“Making Way For Joy” is the newest single from Sydney alt-folk group Dusken Lights, released on 10th June 2025. The song is an invitation to set aside fear and foolishness, and to consider redirecting the compass towards tenderness. Why not march all day and all night to the fabled province of joy. Let’s not pretend…
Tag: alt-folk
[streaming] Eyed Jay – Strangeland
“Strangeland,” the title track and first single from the debut LP from Eyed Jay, arriving on tape/digital April 4th. The song explores the sense of fate and surrender in being drawn to another person. Its fragmented, elliptical imagery sets memories of private moments between two people in relief against natural cycles beyond our grasp –…
BRIGID MAE POWER Dream From The Deep Well (Fire, 2023) Già nei suoi tre precedenti album, Brigid Mae Power aveva ampiamente dimostrato di sapere combinare tradizione e modernità in un equilibrio delicatamente personale. Nel nuovo “Dream From The Deep Well” la cantautrice irlandese compie un passo ulteriore, proiettando i registri folk del suo lieve lirismo…
AMY MAY ELLIS Over Ling And Bell (Lost Map, 2023)* Come piccole gocce di pioggia (“Rain From The East”), poche danzanti note acustiche aprono l’album di debutto di Amy May Ellis, nuova voce folk a emergere dalla countryside inglese e quanto mai radicata nei paesaggi delle brughiere della zona nordorientale del Paese. Benché le canzoni…
LISA/LIZA Breaking And Mending (Orindal, 2023)* Nel suo quarto album ufficiale, Liza Victoria Miller prosegue su quel percorso di introspezione ed essenzialità che caratterizza buona parte della sua produzione e che, dopo una parentesi di apertura a un più articolato ventaglio espressivo, era già tornata a manifestarsi nel precedente “Shelter Of A Song” (2020). L’idea…
[video of the week] Selah Broderick – I Am
Taken from the album “Moon in the Monastery”, out June 9, 2023 on Pegdoll Records. Having grown up in a strict Catholic setting, the alternative movements of the late 60’s and 70’s could not come soon enough for Selah, who’s love for art and music eventually sent her traveling around the country, running from a…
[video of the week] Alasdair Roberts – The Bonny Moorhen
Taken from the album “Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall,” available from Drag City on March 31, 2023. Critically-acclaimed, criminally-overachieving Glasgow-based singer and guitarist Alasdair Roberts is known as a superlative original songwriter as well as an interpreter of traditional songs from Scotland and beyond. For the past twenty years, his recordings…
[video of the week] Amy May Ellis – Wild Geese
Taken from the album Over Ling And Bell, released on Lost Map Records on 12th May 2023. Raised in a remote dale in the middle of the Yorkshire uplands, Amy’s warm and delicate folk-leaning DIY songs are steeped in the culture, scenery, folklore and wildlife of the countryside that surrounded and shaped her as a…
MARLODY I’m Not Sure At All (Skep Wax, 2023)* Qualche mese fa, la pubblicazione del brano di apertura “Summer”, caratterizzato da un’asciutta melodia pianistica e da un’interpretazione al tempo stesso sognante e sofferta, aveva immediatamente destato curiosità sull’imminente debutto di Marlody, suggerendo orizzonti di intensità ed eleganza da parte di una nuova “donna al piano”….
[video of the week] Emma Gatrill – Be Brave
Taken from the upcoming EP of the same name. Emma Gatrill is a multi-instrumentalist based in Brighton, UK. Her debut, 2012’s “Chapter I”, was a poignant collection of songs based around her then-latest acquisition – the harp. Subtly accompanied by various members of Brighton’s Willkommen Collective, her intricate harp playing coupled with a unique vocal…
JUNE MCDOOM June McDoom (Temporary Residence, 2022)* Una manciata di brani può risultare sufficiente a rivelare un profilo artistico al tempo stesso deciso e, a suo modo, disorientante. Si tratta di quello di June McDoom, giovane cantautrice al debutto, del cui mini album omonimo colpiscono l’intensità delle interpretazioni e la naturalezza delle commistioni di linguaggi…
JONATHAN BALZANO BROOKES The Greathart (Microcultures, 2022)* Il mondo fiabesco immediatamente suggerito dalla copertina di “The Greathart” fornisce già un indizio circa le undici canzoni fuori dal tempo che ne formano la scaletta. Il lavoro appare il frutto di una serie di curiose intersezioni, che affondano le proprie radici nello stralunato folk statunitense dei primi…
JOAN SHELLEY The Spur (No Quarter, 2022)* Da sempre tra le voci più delicate e poetiche del folk statunitense al femminile,20 Joan Shelley ha trovato nella campagna del Kentucky quel rifugio creativo e di pace personale nel quale ha preso forma il suo sesto album. Realizzato con le amorevoli cure del marito Nathan Salsburg e…
[video of the week] Minru – Light End
Taken from “Liminality” out on Morr Music July 1st 2022. Minru is the project of Caroline Blomqvist, a Swedish musician based in Berlin. Woven from light and shadow, the interplay of her folk and indie-rock blend appears from a personal space of finding life after death. On her debut LP »Liminality« she paints melody in…
[streaming] Maggie Clifford – Come The Rain
“Come The Rain”, the newest single from Gainesville, FL experimental folk artist Maggie Clifford, will drop June 14th on Spirit House Records. The new track deftly blends a Celtic melodic structure with a modern folk charm. Come the Rain is a love song to community and conveys the depth of commitment required to maintain strong…
[video of the week] Joan Shelley – The Spur
Taken from the album “The Spur”, out June 24th 2022 via No Quarter. Joan Shelley returns with “The Spur” her first new album in three years. The twelve song set is a profound meditation on light and darkness, recorded in the spring of 2021 at Earthwave Farm in the Kentucky countryside. James Elkington serves as…
[video of the week] Moira Smiley – Meeting Is Over (feat. Piers Faccini and Seamus Egan)
“Meeting Is Over” is a stripped-down, acoustic anthem that celebrates the cycles of life and death, endings and renewal, farewells and reunion. A perfect song then to bid farewell to 2021 and to look forward to new horizons in 2022. This release is a cross-continental collaboration between two soulful and expressive singer/songwriters, Piers Faccini (France)…
[video of the week] Ptarmigan – Rounder
Toronto, ON indie-folk band Ptarmigan shares their striking new music video and single “Rounder”. The second single from the band’s third album Cocoon (set for release November 19) begins with atmospheric drones and grounding fingerpicked banjo. Haunting vocals then appear, ushering in a chorus of lush three-part harmonies and rich nylon string guitar strums. The…
[streaming] Tina Loeffler – Blue Mountains Home
New song by Tina Loeffler, out now digitally via Bandcamp. It’s the wind in the pines and the pale blue of the early blueberries, which nurtures her soul like a gentle breeze on a hot summer day and let her creativity flow. Always inspired by nature, Tina Loeffler loves to create folky tunes in her…
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