British singer-songwriter Lucy Kitt unveils her highly anticipated second album, Telling Me, a deeply personal collection that shifts focus from introspection to storytelling, capturing the lives and struggles of those closest to her.
…She mixes Laurel Canyon with ’90s acoustic indie, a voice not a million miles away from The Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler, and chiming guitars borrowed from Robin Guthrie, she builds as personal as her often introspective lyrics. Opening song ‘Blink’ veers towards the indie, while the more strident ‘Waiting Game’ adds a country tinge to a song Stevie Nicks would have been more than happy with. That song also points the way to the direction her lyrics have taken, being penned during lockdown for friends struggling…
Category: folk
Fans and critics have compared singer-songwriter Amy Speace to folk legend Judy Collins for good reason. Collins discovered the Nashville-based via-Baltimore musician early in Speace‘s career and became one of her biggest champions. Collins has brought Speace on tour and recorded her songs. Beyond their personal connections, Speace’s smooth, aching vocals recall Collins’ mid-career tone, and both artists share a rare quality: an earnest, poetic approach to music that comes straight from the heart.
While Collins is best known for interpreting other writers’ material, her own catalog, songs like “Since You’ve Asked” and “My Father” have been covered by everyone from Speace to Dolly Parton and Leonard Cohen. The writers…
After two decades fronting Editors and releasing two albums with Smith & Burrows, Tom Smith is finally stepping into solo territory with There Is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light. Motivated by a desire to reconnect with the raw, acoustic beginnings of his songwriting, Smith set out to create something more intimate and personal, away from the collaborative nature of his band projects.
Enlisting producer Iain Archer, together, they crafted a record built around emotional honesty, acoustic textures, and themes of connection, memory, and resilience. The opening track, ‘Deep Dive’, became the album’s emotional anchor, setting a tone of gentle hope in the face of loneliness.
It’s likely that Elliot Cox didn’t consciously write these songs as celebrations. They aren’t anthems that would fill a stadium with people singing along. Instead, they are heartfelt celebrations of innocence, the exhilaration of change, the courage of youth and the optimism of love, as well as the changing seasons of both nature and the heart.
Cox was born in Gloucestershire, England, raised in Brisbane, Australia, and now splits his time between the latter and London. After receiving his degree in Music Technology, he took his songs on the road, or more accurately, to the streets as he busked across the UK and Europe. The intimacy of singing to small groups of strangers may explain why Cox’s songs are so personal. They seem to come directly from his experiences as he…
Londoner Dave Burn is best known as co-founder of americana “supergroup” Orphan Colours and Ahab, but when solo, his creativity really shines. As the title of his second solo album indicates, he is not completely alone; he has brought a few musician friends along. The rest of the title contains not just his nickname but an altogether more serious notion. Some time ago, Burn found himself working with two other Daves, one bigger and one smaller, but the sense of being in the middle occurred to him in another context. Seeing how just about anything these days is so polarised at two extremes, Burn thought, what about just being somewhere in the middle ground? He posits that wisdom gained with age often takes the edge off previously held views that…
1. Big Thief – No Fear
2. Patterson Hood – The Van Pelt Parties
3. Edwyn Collins – Knowledge
4. Pulp – Farmers Market
5. Robert Plant – As I Roved Out (feat. Suzi Dian)
6. Stereolab – Melodie Is a Wound
7. Baxter Dury – Allbarone
8. Suede – June Rain
9. Horsegirl – Rock City
10. Annie & The Caldwells – Wrong
11. Jeff Tweedy – Out in the Dark
12. Perfume Genius – It’s a Mirror
13. Bon Iver – Day One
14. William Tyler – Concern
15. Margo Price – Love Me Like You Used to Do (feat. Tyler Childers)
The Gold Rush: The Songs of Neil Young features 15 of Young‘s classics and deep cuts reinterpreted exclusively for Uncut in tribute to Shakey’s 80th birthday.
There’s some ragged, glorious rock from Kurt Vile & The Sadies, J Mascis, Alan Sparhawk‘s Tired Eyes and MJ Lenderman & The Wind; there are tender ballads from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Joan Shelley & Nathan Salzburg, Drive By Truckers‘ Mike Cooley, and Sharon Van Otten & The Attachment Theory; and there are wilder, more experimental versions from Orcutt Shelley Miller and Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection.
