alt folk
Album Review : Gwenifer Raymond-‘Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark’ : Primitive guitar thrillingly taken widescreen and cosmic.
It’s difficult to make a personal imprint on solo instrumental music but Brighton-based, Welsh acoustic guitarist Gwenifer Raymond continues to make an impression with every step she takes. Opening up in 2018 with her ’You Never Were Much Of A Dancer’ debut, she introduced her steely, blues-pining tones to the world. Come 2020 she’d broadened …
Track/Video: RAKEL, an emerging new voice from Reykjavík announces her debut album with the softly powerful ‘Rescue Remedy’.
Pianist/composer Ólafur Arnalds forward thinking OPIA project, part performance festival, part label, part community builder, is making a habit of bringing illusive talents out into the wider spotlight. You might remember the exquisite Costa Rican pianist/composer Sofi Paez and pedal-steel soundscaper Davidsson from last year, well here’s a new name to add to your ‘listen …
Album Review: ‘Yorkston/ Jaycock/ Langendorf’: A thrilling electro-acoustic escapade from the alt-folk-jazz luminaries.
If ever there was a singer/song-writer laureate being bandied about then surely James Yorkston would be one of the names in the frame. Staggering to think that we’re getting on for a quarter century since ‘Moving Up Country’ swanned over the alt-folk horizon, starting a sequence of unpretentious, profoundly real albums, much loved and much …
EP Review: ‘Is It Really Goodnight?’: Celeste Madden’s Introspective and Evocative New Release
Key to London-based singer-songwriter Celeste Madden’s new EP, Is It Really Goodnight?, is its dense atmosphere. It’s not foreboding or oppressive, but rather a sleepless sheen that coats the tracklist in a way the cyanotype cover art would suggest. Madden’s sound swings between minimal, almost ambient guitar ballads and brooding alt-rock cuts that could soundtrack …
Premiere: ‘Solid and Human’ – Maia Jelavic releases a yearning slow burning anthem that sparkles in the sunshine, with debut album and gigs on the way.
Maia Jelavic premiered her last single with us a few years back under the stage name Maia Marsh. She has made the decision to be true to herself and returned with another premiere under her birth name Maia Jelavic, and while the label might change, the imperial quality of her songwriting remains. We are therefore …
Track: The ethereal Juice Webster makes a welcome return with ‘Hannah’ ahead of headline launch.
It’s been too long a gap since the Melbourne artist Juice Webster graced us with her astonishing debut album ‘Julia’, one of our most lauded antipodean albums of 2023, and it is great to see her back with her new single ‘Hannah’ as well as a live show ahead. Described as alternative folk, we have …
Album Review: Meril Wubslin – Faire Ça : Bluesy drones, alt-rock crunch and a world of rhythms make this band unique.
Does Bongo Joe Records have a signature sound? Well listen through the bulging rosta of releases since the label first output way back in 2015 and the conclusion would probably be a resolute ‘No’. But it does have a mission to give a platform to the extraordinary and less conventional, whether from the Swiss underground …
Live Review plus Gallery: MONA FOMA Festival, Paul Kelly, Odeon Theatre, Hobart 18.02.2024
It’s a strangely warm night at the edge of the world in Hobart and it must be quite a shock for the troubadour extraordinaire Paul Kelly who has only just got back from performing on a ship in Antarctica. The thing is, though, Kelly and his band raised the temperature quite a bit on their …
Track: Melbourne’s glittering Phoebe Go sings of ‘7 Up’ in a glorious dream pop track, ahead of US tour and debut album.
There is a transfixing and immersive flow to the new single ‘7 Up’ from Phoebe Go (the solo project of Phoebe Lou) which projects it forward with a high stepping canter, emitting a brilliant ray of sunshine. Lou’s vocals are silken and melancholy, the lyrics personal and yearning and the instrumentation shimmering with a delicate …
EP Review: The Crayon Set allege ‘Elvis Is Alive’ in an exquisite trio of ethereal and hypnotic songs.
Hailing from Dublin, The Crayon Set provide the most exquisite brand of intelligently crafted alt folk rock songs touched with a delicate pastoral blush. Their new EP, entitled ‘Elvis Still Alive’ consist of three impossibly beautiful atmospheric tracks imbued with an air of delicate melancholy. The Crayon Set recall bands such as Belle and Sebastian …