Beginning with a tour-de-force of voice and guitar combining in beautiful harmony in ‘Mother Earth, Father God’, Torres (real name Mackenzie Ruth Scott) declares that she was ‘Born on bloody battleground/to the middlemen between two realms,’ and so the tone of record is set within the opening three minutes.
Piers Faccini’s Between Dogs and Wolves is a beautiful album, for three simple reasons. His eclectic and unassuming vocal style is gently balanced on the music, falling somewhere between Nick Drake and Kings of Convenience. The instruments are deployed with…
The self-titled album of Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers, a San Francisco-based six-piece, rolls in with the positive relaxed swagger of a group confident in its abilities. Opener ‘Little Too Late’ is chewing gum fresh, like they’ve just turned up,…
The latest offering from Welsh singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon, Mug Museum, is strangely timeless: it has clear retro, sixties influences, as if it’s playing on vinyl, but is full of fresh touches too. The guitar parts remind me of Dirty…
Mary Epworth can seemingly do no wrong. After releasing her stunning debut album last year, Dream Life, Mary has turned her hand recently to running a record label, Hand of Glory, a label which Kiran Leonard has made his home.…
This is the third Widowspeak release I’ve reviewed, and the first track, ‘Brass Bed’, is lively compared to the sleepy, smoky wooziness of their debut, with a brisk wooden beat. Lead singer Molly Hamilton gives her dreamy voice definition: “Baby…
I saw Laura J Martin play at Bestival back in 2010, looping flute and mandolin to her voice; if you have no patience for vocal oddity (Kate Bush, Joanna Newsom etc) you might find her pixieish otherworldly presence grating, otherwise…
Within/Without signifies a second 2013 release from London trio Bear’s Den. Following on from February’s stunning EP Agape, this latest offering picks up exactly from where we were left, wanting more. Opening track ‘Sahara pt.I’ will already be well-known to…
City Forgiveness, the fifth studio album from the Wave Pictures, is a rare thing: an album full of substance and ideas, but bound in by style. It’s a road trip album, forged from notes that lead singer David Tattersall took…
I’ve been looking forward to Los Campesinos!’s fifth album NO BLUES for absolutely ages. The same will be true for a lot of 20-somethings, for whom LC! have been a bit of a soundtrack band since they first emerged as…