Back catalogue: Folk/Americana

Review: Marking 60 years since the late singer's birth, I Can Only Be Me celebrates the striking talent of Eva Cassidy with an ambitious project. Christopher Willis and William Ross teamed up to compose new arrangements for some of Cassidy's best loved songs, which have been recorded by none other than the London Symphony Orchestra. 'Songbird' is the centrepiece of the project, which made use of new breakthroughs in AI technology to add new dimensions to Cassidy's performance in line with Willis and Ross' new compositions. It's a posthumous collaboration like no other, sure to delight fans who always dreamed of where else Cassidy's music might have taken her if she hadn't died so young.

Review: Marking 60 years since the late singer's birth, I Can Only Be Me celebrates the striking talent of Eva Cassidy with an ambitious project. Christopher Willis and William Ross teamed up to compose new arrangements for some of Cassidy's best loved songs, which have been recorded by none other than the London Symphony Orchestra. 'Songbird' is the centrepiece of the project, which made use of new breakthroughs in AI technology to add new dimensions to Cassidy's performance in line with Willis and Ross' new compositions. It's a posthumous collaboration like no other, sure to delight fans who always dreamed of where else Cassidy's music might have taken her if she hadn't died so young.

Review: For those who go gaga for (originally) ultra-limited presses, we've got you. In 1974, Hiroshi Tanaka and Yoichi Fuwa, the self-proclaimed heirs of the Beatles, crammed into a 75 square-foot room and recorded over 50 songs, all without names. Taking after the furtive experimentalism of the Fab Four's White Album, the duo laid down the Untitled White Album as an ever-more experimental companion piece (or psychotic pop-culture reaction), mimicking the Beatles' tonal inflections while adding sprinklings of madness that the former group daren't've. Widely sought-after but rarely found, this reissue from LITA comes as a second LP featuring 16 tracks that heretofore were unknown, and are now released for the first time.

Review: When members of mega-bands work with relatively obscurer artists, we're always intrigued. But a potential trapping factor is in thinking Jarak Qaribak, for example, is more of a Jonny Greenwood album than a Dudu Tassa one, when in fact the exact opposite is the case. Tassa, an Israeli singer-guitarist who fuses Middle Eastern stylings with contemporary rock, lends a challenging structural terrain to the Radiohead member's electric guitar licks, with the former's Arabic and Hebrew lyrics moving atmospherically against them. A star cast of fellow Israeli artists accompany the pair, as serene vocal beat-driven movements plod and swell away in an appealingly nu-proggy fashion.

Review: Scottish band Texas have announced the release of their new album, The Muscle Shoals Sessions, which is a collaboration between Texas and American songwriter and pianist Spooner Oldham and was recorded at the renowned Fame Recording Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The album features 12 of Texas' greatest hits, reimagined with Oldham's delicate piano lines. The result is a stripped-back, timeless sound that allows each track to shine. The album also includes two covers: 'Would I Lie To You' by Charles and Eddie and 'Save The Last Dance' by The Drifters. Texas described the album as 'like nothing we've ever done before,' and it is sure to be a must-listen for fans of the band and lovers of classic songwriting.

Review: The Bristol-born, Paris-based Kate Stables here delivers her fourth record in a career that's seen her develop a penchant for knotty indie-folk that's as colourful in character as gritty in delivery. John Parish is in the producer's chair this time around, and he's helped coax out a collection of ditties rich in storytelling charm and articulacy. Spare, intimate and with a refreshing candour to its delivery, 'Moonlight Freeze' is a perfectly balanced mix of the sweetly melodious and the saltily artful, Emboldened with electronic filigree yet rooted in earthy ballast, this could well be the point where Stables establishes this humble project as a serious force to be reckoned with.

Review: The story of Tia Blake is more than a little enigmatic. Apparently she was an American teenager in Paris in 1970, and she somehow ended up securing a recording contract for a small clutch of public domain folk compositions which resulted in this stunning album. Blake performed one concert in support of the album and returned to North America the next year, leaving behind any potential career as a folk singer. Mores the pity, because this album is an arresting trip through traditional songs guided by Blake's captivating voice, which calls to mind Vashti Bunyan's dusky fragility albeit in a lower register. It's not been in print on vinyl since 1971, so don't expect these gems to stay around long.

Review: Time Is Away is a lovely sonic daydream that takes you on a heady trip through beautiful and weird, romantic and exotic, intimate and hard-to-define sounds. It has been selected and arranged by London duo Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney and is one of those brilliantly beguiling collections that invite you into all new musical worlds. The pair behind this are well known to NTS listens who love their cult show and often span musical, literary and filmic worlds with their selections. While far-flung and obscure at times, this is an absorbing and rewarding listen.

