New album: A beautifully evocative, documentary compilation of anonymous spontaneous performances and field recordings from descendants of slaves in a northern section of the city of Mobile, Alabama, one of the last places in the US to receive slave ships
Read moreLes Amazones d'Afrique: Musow Danse
New album: A joyous, vibrant, powerful, life-affirming third LP by the West African Mali collective female artists, mixing traditional, rich African vocal harmonies with electronica, dance, funk and folk of course no shortage of feminist fervour
Read moreFavourite albums of 2023 Part 2: Anohni to Blur to Mitski, Ren to Sufjan Stevens
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 2, and Part 1 was yesterday. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order …
Read moreNitin Sawhney: Identity
New album: The acclaimed British-Asian musician returns with a powerful LP themed very much as titled, and spurred by burning issues over how immigrants are portrayed, presents 17 tracks on different sides of heritage, sense of self, belonging and multiculturalism, with an impressive set of guest singers and rappers
Read morePublic Service Broadcasting: This New Noise (Live)
New album: A tremendous noise indeed about radio, as the vintage footage-inspired experimentalist band led by J Wildgoose Esq release a remastered album version of their acclaimed 2022 BBC Proms performance from London’s Royal Albert Hall with the full BBC Symphony Orchestra
Read moreRhiannon Giddens: You're The One
New album: The Greensboro-raised singer-songwriter and brilliant banjo player of Carolina Chocolate Drops and Our Native Daughters returns with her first solo album for six years, for the first time mostly originals, continuing her focus on black culture reclamation of catchy, soulful country and Americana
Read moreMokoomba: Tusona - Tracings In The Sand
New album: A gloriously uplifting new release by the collective from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, joined by the horns of Ghanaian highlife band Santrofi in celebratory songs inspired by Makisi dance gatherings and sung in various languages - Tonga, Luvale, Shona, Nyanja and even Lingala
Read moreVarious: The Endless Coloured Ways - The Songs of Nick Drake
New album: An enthralling collection of 23 cover versions of classic numbers by the legendary British folk singer who tragically died in 1974, featuring diverse artists including Fontaine’s D.C., Emeli Sandé, Aldous Harding, Guy Garvey and John Grant
Read morePJ Harvey: I Inside The Old Year Dying
New album: Seven years after The Hope Six Demolition Project album, Polly returns with mysterious, experimental, beautiful, alluring release in which she adapts poems from her book Orlam into songs immersed in the otherworld-underworld of her home Dorset countryside, laced with local dialect and unusual acoustic instruments
Read moreTinariwen: Amatssou
New album: A fabulous new release by the north Mali nomadic group whose distinctive Tuareg Saharan desert blues is beautifully combined with a country style, with added pedal steel and violin, and a title that is is Tamashek for ‘Beyond The Fear’
Read moreFatoumata Diawara: London Ko
New album: The Mali star returns with an third LP, mixing Afro-futurism and feminism wassoulou traditions and western, but also celebrating her links the UK and and collaborations, notably with co-producer Damon Albarn, and other guest including Angie Stone and Roberto Fonseco
Read moreDave Okumu & The 7 Generations: I Came From Love
New album: A rich, complex and brilliant release about black history, identity, and channelling the idea of ancestry by British singer, songwriter, producer and guitarist joined by a stellar cast of fellow artists, including Wesley Joseph, Tom Skinner, ESKA and Grace Jones
Read moreDesire Marea: On The Romance of Being
New album: An extraordinary, beautiful, passionate, spiritual and erotic new solo LP by the South African multidisciplinary artist, sangoma (Nguni spiritual healer), and previously part of queer gqom group FAKA, now with a 13-piece orchestral ensemble mixing soul, jazz, rock and Zulu chants
Read moreAltin Gün: Aşk
New album: The Amsterdam psychedelic and electro-pop-funk rockers make a fabulous fifth LP with their special interpretations of traditional Turkish and Anatolian folk, echoing the heavier sound of their earlier albums On and Gece
Read moreSissoko - Segal - Parisien - Peirani: Les Égarés
New album: A gorgeous genre-spanning jazz-folk-Anatolian LP featuring Malian kora maestro Ballaké Sissoko, specialist improv cellist Vincent Segal, accordion virtuoso Vincent Peirani and French soprano saxophonist Émile Parisien
Read moreHack-Poets Guild: Blackletter Garland
New album: Marry Waterson of the famous folk family, singer Lisa Knapp and sound sculptor and film-maker Nathaniel Mann form a unique new trio in this engaging, but more often dark concoction of words and music of traditional and original material
Read moreUnthank Smith: Everywhere And Nowhere
New album: A beautiful, evocative north-east England folk collaboration between Rachel Unthank and Paul Smith, frontman of Maxïmo Park, and produced by Field Music’s David Brewis in a mix of the traditional and new
Read moreVarious: Perú Selvático - Sonic Expedition into the Peruvian Amazon 1972-1986
New album: An excellently colourful 36th compilation release by the Samy Ben Redjeb’s label Analog Africa features a wonderful sprinking of Amazonian cumbia - timbale rhythms, driven by spidery, treble-damaged guitar lines, and drenched in bright splashes of organ
Read moreThe Unthanks: Sorrows Away
New album: After a variety of other projects, the Tyneside folk sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank and co make a welcome return in their usual collective with a hearty and harmonious mix of the traditional and the new with songs on heartbreaks and collieries, rivers and rebellions
Read moreJake Blount: The New Faith
New album: After his acclaimed 2020 solo debut Spider Tales, the American bluegrass fiddler, banjo player, Afrofuturist and historian returns with a starkly beautiful, atmospheric album drawing on old spiritual numbers and set in a climate-changed, apocalyptic world
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