I haven't been to many gigs lately (again, blame the musicals) but recently dipped my toes back in with a teeny tiny Stornoway show at the Royal Albert Hall. It was such an incredible evening. They made beautiful use of the space, and of the sound system, and really let nature be their collaborator for the evening, with bird calls circling the space. First time a lapwing has 'flown' around the Royal Albert Hall? Probably.
On the same day, they announced their brand new album Beyonder which is due for release on 25th September, debuting new track Marco Polo at the show. Enjoy the track, and the suitably nature-filled video below:
On the song, frontman Brian Briggs shares: “As a child I was captivated by books about great explorers like Jacques Cousteau and Thor Heyerdahl. Their dangerous journeys gave them a deep respect for the natural world but I’ve come to realise that we don’t need the peril to build that connection - we just need to open our senses. This is where I believe nature and music meet - let them in, and we unlock a powerful force for connection.”
"Those who matter won't mind and those who mind don't matter."
Completely and utterly haunting and beautiful, this one. Tara Nome Doyle is back with Lighthouse, taken from newly announced album Ekko, due via FatCat Records on 11th April. The track is currently sitting atop my acoustic/folk/chilled playlist for the year alongside songs from Hayden Thorpe, lilo and Martin Luke Brown and I can't get enough of it.
On the track, Tara shares: "I wrote ‘Lighthouse’ for a friend who was going through a difficult time. I saw myself in her struggles to please everyone while neglecting her own needs. This song is meant to be a warm embrace, offering reassurance and gentle encouragement. The mantra ‘those who matter won’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter’ has guided me through my lowest moments, and it felt meaningful to share it through this song. I hope it reaches someone who needs to hear it, remember it and repeat it."
All hail our indie-folk king, Christof van der Ven. A long-time firm favourite artist of the blog and a generally lovely person, I'm always delighted when he shares some new music. This morning I found new track rock salt / driftwood waiting for me on my morning commute and very much enjoyed, before taking a dive into his recent releases. What's In It For remains a beaaaaaut of a track.
The new one follows recent tracks polaroid and For The Ages and is taken (I think... optimistically) from an as yet unannounced new album, which I'm expecting might arrive later this year. (I can speak it into existence, right?)
If the live video above whets you're appetite, Christof is headed out on tour in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and England in May, with a show at London's Sebright Arms on 8th May. Full dates and tickets are available here.
While I'm here, I also have to direct your attention to this stunning performance of We Didn't Know We Were Ready from Christof, Ólafur Arnalds, The Staves, Memorial, Dermot Kennedy, Niamh Regan and more on RTÉ in honour of their friend Eoin French, who released music as Talos. Truly one of the most moving things I've seen in a long time.
Dropping in with the best news, Samantha Crain is back!!!!!!
She's just shared her first new
original music since 2021 (how time flies?!) in the shape of
Dragonfly and I am absolutely here for it. It's no secret that I
have a soft spot for my mutual loves of music and nature colliding, so a song
about dragonflies? Yes please!
Talking about the inspiration behind the track, Samantha shares: “Dragonflies are an amazing insect. They can fly in all six directions with great efficiency. They have iridescence, which allows them to appear differently depending on the light and polarization around them. They live most of their lives as nymphs, immature, not flying at all, but preparing for the coming moment of flight. They can see 360 degrees around themselves because of their compound eyes.
To me, a dragonfly symbolizes the type of creature I aim to be: flexible and resilient in this ever-changing world that I have no control over, living moment to moment and moving towards potential moments of wisdom and lift–observant in my mind and seeing beyond the limitations of the physical self. This song is an ode to the simple sophistication of the dragonfly and how it mirrors the self-actualization that I have been searching for my whole life.”
BRB, I'm off to re-discover Samantha's back catalogue.
"even doing nothing, I'm not quite doing it right"
Well isn't this a treat! It has been a few months since The Staves shared their latest studio album, All Now, and continued to cement themselves as one of my all-time favourite bands. I've so much love for that record, and its predecessor Good Woman. Just the absolute best.
