ALBUM NEWS: Divorce - 'Drive to Goldenhammer'

Sitting pretty at the top of my latest playlist update alongside tracks from Leif Vollebekk, Laura Marling and Matilda Mann - something altogether brilliant....! Nottingham quartet Divorce have just shared All My Freaks, the first single from their upcoming debut album Drive to Goldenhammer, due via Gravity / Capitol on 7th March 2025. I've been loving this group for a couple of years now, through a string of brilliant singles launching themselves onto the scene, and the marvellous Heady Metal EP. I'm all sorts of excited that they've got an album on the way, and I can't wait to hear more. 

Talking about the record, the band says: "We’re very proud of Drive to Goldenhammer. We got to make an album the way we wanted to, kept the weird parts in, followed the warmth and didn’t overthink it. This album pays homage to seeking place and home; one of the great human levellers. Much of life feels at odds with this particular need. And to Goldenhammer; you are a reason to keep driving. We will find you again and again!"

On the new track All My Freaks the band add: "Being a musician can be brutal. I feel like you hear more and more songs coming from artists purely about the trials and tribulations of being a musician, feeling like you aren’t getting enough, or feeling like you’ve got too much and you don’t deserve it. It’s gotten a bit meta if you think about it. All My Freaks is about that too, written from the perspective of a humorous/tragic caricature of an up-and-coming artist, this song is laughing at our own egos and yet acknowledging the power that they wield. Putting this out as the first offering from our debut album felt fitting, as we are hypothetically straddling our jet skis and crossing the ocean of delusion to hopefully reach the isle of public approval."

Follow Divorce - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

WATCH: Samantha Crain - 'Dragonfly'

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.

Follow Samantha Crain - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

LISTEN: Melin Melyn - 'Vitamin D'

Alright, sure, some other songs were released last week... but do I need to listen to them when there's new Melin Melyn to stick on repeat?! Vitamin D is their first new song in a couple of years and the first single from their soon to be announced debut album, due to be released in early 2025. The Welsh six-piece are one of my favourite new bands of the past few years (I might not always understand the Welsh songs, but I know that I love them... Dewin Dwl is a bop) and I for one absolutely cannot wait for their debut record!! Now feels like a perfect time to hop on board if you've missed the boat on these guys so far. 

On the new track, lead singer Gruff Glyn shares: “Ah, a bit of Vitamin D on a sunny day. Pretty essential for most of us, right? Not for the protagonist of this song, who’s fallen head over heels for a computer character called Annie. What’s the point of catching some rays if you can stay inside in your dark room until the early hours of the morning, immersed in a virtual world with your one and only? Don’t you dare question the authenticity of his romance though, or you’ll end up in a coffin… like his mother.”

Follow Melin Melyn - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

WATCH: The Staves - 'Waiting For The Joy'

"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. 

Follow The Staves - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

LISTEN: Christof van der Ven - 'For The Ages'

If I haven't made it clear over the years: I've got an overwhelming amount of love for Christof van der Ven's music. (He's a great human too.) It feels that each new track he releases finds a route straight to my heart and soul... there's always such a deep connection, so much emotion. And they're just reaaaaaally great. Every. Single. Time!

His next album (I'm manifesting) is one of my most anticipated... and the release of new track For The Ages gives me hope that news of that might not be far off... but for now, I'll take this. It's a stunner, and you're all going to love this as much as I do.

Whether you're a firm fan of Christof, or he's a new artist for you, you'll want to see him live, and you're in luck - he's doing a short run of dates in the UK in November, taking in Bristol's Exchange (26th), London's Sebright Arms (27th) and Leeds' Cardigan Arms (28th) - tickets on sale here.

Follow Christof van der Ven - Facebook | Instagram.

EP NEWS: Hohnen Ford - 'I Wish I Had A God'

... is this thing on? So much brilliant music, so little time to share it!! Dropping in to share something that stopped me in my tracks in my inbox yesterday - the latest from North Londoner Hohnen Ford. Hohnen has announced her second EP I Wish I Had A God and shared the beautifully sentimental title track. 

On the track, she shares -  "'I Wish I Had A God' emerged from the depths of grief, as an attempt to make sense of losing one of my best friends last year. Songwriting can be a vessel for grappling with the ineffable. This is the most painful song I've ever written, and has also been a bittersweet gift to watch it resonate with so many as I've performed it live over the last year. Our shared human experience of grief teaches us so much." 

