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Ólöf Arnalds: Spíra
New album: A gorgeous, delicate, ethereal first release in a decade by the Icelandic singer-songwriter, acoustic instruments and her gentle, high, pure voice, all in her native language, caressing this listening experience like pure waters of some slowly trickling glacial stream
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Midlake: A Bridge To Far
New album: The Denton, Texas band make a welcome return with their distinctively warm, rich, psychedelic folk-rock, marked by close vocal harmonies, acoustic and pedal steel, keyboards and flute, this sixth studio album themed around hope, humility and perseverance, all as a human necessity
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Modern Nature: The Heat Warps
New album: Following 2023’s No Fixed Point In Space, Jack Cooper and his Cambridge-based lo-fi indie-folk band return with another insightful, poetic album, here with glimmers of gentle, offbeat hope as well as melancholy, exploring themes of collectivism, our relationship with the natural world and the weight of consciousness - but with greater directness and purpose
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Marissa Nadler: New Radiations
New album: Exquisitely delicate, dark and beautiful as onyx or obsidian, a dream-like, haunting 10th studio LP by the Nashville singer-songwriter across gothic folk whispering soundscapes of meticulous guitar finger-picking, Hammond organ and synths, and lyrics variously inhabiting characters from an airborne Cessna, to a spaceship, a getaway car, and alternate dimensions
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BC Camplight: A Sober Conversation
New album: Witty, inventive, droll, painfully dark, self-deprecatory humour, killer lines, and timeless piano-based pop, almost showtune melodies? It can only be the latest set of classic songs by the Manchester-based American singer-songwriter Brian Christinzio, who confronts his repressed past, depression and more with his eccentric, eclectic panache
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Goddess: the eponymous debut by Fay Milton
New album: Striking in many ways, this excellent eponymous debut LP by the Savages drummer Fay Milton brings together an array of female and non-binary collaborators, not only celebrating a sisterhood, but also one that has musical echoes of Massive Attack, with powerful songs addressing themes in uncertain and dangerous world
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Ezra Furman: Goodbye Small Head
New album: The acclaimed punk, indie-rock and other genre-spanning Chicago-born artist returns with a 10th LP, one of her very best to date – sharply poetic in lyric and melody, delivered with visceral power, themed on different forms of losing control, with emotions variously wild, exciting, and frightening, joined by their wonderful longtime band and here a small string ensemble
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Rebekka Karijord: The Bell Tower, out on Bella Union
New album: This extraordinary work, a fusion of experimental folk and classical, is a one of rare and exquisite beauty by the Stockholm-based acclaimed Norwegian composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, creating sounds from the human voice alone into a powerful, delicate, poetic melancholy, mother-perspective ode to the peril of our planet in the age of the Anthropocene
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Hannah Cohen: Earthstar Mountain
New album: A warm, simmering, insightfully beautiful, bittersweet, gently paced, folk-country-pop album by the New Yorker Catskills Mountains-based singer-songwriter, made in collaboration with partner Sam Owens (aka Sam Evian) and including guest appearances from Sufjan Stevens and Clairo
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Helen Ganya: Share Your Care
New album: The Brighton-based Scottish-Thai singer-songwriter’s new LP is inspired by the death of her grandmother in 2021, exploring and celebrating her east-Asian heritage in a gorgeously warm, eclectic collection that includes sounds of the Thai dulcimer.
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White Denim: 12
New album: Austin, Texas’s brilliantly inventive proggy experimentalists James Petralli and co return with an appropriately named 12th LP, one which, created in the lockdown restrictions of 2020-21, needed a different, more DIY approach, but weaves a fabulous mix of rootsy swing, jazz and influences from Scritti Politti to Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Nick Lowe to Jonathan Richman.
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Father John Misty: Mahashmashana
New album: The king of killer opening lines Josh Tillman returns with another majestic, beautifully melodic, grandiose, playfully clever, darkly humorous and philosophical set of eight epic songs fuelled by a sense of mortality and enduring irony
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Our Girl: The Good Kind
New album: The London indie trio of singer/guitarist Soph Nathan, drummer Lauren Wilson and bassist Joshua Tyler’s new LP has a beautiful warmth of sound and optimistic honesty in lyric, borne from a theme of celebrating of determination against difficulty
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Mercury Rev: Born Horses
New album: The experimental rock band from Buffalo, New York return with their sixth LP, bringing an expansive, ethereal but also familiar sound, a grandeur and sensitivity through psycho-geography inspired by the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson Valley
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Pom Poko: Champion
New album: Vibrant, joyful, frenzied musicianship simply flies out of this third LP by of Norwegian indie quartet whose style has some parallels with the prog-postpunk of Deerhoof, but with their own eccentric twists
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John Grant: The Art Of The Lie
New album: The Iceland-based American returns with his seventh LP, a mixture of catchy funk and disco with slow-burn, simmering, contemplative electronica where dark humour stirs along with candid emotions and a sorrowful look at rising fascism in the US
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Conchúr White: Swirling Violets
New album: Gorgeously sensitive, intimate, uplifting, grounded but dream-like folk-pop debut by the singer-songwriter from County Armagh, with blissful but pointed songs of a mystical, spiritual, existential and relatable nature
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Part 1 selection of 2023 favourite albums
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 1, and Part 2 is also out here. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order. This is all about quality and innovation …
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Harp: Albion
New album: Ethereal, evocative, alternative folk, bathed in flutes and acoustic guitars, in this beautiful debut by the former Midlake singer Tim Smith and his wife Kathi Zung, covering a range of emotions, and bucolic, mountain images
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Raze Regal & White Denim Inc
New album: The virtuoso experimental Texas rock band fronted by James Petralli join old friend and singer/ guitarist formerly of Oakland’s Once and Future Band in a pacy tapestry of cleverly interwoven psych, prog, funk, jazz and rock, with added echoes of Steely Dan
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