As if a whole album wasn't enough, they've only gone and released a surprise new track - Waiting For The Joy. Tuuuuune. Obviously!
Over to the band... "This song began in the throes of the first lockdown when the feeling of isolation was so prominent. Everyone seemed so inspired and we were worried that we weren’t inspired by music in general anymore. The song was finished when we were recording ‘All Now’ and had made more sense of those feelings and we had lots fun turning it into a kind of sad-disco track in the studio."
If you're in the US, good news - The Staves are coming across the pond in November for an acoustic tour, with tickets on sale this Friday.
Worth a watch for the snazzy jumpers alone, I couldn't let this video pass by
without featuring it here. The magnificently talented
Cosmo Sheldrake just shared the latest pair of tracks from his upcoming
album, alongside a video of a live studio performance of
Interdimensional, featuring HOWL and a brilliant array of
accompanying musicians. I'm obsessed with all of it, to be honest. I've said
it before and I'll say it again - imagine NOT being a fan of Cosmo! This is
just all sorts of magic.
On the song, Cosmo says "Interdimensional felt as though it came almost in one long thought, but it took about four all night sessions for it to emerge. It is another one that came to me while on a solo musical retreat in Somerset. It is about the feeling of losing the normal sense of self."
Cosmo's new record Eye to the Ear is due for release on April 12th - pre-order it here.
Aghhhhh, how great are Half Moon Run?! Montréal's sweethearts are back with new track Can't Stop Loving You (which is ironic because I can't stop loving them either!!!) from the Salt album sessions and it is a stunner. I'll be honest, they've never disappointed - since stumbling across them almost by accident when I picked up their debut album in a multi-buy in HMV over a decade ago (say what now) I've been firmly in camp HMR, and I'm adoring this new track.
On the release, the guys share: "Back when we we deep in the writing process for Salt, we had been working very hard on a different song for many hours, and were starting to consider going home for the night, when Devon started singing the chorus-line. He later mentioned it had popped spontaneously into his head in the day or two since we’d last been together. We whipped together the arrangement very quickly and recorded the demo-version that very night.
We always knew we'd find the right moment to release 'Can't Stop Loving You' and the time has now finally come!"
There's a new Cosmo Sheldrake album on the way. What a time to be
alive!!!! Eye To The Ear is due via Cosmo's own Tardigrade Records on 12th April (not long!!!) and somehow I managed to get myself an early listen - it is magnificent. Obviously. Twenty-one tracks! All beautiful and inventive and wild and bonkers and just brilliant! Run is giving me allll of the heffalumps and woozles vibes. Just you wait! More on the record in due course...
Cosmo recently shared a couple of tracks from the album, including the superb single Old Ocean, which arrives with an equally superb video.
On the track, Cosmo shares "Old Ocean, like many songs on this album, was made almost entirely using solar power. I spent much of 2020 and some of 2021 living in a small off-grid cottage powered by an unpredictable generator, so I made a temporary solar powered studio. Around this time there was a lot of discussion of so-called 'alternative facts', and the idea of truth was becoming ever more slippery in public discourse. In this song I try to make sense of these developments against the ever present back drop of acidification, dead zones, deep sea mining, coral reef bleaching, over fishing, noise pollution, and many other threats that the ocean faces."
“I am very excited to share the music video for Old Ocean directed by Narna Hue. We had a lot of fun making it. Narna created wonders with the amazing sets, costumes and choreography. Shot by the wonderful Tom Jacobs. Many thanks also to the brilliant dancers and collaborators, Wilm Danby, Gráinne Young-Monaghanm and to Flora Wallace, who also helped make the costumes.”
I just stumbled onto the blog, thinking that I should probably write something soon.... and I was greeted with the glorious sight of 500,000 (!) all-time views. Say what?! That's a big number. Whether you're here by accident, or you're a regular scroller of my infrequent rambles - hi. Thank you!