Plus it all kicks off with a stunning 8-and-a-half-minute “Ambulance Blues” from Phosphorescent.
Thalas is the new band formed by Guus Herremans and Ward Dhoore, two longtime friends whose musical paths have intertwined for over a decade in Belgiums vibrant folk music scene. You may know them from projects such as Aelia, Airboxes, Entre Deux, Estbel, Les Bottines Artistiques, Nufolk Global Connections, Phlox, Siger, Snaarmaarwaar, Spilar, and Trio Dhoore. With As It Comes, they celebrate the power of patience and the beauty of the process. Almost all of the album was composed and arranged together in one room, a reflection of their intuitive dialogue and shared vision. Guus, known for his expressive diatonic accordion playing, brings a melodic warmth shaped by years of composing across diverse projects, while Ward takes on the role of producer.
Their first release in over 14 years, Forever, I’ve Been Being Born, finds Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter dealing with life, death, change, and renewal as the Seattle-based outfit’s fragile cosmic folk music drifts into the ether.
The band’s core, vocalist Sykes and guitarist Phil Wandscher, needed time to regroup and find inspiration after losing their rhythm section following 2011’s Marble Son. The new album is softer with layers of strings and light percussion around Sykes’ lyrics of crumbling and rebuilding. The pattern throughout the record is to start soft with minimal support to Sykes’ enchanting vocals, then increase the sound by adding multiple strings, chimes, and fuzzy electric guitar to close.
Their ethereal, floating sound begins with…
1. Alan Sparhawk – Not Broken
2. BC Camplight – Where You Taking My Baby?
3. Matt Berninger – Bonnet of Pins
4. Peggy Seeger – Slow
5. Steve Queralt – Swiss Air (feat. Emma Anderson)
6. Nathan Salsburg – Ipsa Corpora (Excerpt)
7. Poor Creature – The Whole Town Knows
8. Natalie Bergman – Dance
9. Holden & Zimpel – Incredible Bliss
10. Witch – Dancer On a Trip
11. S.G. Goodman – Snapping Turtle
12. The Wildmans – Sometimes
13. Faun Fables – Widdershins
14. Tropical Fuck Storm – Teeth Marche
15. North Mississippi Allstars – Preachin’ Blues
Deviate may be the debut album from Oxford-based indie Americana band Steady Habits, but it comes on the back of a burgeoning reputation based on festival appearances, supporting the likes of Danny George Wilson and the odd single release following the band’s 2020 EP Hold in Your Breath. Frontman Sean Duggan hails from New England and the album is shaped by both this physical and emotional journey. It is a journey shaped by Duggan’s memories of home, family and his queer experiences.
The title track is a love letter to his younger self and to those growing up in a world that seems, in Duggan’s eyes, to be eroding freedoms of expression. “The LGBTQ+ community have long been labelled as deviants. This song…
Atmosphere is the third album from North Carolina-based singer/songwriter Alexa Rose, with ten songs partly shaped by the devastation heaped on her community by Hurricane Helene. It’s not the first time Rose has conjured aching beauty out of the most trying of times – after all, her previous album, Headwaters, was written during the pandemic – but Hurricane Helene had a far more direct impact on this album.
Born in the Alleghany Highlands of Western Virginia, Alexa Rose was raised in the tiny railroad town of Clifton Forge. She moved in 2013 to study music at Appalachian State University, and she continues to be based in North Carolina. After graduating in 2016, she took to the road with her own songs, and she’s been touring…
…features the complete original record remastered by David Grisman, plus outtakes and alternate versions (including two previously unreleased tracks) from Dawg’s vault.
The second full-length collaborative effort between Jerry Garcia (guitar/vocals) and David Grisman (mandolin, mando-cello, tenor banjo, vocals) is arguably their most endearing as well. Just as its title suggests, Not for Kids Only (1993) is an album of folkie standards and traditional tunes that is — as Grisman so eloquently depicts in his liner notes — “our answer to ‘Barney.'”
The material chosen is comprised of songs they had undoubtedly encountered at one time or another during their respective careers, both of which were deeply rooted in…
‘Aqualung Live’ is a recording of Jethro Tull performing their classic album ‘Aqualung’ in full, originally released in 2005 and now newly remastered.
