We have followed Max Holmquist’s career with some admiration, first as South of Lincoln and then Great American Desert (which we wrote about here). Holmquist is now in a band called Oquoa and they have made their album available for free. Their sound is somewhere between Water Liars and Hip Hatchet, a restrained folky rock which has darkness and grief lurking just beneath the surface. Check out ‘Cigarettes’ below.

You can download the album for free here.

A Singer of Songs – From Hello to Goodbye

Barcelona-based folkster A Singer of Songs is back with From Hello to Goodbye, another album chock full of lovely lo-fi tunes recorded in his home studio. Some tracks are delicate (‘Sand in my Shoes’), some are a little more rambunctious (such as opener ‘Another Way of Saying Hello’), and all seem to have the curious sensation of being between times, as small moments of the past are opening up in the present. Maybe it’s the use of violins, trumpets and pianos or the slightly European street music vibe on tracks like ‘I’ll Follow You’. Maybe it’s just the cartographic artwork.

A Singer of Songs is attached to the Son Canciones label, and you can buy the album now from the A Singer of Songs’ Bandcamp page.

Steve Palmer – Unblinking Sun

Steve Palmer is a “Fahey nut and guitar obsessive” who has taken lessons from American Primitivism legend Peter Lang. It is perhaps unsurprising then that Palmer makes guitar driven instrumental music that combines the finger-picking of traditional US folk with more modern sounds of drone and krautrock. The result is a collection of long, complex acoustic songs peppered with ambient and psychedelic flourishes that lend a whole jazzy improvisation feel to things.

Unblinking Sun is being released by Dying for Bad Music.

Ezkiel – A New Mask

Ezkiel is Louis Monroe from New Orleans. A New Mask is his debut release and presents four dark and cinematic folk songs which explore the themes of change and rebirth. The EP was developed almost by accident, as part of a music production class that Monroe was taking at university. Monroe himself was required to production on a singer-songwriter record, but the recording artist pulled out last minute. This forced Monroe himself to record something and A New Mask was the end result. The tracks were recorded at home and have that intimate bedroom pop vibe which I really like. Grab it now via the Ezkiel Bandcamp page.

Charlie Rayne – Wider Waters

Last but not least is Wider Waters, a brilliant album by Beirut-based Charlie Rayne. Rayne makes glorious Dylan-style folk songs which twist and turn with a remarkable lyrical flow. The focus is very much on Rayne’s passionate deliver and the stories held within, the bare bones guitars providing the perfect counterbalance. If Sweden were to stake a claim on Bob Dylan reincarnate with Kristian Mattson, then I think we have to say that Beirut now have themselves a real rival. Get it via Bandcamp.

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His new album, I Have Heard of a Land, has recently been released by Dying For Bad Music, and is a wonderful little collection of slightly weird, lo-fi old-timey americana. Only one of the tracks is original. The others follow the age-old folk tradition of reworking the classics, with C.Strøm offering his interpretation of various traditional songs. You will just have to take my word for it that it was recorded in Scandanavia rather than a wooden shack in the foothills of the Appalachians.

You can buy the album on limited edition cassette via Dying For Bad Music. The tape comes with a super cool recycled tour guide map of North America.

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