Now, there couldn't really be anything else that I need to write about right now when my headphones have been slightly consumed with one particular piece of new music for the last week or so. In fact, I got an early listen of this and cried in the staffroom, of course I did. Absolute queeeeen Maggie Rogers is back with Don't Forget Me, the title track from her upcoming third album, due on 12th April (the same day as Cosmo Sheldrake's new album - lord help me.) I've listened a fair few times already and I am adoring the new track. Maggie is making exactly the music she wants to right now, and you can tell. It's gorgeous.
I have had so much fun at every stage of making this album. I think you can hear it in the songs. And I’m finding it’s sort of the key ingredient to making all of this really fly.
This album was written over five days, two songs a day — three days in December 2022, two in January 2023. It was written in chronological order.
Some of the stories on this album are mine. And for the first time really, some of them are not.
I wanted to make an album that sounded like a Sunday afternoon. Worn in denim. A drive in your favourite car. No make up, but the right amount of lipstick. Something classic. The mohair throw and bottle of Whiskey in Joan Didion's motel room. An old corvette. Vintage, but not overly Americana. I wanted to make an album to belt at full volume alone in your car, a trusted friend who could ride shotgun and be there when you needed her.
This has been such a transformational and special time in my life. I’m so grateful for many years of support and care I’ve been offered to let me come to all of this in my way and in my time. I can honestly say I’m more ready than I've ever been…and most importantly, I’m having a blast. I hope you love this record as much as I do.
Just over a year ago, Siv Jakobsen kicked off 2023 with one of my favourite albums of the year, her third album, Gardening. It's properly beautiful stuff. If you haven't listened yet: sort it out. It turns out there was a song missing, kind of. One that had been intended to be the opener for the album, but that Siv wasn't quite ready to put out at the time. A year on, America is out in the world and is, unsurprisingly, a stunner. Over to Siv...
I moved to America in 2009, shortly after my 20th birthday. Fueled by endless episodes of Gilmore Girls and Friends, I wanted to live out my version of the The American Dream. The song “America” is about the substantial grief I felt when I packed up my life and left the US again only 5 years later. After having been convinced for most of that time that I would make it my forever home, giving up that dream felt like a massive defeat.
In most ways I had an incredible experience in the US. I made friends for life and wouldn’t ever take back the time spent there. But when I realised that I wanted - needed - to go home to Norway, it felt like a real defeat. I felt like I had failed; at my life in the US, at my then crumbling relationship, and at my music-career that I was trying to get off the ground at that point. I went home, tail between my legs, realising that 20 year old me had been wrong.
America was the very first song recorded for Gardening. For a long time it was set to be the opening track, a subtle intro to the album ahead, with it’s Disney-esque intro and soft arrangement. However, as the recording process developed it became increasingly clear that although it is part of the Gardening universe for me on a personal level, it didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the record. A bit of an odd one out thematically, and yet right at the heart of it all.
Ah, the glorious feeling of a new year with so much exciting new music ahead of us! As if my list of upcoming releases didn't already look completely beautiful, Cosmo Sheldrake just announced that he's releasing the first two tracks from his new album this week. Novo Amor seems to be teasing new music too... and albums from The Staves, Everything Everything, Sam Lee and MGMT are on my radar.
Two weeks into the year and already so much new music to wrap our ears around! I can't wait to give the new records from Marika Hackman and Emma Gatrill a listen. For now, though, I've been a little caught up with Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations from long-time favourites of mine, The Vaccines. Way to start the year with an album of the year contender. Their sixth studio album and arriving three years after Back In Love City, it is 31 minutes and 34 seconds of pure joy. I love those guys.
Whetting your appetites here with the current single, Discount De Kooning (Last One Standing). Superb!
