottom' (Live at Atlantic Records Studio)

There's a couple of record labels that have consistently impressed and excited me with their output, ones which I feel like I'm in really comfortable hands when they announce a new signing. The first is Communion (... of course) and the second, Transgressive. They've worked on albums with the likes of Foals, Cosmo Sheldrake, Johnny Flynn and Gengahr and I am really intrigued by latest signing, New York collective MICHELLE, who fuse R&B, 80s synth pop, jazz and indie into their own unique style. The group are working with Transgressive in the UK and Canvasback Music/Atlantic Records for the rest of the world.

They released their debut album Heatwave last year, but they're a new name to me. The new live video they've just put out of track The Bottom, recorded in February at Atlantic Records Studios, is a gorgeous watch. The harmonies!!! Talking about the track, lyricist and vocalist Emma Lee says that "the song is an ode to the East river. Whispering worries to my mom by the river, mustering up the courage to dive in without fear - diving into what scares me, or into this loyal body of water."

If you're into those harmonies (of course you are) then check out this video from a Sofar Sounds NYC show last year - the stripped back environment makes the vocals even more impressive. I'm very intrigued to see what comes next from this group!

Follow MICHELLE - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.