New release: Pictish Trail ‘Natural Successor’

There’s a fab­u­lous wild ener­gy about the new Pic­tish Trail sin­gle Nat­ur­al Suc­ces­sor, bring­ing its joy­ous aban­don­ment from the rugged land­scapes of the remote isle of Eigg to fes­ti­val crowds this late sum­mer and beyond. Get out there, recon­nect with your soul and dance. The stomp­ing five min­utes-long track announces itself with a steady drum­beat before…

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Mark Harrison presents new album The Road to Liberty

The Mark Har­ri­son Band have just launched their sixth album called The Road to Lib­er­ty. I met Mark at Eal­ing Blues Fes­ti­val a few years ago where I talked to him after his set. He was charm­ing and patient­ly chat­ted to a few of us for quite some time, dis­cussing the beau­ti­ful Nation­al Res­onator guitar…

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Psych artists Absolutely Free release lush single How to Paint Clouds

Toron­to trio Absolute­ly Free share their first release in sev­en years. Called How to Paint Clouds, the sin­gle is from the band’s impend­ing sec­ond stu­dio album After­touch which lands on Sep­tem­ber 14th.  Since the band’s Polaris Music Prize-nom­i­­nat­ed debut album in 2014, Absolute­ly Free have been involved with mul­ti­me­dia projects such as Gene­va Freeport EP in 2019…

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Dakota Jones share single: I Did it to Myself

Now this is just the sort of sul­try num­ber to make you long for the prop­er return of live music, an evening in an inti­mate venue, doing your stuff on the dance floor with social dis­tanc­ing noth­ing but a dis­tant mem­o­ry. The artists in ques­tion are Dako­ta Jones, a funk blues and soul out­fit making…

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Long awaited new single by W H Lung ‘Pearl in the Palm’

W H Lung have just released the first track from their high­ly antic­i­pat­ed sec­ond album, Van­i­ties, due 3rd Sep­tem­ber. Called Pearl in the Palm, the sin­gle marks a depar­ture from the Man­ches­ter band’s first album Inci­den­tal Music. When an artist you’re par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of announces a change of direc­tion there’s a bit­ter­sweet moment. Yay, new…

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Todmorden sounds: Golden Lion present Jarv Is, David Holmes

“A Love from Out­er York­shire” David Holmes Local cre­atives, inter­na­tion­al musi­cians, artists, DJs, friends and fam­i­ly of The Gold­en Lion pub and music venue in Tod­mor­den all came togeth­er to help Waka (Richard Walk­er) & Gig Mattha­nee – the landlords/promoters, raise mon­ey to help the venue’s future by launch­ing a spe­cial­ist record label vinyl series. There’s a new dou­ble A…

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Mega Bog goes “Station to Station”

The intrigu­ing and mys­ti­cal artist Erin Bir­gy, aka Mega Bog, releas­es her new album in July, called Life, and Anoth­er. Erin is an exper­i­men­tal artist, weav­ing a con­coc­tion of pri­mar­i­ly jazz, folk and ambi­ent. Her vocals have a chameleon-like qual­i­ty which she uses to great effect, at times send­ing you into a trance with soothing…

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Sylvette share new song Blanket of Dust

Man­ch­es­ter-based five-piece band Syl­vette present their new track called Blan­ket of Dust today, 21st May. And how love­ly that got a launch morn­ing play on Chris Hawkins’ ear­ly morn­ing show on BBC 6 Music. This lat­est release fea­tures ele­ments we’ve come to expect from Syl­vette but this has rather a dif­fer­ent feel. Blan­ket of Dust is…

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Dark Tropics reveal new track Keep Searching

Belfast duo Dark Trop­ics reveal the fol­low-up to their pre­vi­ous release Moroc­can Sun, in late 2020. This time round they’ve gone for a more vin­tage sound on Keep Search­ing, out May 7th. “Keep Search­ing was inspired by the vibran­cy and romance of 60’s Amer­i­can soul music,” says the band. “It’s about not want­i­ng to be left behind and…

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Pledge Psychodrama by RKB Vitesse: mystery and beauty

Pledge Psy­chodra­ma is an inter­est­ing and seduc­tive gem of a track which pulled me in with its air of mys­tery. A land­scape of dense, woozy elec­tron­i­ca grad­u­al­ly unfolds, lay­ing down a com­fort­ing wash of sound. It does­n’t sur­prise me that it popped up on Gideon Coe’s show on Radio 6 Music as it’s ide­al material…

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