Good news alert! Oxford (via Berlin, nowadays) sweethearts BE GOOD are
back with an absolute banger. In the kinda, indie bedroom-pop sense of the
word, of course. I've loved these guys an obscene amount since I lived in
Oxford and Donuts is their first new track since last April. No
pressure then... Luckily, it's a beaut. Obviously. It's late, and I'm struggling to formulate words to just tell you how much I love this band: I'll let the music speak for itself.
The good news keeps coming: if you like what you're hearing here (and why wouldn't you?!) you're in luck, as BE GOOD headline The Lexington in a few weeks, on 16th November. See you at the front? Tickets available here.
Hello again! Two posts in two days? Who is she?? Short answer: I'm SO obsessed with this beautiful new video from Francis of Delirium that I instantly needed to share it. I've loved the project for years, and loved this track when it came out back in July. The new video, co-written and co-directed by Jana herself along with Rares Matei, is a gorgeous representation of a young blossoming relationship. Too pure.
Talking about the track, Jana shares: "'Real Love' at its heart is a simple song about being in love with your best friend. For years, timing got in the way. I got in my own way, and then finally, it worked out. Coming out of a two-month-long tour in the US and heading into summer back at home, it felt like my world was opening up. I wanted to write a song that reflected the feeling of leaning into vulnerability, a song that embraces telling the people you love what they mean to you and truly meaning it. Spending every night watching The Districts on tour really impacted me. There was this hopefulness I heard in their music that I really connected to. After writing our last EP ‘The Funhouse’ which was all about darkness and the feeling of being engulfed by the chaos of the world, I just couldn’t write anything super dark and heavy at the time, it just wouldn’t come out. My body and brain were just guiding me to writing lighter, more open music."
(Hi!) I feel like I'm always writing something, apologising for barely writing anything, and then disappearing again before repeating the cycle. Back again! A lot is happening in my brain at the moment but as always music is a comfort, and while I don't have as much time to share it here as I'd like, I'm still listening! Adoring the new Willie J Healey album Bunny at the moment and v v much looking forward to the release of this one. SUPERMAN is the latest track from VC Pines, who shares his debut album MRI on 8th September. I think it must have been four years since I started listening to Jack's music - following various singles and EPs, and I'm excited to see this album find its way into the world. He's a special artist!
On the new track, VC Pines shares: "'SUPERMAN' is about biting off more than you can chew and self sabotage. There are people in your life who mean more to you than life itself, but you let things get in the way, and you lose sight of what's important, until it's too late... It's also very easy to promise more to those you love, than you can deliver. So you live in this constant state of feeling like you've let everyone down, which is a dark dark place.
"I wrote this song with two mates who I've known for years. They recently started renting a studio in Dalston, but only have it at night times, so this was written and produced at around 3am under Stoke Newington high street.
"I've recently started working on my FOMO - Since writing this, I realised that I was saying yes to EVERYTHING and then being exhausted for, or missing the things that really mattered. I think that's what happens when I write, a lot of it is my subconscious, and I only realise how I've been feeling until the song is finished."
Oh hi! We're back to writing blog posts too late, when I should be getting to sleep... but I haven't posted in a while and the press release for this one was sitting in my inbox whispering sweet nothings to me. I've just had a week off work and headed down to the South coast, to East Sussex. A trip to Brighton gave me aaaaaall of the The Great Escape memories from my couple of years there. A walk along the cliffs at Beachy Head provided the unexpected acrobatic trio you didn't know you needed - airplanes practicing overhead for this week's airshow, swallows dancing through the skies before their migration back to Southern Africa, and smaller still, some fancy blue butterflies. Back at the hotel, I had a look through my guidebook and lo and behold - we'd been admiring the Adonis Blue! Ooft. A real stunner!
Skip forward to staring at my inbox this evening, looking at the various tracks and announcements I'd like to try and write about and.... this one jumped out to me. Sussex resident and all round good egg/performer in many brilliant bands Emma Gatrill has just shared her new single Adonis Blue (you guessed it) and it is just as beautiful as its namesake. The track also features Conor O'Brien of Villagers - big yes to that!
