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Sophie Janna: Thistle

on June 18, 2023

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Judy Blank: Cambridge Folk Festival 2022 [Live]

on September 01, 2022

alt-folk Cambridge Folk Festival festival folk Judy Blank live music Netherlands

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New release horizon scanner:

11/1/25 - Rosie Gault: Dim lights
29/1/25 - Dictator: Middle of the road (EP)
7/2/25 - Arliston: Disappointment machine (Album)
28/2/25 - Hachiku: The joys of being pure at heart (Album(

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Music Observer Friday highlights - 03.06.22

I haven't done one of these posts for a while and this is a bit of a hybrid, mopping up some music I've heard in the past couple of weeks but haven't had chance to write about yet. Hope you enjoy. Remember, a ll of the songs I write about (as well as lots of others) feature on my May 2022 and June 2022 playlists. Frances Gein - All I've Loved A song released today (3rd June) but which I've been listening to for a few weeks (thank you for the early preview Frances!). This is a slow paced, minor key folk tune, with a simple, calming and strangely comforting beauty. The song is centred around a picked-out guitar riff, which - couple with Frances' muted and mysterious vocals - gives it a satisfying grungy feel. But there's also some great use of strings, which start as a barely-there backing and build into something a little unsettling (matching closely to the lyrical progression). The ending is brilliantly done thanks to a surprise, low piano note which pu...

Grace Calver: My Life and Its Disasters [EP]

It’s just over a year since Grace Calver released arguably one of the best ever songs related to the undead - her debut single, ‘Zombie Conversations’ - pivoting from popular music blogger to accomplished artist in a way which felt natural and preordained. And now, here’s her debut EP, building on the success and catchiness of that first release. The brilliantly named 'My Life and Its Disasters' is five tracks of Grace Calver's well polished, finely honed brand of dream-pop-meets-grunge, sugar-coated angst rock. It’s an infectious, deceptively innocent style of writing - like a rainbow with a pot of boiling oil at the end. And let's also not forget that Grace plays all the tuned instruments, too, leaving only the drums to be outsourced (in this case to Oscar Liddiard). Two of the tracks on this EP are brand new, and perhaps best represent where Grace is now as an artist. She’s come a long way in a very short time, playing countless live shows, including several festiva...

Hannah Grae: Need Me Now

Welsh singer-songwriter Hannah Grae writes some ludicrously catchy songs, the kind that can drill themselves into my conscious and subconscious and obsess me for days on end. Just under a year ago, I felt compelled to write about 'I Missed The Joke' (a song from Hannah's debut album), which I described as "just about the perfect indie angst-rock ballad." This year, Hannah has released a sub-30 minute "mini-album", 'Nothing Lasts Forever'. Its main features are her recent singles, 'Better Now You're Gone', 'It Could've Been You', 'Screw Loose' and 'Who Dunnit?', all powerful songs making full use of her remarkable vocal talents. They've received a lot of attention. But there's also new material on the record, and the new and older songs combine to create something varied and really interesting, and which feels like a lot more than 28 minutes. The song which struck me and has stuck with me is the fo...

Holly Humberstone: Paint My Bedroom Black [Album]

(Note: Now updated to reflect that the album has now been released!) Holly Humberstone just keeps on climbing. Last year, I wrote about her Glastonbury set, and how she winningly pushed through a spell of nerves. This year, she's elevated herself to regular Radio 1 playlist status, made her first headline festival appearance (at Barn on the Farm ), and successfully completed an intense headline tour of the U.S. All of this while the anticipation built for her second album. That second album dropped on Friday, 13th October, and for this one I broke my self-imposed rule of not writing about music until at least its release date. I just had to share some thoughts in advance. My first impression of the record: it's more direct, more mature, and more determinedly poppy in many places. There's a feeling that Holly is now freer and more confident to play with different vibes and rhythms: in places things are dark, soft and cinematic, but in others Holly has found the confidence ...

Nice Guy: Tonight

Well, this is a really interesting one from Teesside alt-rockers Nice Guy . It's a song which brings you on a beautiful journey: your starting point is a deceptively straightforward, relatively slow-paced indie-rock track; your destination is a long, thrilling guitar solo and a sustained Hammond organ chord. Everything that happens between start and finish is exciting and quite subtle in places. Photo: Laura Horton The song opens with a relatively simple guitar lick, based around just a few notes. This grabs your attention - perhaps not in the same way as a crashing drum intro or heavier guitar riff - but it grabs it all the same. This opening is a kind of shadow of the track to come - an opening motif - which takes you gradually into the song. With each repetition of that simple opening theme, an extra layer is introduced, allowing the song to build really subtly. It's a build of intensity but also of complexity. The more you listen, the more you appreciate how carefully this...