The EP I Wish I Had A God arrives via Young Poet on 3rd August. 

Follow Hohnen Ford - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

ALBUM NEWS: MICHELLE - 'Songs About You Specifically'

Only the best news from Transgressive Records, always. They're celebrating their 20th (!!) anniversary this year with a run of shows later in the year and festival showcases, starting with Glastonbury later this week. For now though, album news from the label: New-Yorkers MICHELLE are back, following up their recent EP GLOW with news of an upcoming album. Their third studio record, Songs About You Specifically is due on September 27th, and features first single Oontz which you can hear below. Silky smooth and groovy as ever, I'm adoring this, and them. They're such a refreshing, exciting collective - a group that I'm always so thrilled to recommend to anybody who'll listen.

On the new record, the group have a new found closeness and vulnerability, formed through time spent living and writing in a house in Ojai, California and on the road. Talking about the developing bonds between the band, Emma shares: "there are friends I've had for almost my whole life who I won't know as intimately as I know members of this group. There isn't really an opportunity for that in any other kind of relationship in your life."

MICHELLE are Sofia D'Angelo, Julian Kaufman, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee and Jamee Lockard.

You can pre-order and pre-save the album here.

Follow MICHELLE - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

LISTEN: Stornoway - 'Excelsior' (Edward Nesbit and Tom Hodgson Rework)

Somehow, criminally, I haven't posted about Stornoway here yet this year. Let's fix that. It is a Monday night (almost) in June, after all (IYKYK.) They've a new acoustic version of Anwen on the way this week which I am very excited to hear having listened to Brian and Fyfe Dangerfield playing the track a few times at the London Wetland Centre during and after their album launch event there last year. 

For now, though, I'm enjoying this latest version of Excelsior, a reworking of the track by composer Edward Nesbit and my friend Tom Hodgson, a beloved member of the extended Stornoway touring party, featuring Sydney Wang on piano. The track was already beautiful, a highlight of one of my favourite records of the last few years, and this version is a stunner. Tender and poignant and somehow mournful and celebratory at the same time, I love it. 

I'm reading How To Read A Tree by Tristan Gooley at the moment (among far too many other books to admit) so trees are very much on the brain at the moment, and this song is about ash dieback, a fungal disease affecting our ash trees. The ash tree's scientific name is 'Fraxinus excelsior' (hence the name of the song) with excelsior translating from Latin to 'ever upward'. I think that the song is a kind of call to arms to do what we can to protect nature, to appreciate the wonders of nature around us - something that is at the heart of everything the band do. 

Talking about the track, Ed and Tom share: “When we first heard Excelsior, we were struck by its expressive beauty and lyricism, and immediately started to think of ideas for a new arrangement. Our version, with a new accompaniment inspired by romantic piano writing, attempts to capture the beauty of nature, as well as sorrow at its loss.”

You can catch Stornoway at a few more festivals before the year is out - all the info on upcoming shows here.

Follow Stornoway - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

LISTEN: Hailaker - 'Co-Star'

Goodness. We've made it to June and I've only posted on the blog ten times this year. So much has been happening, and it is so difficult to find the time. I've spent much of May travelling on buses and trains to get to work. I promise I am always on the look out for new music, even if I've not been so great at sharing it here. As I am always saying however, I reaaaaaally want to write more. I have so much great music to share - and I really love flexing those writing muscles too.

Jumping in on a Sunday off work to share the latest from Hailaker. They're releasing third album Serenity Now on June 26th (a belated birthday present to me, very much appreciated) and Co-Star is the final single taken from it. Jemima and Ed are both brilliant on their own, but I have such a soft spot for this project and this track is no exception. 

Writing about the new track on Instagram, they shared: "I’m realising there is a theme throughout the whole project, or more like a personality to it. It’s that of someone who sits somewhere in the middle of things, is unenthusiastic about doing anything, feels as though their life is hurtling past them and they can’t catch up with it, slightly and often overwhelmed with insecurity. Maybe what we (Hailaker) draw from is just snippets from that life and that personality, relationships, dreams, memories, tiredness, lots of tiredness ahaha.

Co-Star is a mantra to that life, the keeping going, riding the emotions. It expresses something near to a taoist philosophy: ‘it is what it is’… That maybe all this feeling of not being good enough just comes down to accepting and moving on. In that way Co-Star pinpoints the shift from the stories told in Holding to the ones of Serenity Now."