The track arrives with news of Emma's new album Come Swim, arriving 24th November on Wilkommen Records, and featuring contributions from Emma's partner Marcus Hamblett (who also oversees production) as well as Helen Whitaker (flute) and Andrew Stuart Buttle (violin). More on the record over the next few months!
On the track, Emma shares: “Adonis Blue is a rare butterfly, the males have brilliant sky blue wings
with a fine black line around the edge. I spent the summer on a quest
wandering the South Downs in the hope of spotting this butterfly. The track
is about searching for things that are hard to find but accepting that the
quest itself can fulfil desires. It’s about the adventure and all that we
find along the way. Conor is such an inspirational musician and it was an
absolute honour to work with him on this song. The beat he crafted really
weaved itself into the orchestration and his trumpet really makes the song
for me!”
Can somebody explain to me how it is August already? I've been neglecting the
blog lately - it's so hard to find time to write around work and other
commitments, but I promise I'm trying to get things back to some sort of
normality/a higher frequency of posts. Rest assured if I'm not writing as
much, I'm still obsessing over new music in the background - and I'm very much
in that place with Stornoway at the moment. If you know me or the
blog, you probably know how much I love the band, and I'm all sorts of excited
to share the latest track from their upcoming album
Dig The Mountain! (due 8th September). It's Not Up To You is a
Björk cover, featuring Yijia, and I'm a little bit in love with
it.
The accompanying video, directed by the band's live violinist
Susie Peters, sees the trio performing in Wytham Woods, just outside of
Oxford, where Brian had his first conservation job (monitoring blue tit and
great tit nest sites) after university. Watching them play in amongst the
trees with the dappled light coming through the beech leaves... agh. The video
is as beautiful as the track itself - a rare achievement.
Talking about the release, the band share:
"we've always been hugely inspired by Bjork's fearless spirit and we
particularly love this song from her 'Vespertine' album. We replaced
electronics with acoustic instruments and vocal effects and changed the time
signature, but it was once Jon and Oli got their hands on it and added
piano, organ and bass that it started to soar."
You may have seen me gushing about this online already but... I saw
Stornoway on Friday!!!! Friend of the blog, and my old boss, Oli got us
into Cambridge Folk Festival to see the band headlining the second
stage (competing with The Proclaimers, and so nearly giving us that
I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) cover... you tease, Brian.) The band and
their music mean so much to me - Oli and Tom gave me my first paid work in
music and I've got so many lovely memories of seeing them perform. I can't
quite believe they're really back.
I didn't manage to get to any of their festival slots last Summer, and the
EartH gig earlier this year sold out far too fast for me (boo!) so my
last show was the 2017 farewell show at Oxford's New Theatre (live album here) - I was working on the show so was there right from soundcheck through to
the afterparty, it was an incredible day. Bittersweet, though, as I couldn't
quite believe I wouldn't see them performing again. Fast forward six years and
they're back, as brilliant as ever, and they've got new music to share.
I'd say that I couldn't be happier, and that I couldn't love the band more if
I tried... but then, well,
this happened. Oli had organised for author, Johnny Flynn collaborator (!) and
professor Rob Macfarlane (!!)to interview the band after
the online premiere of their new video, live at the festival. I saw this was
happening online and took my opportunity to try and meet Rob - he's one of my
favourite authors to read and recommend, somebody whose opinion I trust deeply
(if a book has a review from Rob on it, I'll probably buy it) and I adore his
work with Johnny. Thankfully, Rob wasn't put off by my lingering outside of
backstage to say hello, and was more than generous with his time - our
conversation meandered through Stornoway, bookselling, writing, working with
Johnny, my review of their show at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Johnny making me weep
in The Motive and the Cue (so GOOD), wildlife and Rob's current
projects. All of this happening under an oak tree, too. Poetic.
