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Beirut: A Study of Losses
New album: Gentle, ambient, acoustic, meditative, often very beautiful and filled with inventive surprises, this unusual 18-track album by the American experimental band fronted by Zach Condon was commissioned by and comes in conjunction with a tour by idiosyncratic Stockholm-based contemporary circus group Kompani Giraffe
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Alison Krauss and Union Station: Arcadia
New album: Classy, seasoned, crisply performed country, folk and bluegrass by the acclaimed Champaign, Illinois singer-songwriter and fiddle player, joined again by her perennial band, their first together since 2011’s Paper Airplane, and her first since the 2021’s album Raise The Roof with Robert Plant
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Bon Iver: SABLE, fABLE
New album: Wisconsin’s Justin Vernon returns with his fifth album, a sparse, tender, sometimes world-weary, but also often beautiful, distinctive fusion of folk, indie, R&B, soul, country, and a dash of soft rock, all wrapped in celebration of the salmon pink - “the colour of life”
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Florist: Jellywish
New album: Beautiful, entrancing, wide-eyed, deceptive simplicity pervades this poetic fifth LP by the indie folk New York/ Catskill Mountains quartet fronted by singer-songwriter Emily Sprague, here themed around the natural world’s perceived miracles and mysteries
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The Waterboys: Life, Death And Dennis Hopper
New album: A sprawling, lengthy, pseudo-beatnik rock-country release by the British band fronted by Mike Scott, here celebrating the life of the charismatic, often misunderstand hell-raising Hollywood icon, spanning multiple genres, particularly Americana, with a spread of guests including Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle and Fiona Apple
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Black Country, New Road: Forever Howlong
New album: With a musical reset after the sudden departure of frontman Isaac Wood just at the release of their previous studio album, the Cambridge-formed sextet return with a rich, clever mix of whimsical folk, prog, baroque pop and musical theatre with lead vocals now shared between the three female band members
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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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Lucy Dacus: Forever Is A Feeling
New album: The golden-voiced Richmond, Virginia singer-songwriter and one-third of the Boygenius trio is the first to return to her solo work – a subtle, candid, understated, richly lyrical, sensitive LP about her troubled relationship, decorated with fingerpicked acoustic guitar, piano, orchestral strings and harp
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Jeffrey Lewis: The EVEN MORE Freewheelin' Jeffrey Lewis
New album: One of the great independent singer-songwriters around, the prolific New Yorker and cartoonist returns with his clever, witty, alternative indie-folk, here with an amusing visual play on that famous Bob Dylan album for this brand new LP recorded with his band in just four days at Haptown Studios, Nashville
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Jason Isbell: Foxes In The Snow
New album: Following four straight albums with his band the 400 Unit, the Nashville-based Grammy-winning Alabama singer-songwriter’s latest LP is a stripped back, heartfelt, candid, beautiful set of new Americana folk with just him and his 1940 Martin acoustic guitar
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The Tubs: Cotton Crown
New album: With a Sonic Youth-referencing title, the London-based Welsh indie quartet’s second LP, following 2023’s Dead Meat, is a short, sharp, punchy release of nine jangly, Johnny Marr-influenced guitar tracks, reflecting on love but also with a gut-wrenching, tragic finale
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Echolalia
New album: A Nashville ‘supergroup’ in the most free-flowing, relaxed form imaginable, Spencer Cullum, Andrew Combs, Jordan Lehning, Dominic Billett and others combine in a beautiful intertwining of pastoral folk, country, and dream-like, psychedelic Americana
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Melin Melyn: Mill On The Hill
New album: Enormously entertaining, witty, catchy, folk-country-psych-rock by the Cardiff-London band, with clear, upbeat comparisons to Gruff Rhys and Super Furry Animals as well as other original twists in this warm, vintage-feel new release
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Divorce: Drive To Goldenhammer
New album: With a warm, engaging sound, and beautifully crafted, intelligent songs, this excellent debut by the Nottingham indie quartet transcends genres from pop to country, Americana folk to rock with enduring passion and quality
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Ichiko Aoba: Luminescent Creatures
New album: A magical, transportive, gorgeously meditational evocative release by the Japanese singer and multi-instrumentalist with a celestial musical landscape LP inspired by the Ryukyu islands that stretch southwest of Japan towards Taiwan
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Holding all the cards … Everything Is Recorded: Richard Russell Is Temporary
New album: A tender, gentle, minimalistic and rather beautifully eccentric release about mutability and death? It’s the third collaborative LP by producer Richard Russell, joined by a stellar cast of singers and musicians including Sampha, Bill Callahan, Noah Cyrus, Florence Welch, Maddy Prior, Kamasi Washington, Berwyn, Alabaster Deplume and Jah Wobble
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Sam Fender: People Watching
New album: The likeable, powerful tenor-voiced, 30-year-old singer-songwriter from North Shields has hit mainstream success, especially with his last LP, Seventeen Going Under (2021), and while this continues with a sometimes Springsteen-like style, there’s a lyrical melancholy colouring this third LP, on trappings of fame, music industry, and tales of tragedy within his northern working-class roots
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Saya Gray: SAYA
New album: Ingeniously original, eclectic debut alternative folk-pop debut by the Toronto singer-songwriter and producer, following their QWERTY and QWERTY II EPs, weaving a mix of skilfully played guitar sounds, including country pedal steel and acoustic with electronica into a beautiful vocal landscape of offbeat heartbreak love songs
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Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On
New album: Minimalistic, pithy, nostalgically twangy, wistful, undersyated indie-folk-pop by the Chicago/New York trio of Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece in this second LP with a refreshing sound produced by Cate Le Bon
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Richard Dawson: End of the Middle
New album: Extraordinary songs about ordinary lives by the wonderful Newcastle alternative folk singer-songwriter – poetic, strikingly detailed, touching, warm, gently humorous, melancholy, original and gorgeously profound, bringing beauty to banality, private tragedies and small joys
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