I hadn’t heard Benjamin Clementine before this album, but it’s pretty apparent that he’s a star, often compared to Nina Simone in his compelling delivery and stage presence. At Least For Now opens with ‘Winston Churchill’s Boy’: beginning just with…
In the nearly 20 years since their debut, Tucson group Calexico have made some outstanding albums, weaving together roots sounds, Americana and Tex-Mex. On their first album since 2012’s New Orleans-themed Algiers, they make what is (surprisingly, given their influences)…
Ivy Tripp is Katie Crutchfield’s third record under the name Waxahatchee, but just because she’s settled into the role doesn’t mean she’s ready to stop moving. Over the course of this record, Crutchfield never sits still, and offers a little…
Ron Sexsmith has been around for an age now (well, 24 years since his debut – sorry Ron, we’re not meaning to rub it in), constantly knocking out great albums and somehow completely avoiding the commercial radar. It seems criminal,…
Michigan artist Ben Schneider’s debut album as Lord Huron, Lonesome Dreams, was all about wide open spaces, its cover depicting a lone rider peering into a starless desert night. Based on a Western pulp fiction concept it found our hero…
Once, every two or three years, an artist comes along so fully formed and talented that they fast become one of your favourite musicians, and when Emily Barker, supported by the very talented multi-instrumentalists of the Red Clay Halo, released…
Josh Rouse approached The Embers of Time, his 11th studio album, at something of a turning point. Facing a mid-life crisis after ten years as an ex-pat in his adopted Spanish homeland coupled with the strains of raising a young…
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…