Late night blog ramblings incoming - stopping by to share a track I've been loving over the past few days... Baby Queen is back with We Can Be Anything, the follow-up to Dream Girl, and another track offering a taste of her forthcoming debut album. I can't waaaaait!!!!! Really enjoying We Can Be Anything, and another brill video too.
I'll let the track do the talking, but also... on the track, Baby Queen (AKA Bella Latham) shares: "I've been having a prolonged existential crisis for the better part of the past 5 years and would consider myself to be a nihilist in many ways, which has made being alive quite bleak at times. I think human beings really crave purpose but there is ultimately no clear-cut reason we're here and if there is one, we're just not intelligent enough to figure it out. Despite it all, life is beautiful and i think our lack of purpose and our insignificance gives us the greatest level of freedom. Society, culture, rules, laws - these are all constructs. I like to believe that as long as you're not hurting people, you do have the freedom and the prerogative to do with your life what you will. That's what this song is about: non-confinement and non-conformity in the face of what is essentially absurdity. I just want people to listen to it and feel free - because they are free."
You know the drill - I'm writing a blog post when I should be sleeping. Surprise! But. Big news. Did I mention how much I love Seramic? Just a few times, huh? Well. HE'S BACK!!!!!!!
Seramic's music delivers absolute joy (I dare you to see him live or listen to a track like Greg's Love and not get on your feet and grin from ear to ear). There's an infectious energy in the music, and he's long been a favourite of mine. So of course I'm a little over-excited that Marcus just came back with his first new single in a while.
Ride or Die is a delight - and the music video features dancing AND dogs. Like I said: pure joy. Bottle it up! Get watching this one below, and then take a deep dive into his EPs... you won't regret it.
With Marcus having recently moved to the US, there are sadly no UK dates to report on just yet.. but as soon as something is announced, I'm there. It's somehow been five years since I saw a proper Seramic set at Bushstock 2018. Dreamy days.
It's a Monday night in June and (in the words of Stornoway) I should be sleeping... but I feel compelled to write a little something as I haven't posted to the blog in a week or two. I had the last week off work so had a little holiday from the blog too - we headed to Norfolk, wandered around some of my favourite nature reserves, saw some cool wildlife (I've got a lil nature Instagram account here, btw) and ate lots. The dream.
Back to work, and blogging. This one came out a couple of weeks ago and is a stunner. It's the first release from Divorce this year and... they're just SO good, right?! Obsessed with basically everything they've put out so far. Naturally, I'm drawn in by a track called Birds, even if it has very little to do with our feathered pals. Still brilliant.
Talking about the track, co-vocalist/guitarist Felix Mackenzie-Barrow explains "I was carrying a lot of insecurity that felt like it was piling in on me from all angles but this song was an attempt to reshape those feelings into something positive. I wanted to remind myself and all of us in the band how much belief we have in each other and in the truth of what we're doing together."
Mumble Tide are back - everybody cheer / clap / rejoice! Or all of the above. The best news. Hotel Life is their first new track of the year, releasing on Nothing Fancy Records. They were one of my fave new artists of 2021 (I think?) who have spent the past couple of years recording and touring with a bunch of brill artists (Divorce, Liz Lawrence, Personal Trainer... ooft).
Working with co-producer Ellie Mason (of Voka Gentle) this latest batch of songs saw the duo living a nomad lifestyle, uprooting their lives (and their recording set-up) every couple of months as they moved between boats, Airbnbs, spare rooms and warehouses. If the results are all as good as this first taster, I'm excited for more.
On the new track, vocalist Gina Leonard shares: "'Hotel Life' is a song about relinquishing control. We wrote it after Ryan's dad had a 'funny turn' whilst on a work trip in Reading and we rushed to pick him up from hospital and ended up staying the night in a weird corporate business hotel on the outskirts of the city. I think hotels can be quite confusing spaces... I like running away in my head to a kind of 'hotel life' where I can escape everyone and be completely in control of who I am. Ultimately though, that's not healthy or possible. The song is overall positive and uplifting (I hope) - it's about not giving up."
