Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Who doesn't like a freebie? Nice move from the Daughter of Cain label here (an imprint of Prescription Songs) they offer a free poster with this limited run of Ethel Cain's debut album. With Cain, real name Hayden Anhedonia, having kicked off 2025 with the release of her second album; her debut, which paved the way for a massive cult following that's her into a mainstream alt-pop figure, is earning renewed attention. Sonically, this is befitting to the Sad Girl Summer movement which became a craze on social media. Think Mitski, Lana Del Rey, Phoebe Bridgers, but with more of an alternative and shoegaze undercurrent. Lyrically, Anhedonia delves into her past, growing up in a staunchly religious family - and her most iconic line of any song on the album has to go to 'American Teenager': "God loves you/but not enough to save you".

Review: Singer-songwriting wrapped up in the dusty acid wash denim of Americana doesn't really get more authentic than what Bill Callahan of Silver Spring, Maryland, can deliver. His latest LP, a mass saunter through 20 tracks of smokey spoken word and lightly sung lyrics, falls upon a picturesque bevvy of humble and acoustic instrumentation. Callahan's songs croon with romance, metaphor, and folky yarns that find their place among fingerpicked guitars and light melodies that enjoy a contrast with the darker musings of Callahan's own world of experience and storytelling. It presents the artist with his first studio in some five years, and a sound that is looser than a typical Bill Callahan missive but full of melodrama that centres around life and death. Our pick, Callahan's cover of the Carter Family's "Lonesome Valley".

Review: Chapman's magnetic voice and stark storytelling create an atmosphere both intimate and politically charged on this, her 1988 self-titled debut, made famous by hit single 'Fast Car', but ultimately a far deeper affair. Songs like 'Talkin' Bout a Revolution' channel the protest spirit of folk legends like Woody Guthrie, delivering an anthem for those marginalised by economic inequality. Her blend of folk, blues and rock feels timeless, with lyrics that still moves listeners today. The haunting 'Behind the Wall', can move one to tears for its raw portrayal of domestic violence and the systemic failure of the police to intervene. Chapman's trembling contralto gives life to the repeated line 'Last night I heard the screaming', transforming it into a powerful condemnation of indifference. In contrast, 'If Not Now...' is a personal perspective, urging listeners to live and love in the present with its delicate acoustic arrangement. Chapman's storytelling is a triumph of nuance, balancing bleakness with hope. Decades later, Tracy Chapman remains a powerhouse in songwriting, deserving renewed attention. It is not just an album of its time but a work of enduring relevance, offering a poignant reminder that music can still be a catalyst for change.

Review: Living up to her establishing name as a bedroom pop artist, Clairo self-releases her third full-length album Charm. Even so, following up 2021's Sling, Charm pares back Clairo's debut and sophomore records' successive pop sounds for a liver, perhaps more earnest exploration of indie rock and chamber pop proper, building on the themes of Sling, which also dealt in themes of of maturation and impending motherhood. Notably, producer Leon Michels of the cinematic soul moniker El Michels Affair claims production credits across the bulk of the album, suggesting new collaborative horizons for the singer. A collection of warm, psychedelic songs, echoing Joni Mitchell or Joan Baez, we hear an expansion in Clairo's sound and a move towards earnest and stoic grace.

Review: A reissue of a 1995 release from Texas songwriting great Guy Clark, this one gets a new mix from original co-producer Miles Wilkinson, restoring warmth and space to ten gorgeously plainspoken tracks. Clark's delivery is unhurried and unadorned, leaning on lived-in detail and dry wit, whether on the fiddle-laced resolve of 'Stuff That Works', the aching 'The Randall Knife', or the breezy storytelling of 'Baby Took A Limo To Memphis'. Cameos from Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Emmylou Harris and Darrell Scott add gentle texture, while the arrangements remain spare and acoustic-led, grounded in Clark's dry baritone and fingerpicked guitar. A quietly luminous return to one of Americana's most humane voices.

Review: In the mid-80s, Svitlana Okhrimenko, Oleksandr Kohanovs'kyi, and Tamila Mazur, students at the Reinhold Glier Kyiv Academy of Music, formed the foundation of Cukor Bila Smert. Their blend of music and camaraderie led to the addition of Eugene Taran, who further helped shape the band's vision. Dubbed Sugar - White Death, their ironic moniker challenged media sensationalism and amidst endless musical exploration, they crafted two albums in 1988 and 1989. The band's unique "sugar calypso sound" emerged, a blend of Kohanovs'kyi's music and lyrics by Okhrimenko and Taran. A significant studio session in 1990 yielded tracks featured on the Mannered Music compilation which sparked international interest. Their journey concluded in 1993 with the release of "Selo" by Koka Records, and now some of the best bits make it onto this new collection.

Review: First released in 2018, The Light Is Leaving Us All is one of Current 93's (David Tibet's) most up-to-date explorations in sound, and is noted by the artist himself as one of his most recent favourites. An expansive collaborative cluster of entities, some human and others perhaps not, assisted Tibet in the making of this morbid neofolk opus, which, when not indulging droning guitarscapes and dulcimer twinkles, humours a spoken word and found sound palette, constructing a conniving persona that perhaps farcically laments the loss of suburban niceties (clues in the track titles like 'The Birds Are Sweetly Singing', 'The Policeman Is Dead', 'The Postman Is Singing', 'The Milkmaid Sings' and 'A Thousand Witches' portray a macabre picture of the dead underside of sleepy hometown life). When Tibet sings, he brings a knowingly resigned tone to the record, sounding almost genderless in his evocation of experience and loss of domestic innocence.