“At some very basic and intuitive level, [Will] Kennedy taps into the stuff that’s really important. Getting lost in the present, side by side with those you love.” That’s how we described ‘Bird Sanctuary’, the first single from 22° Halo‘s new album Lily of the Valley, coming this November on Tiny Library Records. The single introduced the style with experience of the natural world, but new track ‘Virtual You’ shows such feelings are not unique to the great outdoors. As the title suggests, the song delves into cyberspace and the abundant nostalgia it offers. But rather than finding melancholy in those old photographs of cherished moments now past, the song is delivered with something brighter. Wistful, yes, and not immune from a certain sense of longing, but always with an overarching gratitude that such times happened at all.

Chris Acker – Shit Surprise

“The most beautiful and poetic song about stepping in dog shit that has ever been written.” That’s how label Gar Hole Records describe Chris Acker’s ‘Shit Surprise’. The first track from upcoming album Famous Lunch, the song is an ode to the cosmic justice which so often comes attached to vanity. How those walking a little too tall will inevitably get slapped down again. Behind Acker’s trademark absurdity is the essential troubadour tale, where the confused dreamer collides with the banalities of life and comes to feel cursed for his failings. And, most importantly, the tongue-in-cheek style sacrifices none of the track’s emotional weight, positioning Acker alongside the likes of Dean Johnson as one of the most authentic and interesting practitioners of contemporary folk.

Watch the video directed and edited by Cooper Kenward with animation by Anubha Gupta below:

Famous Lunch is out on the 11th October via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it now.

Liv Greene – Katie

Described as “a reckoning with reality, a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance,” Deep Feeler is the forthcoming full-length from Nashville songwriter Liv Greene on Free Dirt Records. The product of a decision to finally embrace a truer self within her work, the album sees Greene cease attempts to bury personal truths, reframing songwriting from an escape mechanism to a kind of spotlight. Belonging to a rich lineage of songwriters going back through Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and others, the album emerges defiant in its unguardedness, finding healing within the act of revealing one’s core. New single ‘Katie’ is a great example of the style. A lesson in how learning to be oneself can lead to objective good. “This came out of a relationship that wasn’t my first queer love experience,” as Greene explains, “but it was my first time allowing it to not be a bad thing. It comes from a place of tenderness—of allowing yourself to feel those romantic feelings and really revel in them.”

Deep Feeler is out on the 18th October via Free Dirt Records and you can pre-order it now.

Lutalo – Oh Well

Last month we featured two new singles from Lutalo‘s upcoming album The Academy, coming soon via Winspear. A hint at the spectrum of moods present on the record, with ‘The Bed’ offering a bright folk sound and ‘Broken Twin’ something altogether darker. Latest track ‘Oh Well’ splits the difference between the two, marbling heavy reverb with an almost transcendent falsetto to evoke Lutalo’s teenage years in Minnesota, a time set against the backdrop of his mother’s mental health challenges. What results is a spectrum of emotions packed tightly together, where confusion and desperation sit alongside fondness, and a crushing weight is always threatening to overtake everything.

Molina – Organs

This October Danish–Chilean composer Molina will release debut full-length When you wake up via Escho, an album which looks to in some way transcend the rush of contemporary living via a committed awareness of life’s small details. Thus emerges a layered brand of dream pop which eschews the nostalgia so common for the genre in favour of a close attention to the present. Latest single ‘Organs’ sees ML Buch lend their talents to push this sound further. A song “very much a fusion of our individual approaches to perceiving melodies, recordings and sound in general,” as Molina explains. “We are both fascinated by the ‘pulse’ in music and how a song can be perceived to move at different paces. We also share a mutual attraction to catchy melodies. ML tends to unfold words with the melody in an elastic manner, while I prefer more on-the-note vocals that introduce unexpected harmonic shifts. ‘Organs’ kind of holds all those elements of fascination and exploration together.”

Sam Weber – Tamarindo Sunsets

In recent months we’ve previewed the Clear + Plain, the new album from Vancouver Island-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Sam Weber, first with the evocative ‘Oregon‘ and later the warm and relaxed ‘Void‘. “But while the languid tone might suggest a track of romance and intimacy,” we wrote of the latter, “the lyrics paint a more ambiguous picture, where mortality flashes into view with an unnerving abruptness.” With the album out now via Sonic Unyon Records, Weber is back with new single, ‘Tamarindo Sunsets’. A song about “staring into the digital abyss and being confronted with greener and greener grass,” as he explains. “Reckoning with what it means to find that beauty, peace, satisfaction in your heart.”

Clear + Plain is out now via Sonic Unyon.

Soot Sprite x Muttering – Burn The Leaves

Hot on the heels of recent single I Went Swimming / Home Among Your Bones, which we described as “a refusal to romanticise difficult relationships, a determination to learn lessons and live more healthily,” Soot Sprite are back with For Joy, a new collaborative EP with London‘s Muttering. Again released via Specialist Subject Records, the three-song release sees Elise Cook and Chaz Bush share songwriting duties, with Bush taking the reins for first single ‘Burn The Leaves’. A weighty and cathartic examination of the past inspired by J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country, drawing on the novel’s bittersweet retrospection on a time which could not last. “We all have certain anchor points that you look back on,” Bush explains. “Memories that hold significance and in difficult times often hope to rekindle. The thought of what could have been.”

This Lonesome Paradise – These Western Roads

With forthcoming album Luna Nocturna, California psych-folk outfit This Lonesome Paradise conjure a world worthy of their name, drawing the listener into a sonic environment as stark and striking as the American West of Cormac McCarthy’s oeuvre. Lead single ‘These Western Roads’ offers a path into this landscape. A dark and brooding slice of country noir which simmers with equal parts beauty and foreboding. But more than a lesson in cinematic worldbuilding, the album serves as a meditation on the American Dream with all its brutality, broken promises and betrayals. A project doomed from its very inception, destined to always be haunted by the means in which reached for its goals.

Luna Nocturna is out on the 18th October via Bad Vibes Good Friends and you can pre-order it now.

Why Bonnie – Three Big Moons

“Foregoes easy pigeonholing in terms of style, unified instead by the defiant new self-confidence which underpins it.” That’s how we described Wish On The Bone, the new full-length from Why Bonnie coming later this week on Fire Talk Records, in a preview back in June. A style fitting for the new philosophy of lead Blair Howerton, who is looking to escape preconception and expectation to embrace the freedom of constant change. Take latest single ‘Three Big Moons’, where the old Why Bonnie country twang is repurposed to tell an old story in a different way. Themes of loneliness and isolation are keystones of the genre, but here the dusty roads and full moon heartbreak are swapped out for something altogether more extraterrestrial.

I was a heavy weight
Out there in space
Took one for the team
And took a swan dive into nothing
They pinned a note to my collar
It said “we couldn’t save her”
And dropped down the american flag
Like it was a favor
Walked around a few earth hours
Until my feet got sore
Found a nice big crater
24 by 24

Wish On The Bone will be released via Fire Talk Records on 30th August and is available to pre-order via Bandcamp.

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