Sufjan Stevens’ latest record arrives half a decade on from his last, The Age of Adz, an unprecedented break for a man who once promised he would keep himself busy for a lifetime by recording an album about every US…
Having been touted as the ‘new’ Lana Del Ray, Hannah Cohen returns with the follow up to her 2012 release Child Time with a much more stylised, bolder release in Pleasure Boy. On a base level, it is a record…
Watford is not a town traditionally known for having a rich musical heritage. Camilla, Emily and Jessica, the three sisters making up The Staves, are doing all they can to remedy this fact, returning with a brilliant sophomore record, If…
Courtney Barnett’s full debut arrives with high expectations – and rightly so, given the strength of the two EPs that came before it. Collected together in 2013 as The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, those records earned her…
I can clearly remember the first time I clapped eyes on Steve Wold. I was watching Jools Holland’s Hootenanny when the main man introduced a guy sat on a chair, wearing dungarees, with a box at his feet and a…
For a recently gathered collective, there is a satisfying and even surprising restraint and confidence about Grand Lake Islands and their first full-length release Song From Far. The Portland group are the brainchild of Erik Emanuelson, who quit his job…
You wonder if Laura Marling has ever stood still. From the moment she released her first EP at the somewhat impatient age of 17 everything she has done has been a progression, a departure, a new set of ideas. With…
Covers albums are notoriously difficult to pull off effectively. Mixing the necessary reverence to the artist whose tunes are being re-rendered with trying to tease out additional nuances is fiendishly challenging. For those that pull off the trick like David…
Brandi Carlile has a firebrand of a voice. It has shades of country, pop and blues in its powerful range, a little like a female version of Ryan Adams. Her music is cut from the same cloth, a commercial take…
Mr Knopfler needs little introduction. Dire Straits were one of the biggest and best bands of the 80s, while his solo career has been far more than just a vanity project. He is of course one of the most gifted,…