Each era of rock music has had its own craftily marketed phenomenon — it was the “live album” in the ’70s, “unplugged” recordings in the ’90s, and since the late ’80s through the present day, the “tribute album.” But the early 21st century saw another addition — veteran bands revisiting classic albums and performing them in their entirety. Jethro Tull’s most enduring release is largely agreed to be 1971’s classic Aqualung, and in late 2004 Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, and their latest Tull mates dusted off the album once more in front of a small audience for XM Radio’s…
With continual creativity and finesse Acoustic Hot Tuna sets out touring across the United States July, August and September. Masters in their field, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady’s joy in playing unfiltered riffs, swapping notes and smiles, has delighted them and thrilled their audiences for seven decades!
Hot Tuna has brought a wealth of emotions to their music through deep perceptions and tremendous talent. Members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Grammy recipients, they are always injecting fresh energy into their sound with constant improvisation taking their musical horizons further. Every note is a unique expression of that very moment.
Jorma enthuses, “Focus on the things you love, listen with an open heart, and the music will…
Courtney Hartman’s previous album, 2021’s Glade, was very much a solitary affair – Hartman recorded the bulk of it alone as she lived in a barn on the property of her childhood Colorado home – but with her new album, the appropriately titled With You, she reached out to those around her and created an album written, funded and recorded with her friends, fans and collaborators. The album documents a huge shift in Hartman’s life, too: becoming a mother for the first time.
Her journey to motherhood and beyond looms large over the album, beginning at the opening track ‘Softening’. “All of the edges now are softening / See the light almost standing still / For you,” Hartman opens, her voice barely more than a whisper, backed by an ethereal…
Michael McGovern returns with his second album, following on from Highfield Suite, a near-solo effort recorded in lockdown, Nebraska– style from his bedroom. Trailed as a folk album, however broad that church may be, it doesn’t quite prepare you for the breadth of sound on The Thin White Road. Featuring a full band, saxophones and choirs, it’s a sound which is often full on.
Press releases reference artists as diverse as Laura Marling, Leonard Cohen, Fleet Foxes and Crazy Horse. You could add to that the rush of the E Street Band at times when the full rainbow of musicians kicks on, particularly on the opening title track.
With a strong storytelling theme throughout, McGovern picks up the stories of wandering…
Following the release of his seventh studio album A Modern Day Distraction last year, Jake Bugg is back with a very special deluxe repack of the celebrated record. Following the release of the first single Never Said Goodbye Jake releases Oblivious previously unreleased and written during the spring 0f 2025 it’s an up tempo celebratory slice of British guitar pop which resonates perfectly for the sound of our post Oasis summer. British guitar music has never sounded so good. Jake headlined packed out UK dates across the summer and will be doing instores to support the album, whilst also headlining the RadioX event on Oct 3rd 13 years and seven albums into his career, A Modern Day Distraction cements Jake as one of the UK’s most established and enduring songwriters in the UK.
The Beggar had its genesis as a collection of “quite rough and raw” demo recordings, released in 2018 on Bandcamp. Robin Adams then saw how the songs evolved in a live setting when played by a band and decided to revisit and re-record the songs with a group of musician friends.
He has had no funding for the record, and so it “was a labour of love from everyone involved who dedicated their precious time and talent to these recordings”.
At the time of the initial recording, Adams had been recovering from a very difficult four-year period of chronic disease, which had left him housebound and isolated. He was “unable to gig, see friends, or to socialise in any meaningful way due to debilitating fatigue”.
Detroit-based Ethan Daniel Davidson is nothing if not prolific. Lear is Davidson’s 14th studio album and, even more impressively, his second of 2025. If that earlier album, Cordelia, helped reinforce a reputation as a reflective songwriter, then Lear, which emerged from those same sessions, can be assumed to be a companion piece.
The album has been compared to Neil Young’s On the Beach insofar as it is dripping in melancholy and ache. In its tone and tempo, it hints that Cohen wouldn’t be so far wide of the mark either. Davidson is mining the dark corners of his own psyche here, and it shows. His songs have become more autobiographical, and opening track ‘Stop Breaking Down’ has Davidson reflecting on a hitchhiking youth, of bad…