Review: The resurgence of interest in vinyl has brought with it plenty of spotlight for niche acts like Tinariwen. The Mali-based desert blues specialists are now frequently found on the playlist of eclectic Das and NTS radio hosts, and so they should be. This new album is actually an old one - Kel Tinariwen is an early cassette tape recorded in the 90s that has not been released before. It hones in on the political issues of the time and is a raw sound compared to how Tinariwen went on to sound, but still has all the hypnotic guitar lines and call-and-response vocals that make it distinctly them. Add in raw drum machine rhythms and keyboard melodies and you have an alluring and Arab-tinged take on synth-pop that really gets you where it hurts.

Review: Kazuki Tomokawa is one of the most enigmatic figures in Japan's modern musical history. Not only a poet and a singer, he's also a bicycle race commentator and a self-described vagabond, and in the 70s he set his poems to music as Japan enjoyed something of a folk music boom. It was 1975 when he recorded his first album, in particular teaming up with percussionist Toshiaki Ishizuka for a fruitful musical partnership. Blank Forms has been diligently reissuing much of Tomokawa's music, and now they're turning their attention to this deluxe three CD boxed set comprised of Finally, His First Album, Straight from the Throat, and A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth.

Review: "This LP is a compilation of songs from five different digital-only demo collections I released on Bandcamp between 2021 and 2023. I relied on the ears and judgment of my old friend Dom at Feral Child to curate this comp, allowing him to choose his favorites from over 60 songs," James Toth says of Demon Stations. "While I might have chosen an entirely different batch of tunes, I was happy to defer to Dom, as I've never had much perspective when it comes to assessing my own material." With every track recorded at home, many on the same day they were written, and mostly first takes used, there's an audible quality to this collection of archive material that's every bit as honest as the artist's own explanation as to how the final package came about. An atmosphere entirely befitting the open-hearted folk and Americana dominating the release.

Review: Australian alt rockers The Triffids were destined for greater things than their homeland realised at the time. While enjoying some success Down Under between the late-1970s and late-80s, it was in the UK and Scandinavia that they really seemed to resonate. A decade-long love affair defined by some very 1980s singles (in the best possible way - 'Wide Open Road', 'Bury Me Deep In Love'), long before all that they put out Treeless Plain, a record that nodded to their future but was a far more DIY sounding thing. Suffice to say, when it arrived in 1983 the record made an impact, critically if not necessarily in mainstream consciousness. Blending folk with an altogether edgier and artier guitar sound, the songwriting and structure are still commendable. Listening back now, 40 years on, the evidence is clear - here's a band we should always list among the best of Antipodean weird-pop.
c

Review: Much contemporary and so-called cosmic American music lacks true cosmic essence, appearing more as imitation than innovation. Trummors' fifth album, 5, defies this norm with refreshing originality and exquisite execution. With lyrics akin to Robert Creeley's poetry and melodies that feel timeless, songs like 'Hey Babe' captivate with fatalistic beauty. Lerner and Cunningham's harmonies, complemented by skilled musicianship, create a captivating atmosphere and subtly blend genre conventions. Despite its rapid creation amidst uncertainty, 5 exudes both weight and airiness, ancient resonance and contemporary charm. Trummors' achievement in transcending tradition with confidence and immediacy is truly remarkable.

Review: RECOMMENDED
It has been ten years since Turner and Snodgrass' first musical plan to work together. Back then, the whisky was apparently flowing as freely as the ideas, and the resulting record, Buddies, arrived to widespread acclaim. An album made with such love and comradeship you had to ask why the two weren't regular sparring partners.

A decade on and look where we bloody well are. As a result of coronavirus, Turner and Snodgrass couldn't even be in the same room as each other for the making of this, let alone stay drinking until the job is done. Nevertheless, the job is done, with a full album written in a single day, and friends like Stephen Egerton (Descendents/ALL) and Todd Beene (Lucero, Chuck Ragan, Glossary) drafted in to help. Not your average production, the result is equally unique - a heartwarming, personal, funny and often surprisingly uptempo rock 'n' roll collection-cum-talk show recording.

Review: Jeff Tweedy recorded Love Is The King in his Chicago home in April of 2020. All around him was a mixture of treasured instruments and loved ones which gave him some sense of normality at a time when the world around him was anything but. The record - a "beautifully honest ode to love and hope" - comes two years after his last and is full of warming, comforting folk and country songs with frayed edges and a live-in atmosphere. It's a record that offers musical solace and is another fine entry into Tweedy's rich discography.