Hailaker play shows in Bristol and London this September - dates and last tickets here.

Follow Hailaker - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.

LIVE: Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane - River Calls tour (May 2024)

I started writing this post a few weeks back, but life got in the way and I’ve just unearthed the half written post, so here goes nothing for take two...! One of my most well received posts of the last couple of years (and one of my favourites to write, too) was a write-up of a Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane show at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the start of 2022. Opening the post, I wrote:

I went to a gig a couple of days ago! Rejoice. Although ‘gig’ perhaps isn’t the right word, and doesn’t do the evening justice. In the candlelit setting of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, a 340-capacity space that is part of the Globe Theatre no less (!) I saw two of my favourite writers, Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane, performing their album Lost In The Cedar Wood. Music there was, but it was so much more than a gig - a journey… a magical, bewildering evening of story and song, traversing across timelines and continents. Genuinely mesmerising. Tickets were difficult to come by and I feel SO incredibly lucky to have been there.

Looking back a couple of years later, it really was a genuinely transcending and magical experience, a celebration of one of my favourite musical pairings, and of one of my favourite albums of recent years, surrounded by some superb writers on nature. The bookseller and nature writing nerd in me is still giddy with excitement when I think of being in the same room as all of those writers, even (and perhaps especially) having met a few of them at subsequent events (Amy-Jane Beer at Gathering Festival, Sam Lee at the Stornoway album launch, Merlin Sheldrake at a Cosmo Sheldrake show, and of course Rob himself!)

You’d think that it might be difficult to replicate the magic of that evening - the venue, the fact that it was one of the first shows most of us had been to out of lockdown (squished up against strangers), the combination of gig and theatre. It was truly special. Luckily for me (and for all the others who managed to secure some very sought after tickets) the pair have just been on tour across the UK with a full band. 

In venues across the UK (I saw them at Cambridge Junction) audiences were taken on a musical, lyrical journey through songs from the two recent albums, Lost In The Cedar Wood and The Moon Also Rises. Storytelling weaving through the music - as each song finishes, Rob, on stage for the duration of the show, dives into some spoken word. Poetry? Not easy to define, but utterly enchanting. The setlist was clearly very carefully thought out - taking us on a journey through storytelling and song - an extension of what they set out to do in those first shows. With a band too - who are utterly wonderful also.

I saw Johnny with a full band in 2017 at the show which became the Live at the Roundhouse album and I think I’m right in saying that until now, he hasn’t been on a full band tour since then. I’m sure I’m far from alone in being grateful that they found the time to put these shows on, they’ve been a long time coming and they were more than worth the wait! Mainly taking songs from the recent two albums, the show was a true celebration of Johnny and Rob’s collaboration (Bonedigger live is just the absolute BEST, for a start) but they managed to find room for a couple of older favourites (The Ghost of O’Donahue and The Water - both stunning.)

Johnny Flynn · Bonedigger

I won’t be missing the old favourites for too long, as I’ve just secured a ticket for Johnny’s show with the band in London in September, as part of Transgressive Records’ 20th anniversary celebrations. Can’t wait!

I’ve written a lot already about how much I love both Johnny and Rob’s work individually, and this project is such a treat. Whether they continue to write music together or not (my fingers are crossed) I’m glad that they got a chance to take it on the road. To see others responding to the shows so positively and enjoying them so much was the best. In a way there’s an element of bravery in putting on a tour that is quite unlike other things that are out there in format, but it worked so well, and I’ve seen nothing but love for the shows.

With the London show on the horizon, and plenty of Johnny’s acting endeavours to catch up on (I am desperate to watch Ripley!) my interest (as a bookseller and book lover) turns to the books, too. Rob’s work in progress at the moment is Is A River Alive? - I’ll be pestering the publisher for a proof of that as soon as I get a sniff of those existing. (Sorry HH.) Elsewhere, Rob and Johnny are collaborating on a couple of book projects - a graphic novel of the Epic of Gilgamesh (focus of Lost in the Cedar Wood) with artist Dave McKean (very exciting!) and a picture book surrounding the track The World To Come, illustrated by Emily Sutton, due later this year. Truly a marvellous time to be a fan of these two! They’re very busy guys, and I am very happy to be enjoying the fruits of their work.

Now, off to carry on reading Mountains of the Mind with a Johnny Flynn shaped soundtrack. What could be better?