Hack-Poets Guild is a collaboration between three British folk artists – Lisa Knapp, Marry Waterson & Nathaniel Mann - each contributing four of the twelve reinterpretations and reworkings of traditional songs on this album. Really enjoying what I’ve heard of this so far especially the Lisa Knapp-sung Daring Highwayman which reminds me a lot of Stick in the Wheel, who I love.
The Luka State - More Than This
Indie rock in an early Arctic Monkeys style with a couple of Oasis-sounding ones and a bit of social conscience. Nothing desperately new here but it’s good stuff. My main interest in this, though, is that The Luka State are from Winsford in Cheshire like I am, and this is the first Winsford band I’ve been aware of that have broken through. This is their second album but this is the first time they’ve crossed my path.
I only realised the Winsford connection when I happened to see their tour poster and noticed that one of the destinations is… not like the others. If this band had been around in Winsford in the mid-90s, I’d have lost my shit over them.
The Gruff-less Super Furries with this EP of electro-psych.
“Chains of decayed connection and shackles of genre-expectation are audibly broken as Huw Bunford, Cian Ciarán, Dafydd Ieuan and Guto Pryce restore original Furry vision with techno-inspired, heavy-tech sound inspired by illegal rave roots, re-routing their paths as notorious scientists of sound, taking the outside lane to arrive close to where it all began for Super Furry Animals.”
Cosmic improv balladeer remaining as far out as he always is, quite a lot of tracks with collaborators this time - Moor Mother, Michael Stipe, Sharon Van Etten, Bon Iver, Rokia Kone, Jeff Parker
instrumental trio who "use the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darvish’s work to explore themes of longing and nostalgia for a distant homeland’. A bit like a much more mellow jazzy Khruangbin maybe?
