Back catalogue: Folk/Americana

Review: XL boss Richard Russell's Everything Is Recorded returns with 'Porcupine Tattoo', an unexpected yet compelling collaboration with Bill Callahan and Noah Cyrus. The track, released via XL Recordings, came about during sessions at LA's infamous Chateau Marmont hotel, when Russell asked Callahan who he'd most like to write a song for. Callahan's surprising answer: Noah Cyrus. The result is a stripped-down folk tune with subtle gospel undertones, featuring Callahan's deep, pitched-down vocal layered alongside Cyrus' delicate voice. Russell's production, iminimal yet atmospheric, ihighlights the contrast between Callahan's gravelly tone and Cyrus' ethereal presence. Recorded during a rain-soaked week, the track evokes a sense of melancholy and intimacy. On Side-2 'Norm', is a tribute to comedian Norm Macdonald, featuring only Callahan. This release continues Russell's tradition of creating genre-blurring, evocative collaborations.

Review: Steve Earle's Jerry Jeff is truly poignant album. The third in a series of tributes to what the main man describes as "first-hand teachers, the heroes I was lucky enough to sit across the room from so I could listen and learn up close," in this case he's talking about Jerry Jeff Walker.

So this is a record about paying homage to those that inspired and influenced, while also presenting another fine example of why Earle himself is considered one of the contemporary greats, no doubt inspiring and influencing the next generation of folk and Americana troubadours. And by that we mean one of the finest vocalists to ever grace those canons, and a master instrumentalist to boot, capable of delivering tracks at once powerful and thick with atmosphere, yet also delicate and vulnerable. Utterly captivating, you might say.

Review: Seattle songster Chris Eckman returns with his latest album for Glitterhouse, solidifying a now well-defined solo career after his split from the indie rock band The Walkabouts. Recalled easily by the sublime valley lodge depicted on the front cover, Eckman's brief new LP, taking form as eight new indie folk laments, depicts a gruff bard's persona, documenting the recording artist's response to the long passage of time and his recent relocation from Washington to Ljubljana. As if to blur associations of tumbledown American prairie and rustic Slovenian mountainscape, we hear homebound paeans ('Genevieve') and mixed-emotive reminiscences on wild youth ('Haunted Nights').

Review: Ammar El Sherei's intoxicating instrumental album Oriental Music was written in 1976 and has remained a cult classic for all the deep diggers, world music lovers and curio obsessives. For this record, the iconic Egyptian artist, composer and producer actually served up his own take on six classic compositions by another Egyptian legend, Mohamed Abdel Wahab. The results are utterly hypnotic and majestic melodic affairs with organic drums and percussion and North African melodies that worm their way deep into your brain and transport you to the hustle and bustle of a dusty open air market or street side coffee spot.

Review: Cass Elliot, released in 1972, marked a significant moment in the career of the iconic vocalist, formerly of The Mamas & The Papas. Shedding her Mama Cass alias, Elliot embraced her real name for the first time on this album, which exudes the nostalgic glamour of 1930s Hollywood. Featuring songs by talented songwriters like Judee Sill, Bobby Darin and Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys, the album showcases Elliot's unparalleled vocal strength. Each track shows her ability to captivate listeners with her emotive delivery and soulful interpretation. This limited edition reissue on silver-colored vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve, is a fitting tribute to Elliot's enduring legacy. With only 1000 individually numbered copies available, it's a must-have for fans and collectors alike, allowing them to experience Elliot's timeless talent in a new light.

Review: Ensamble Acustico was conceived in the early 1980s by Billy Pereyra and Eduardo Roland in Blancarena, a resort on the coast of the Rio de la Plata, east of Colonia, Uruguay. In 1989, after only a few performances, the duo released their first and only album: a cassette of eight songs titled Un Exceso De Luz (An Excess Of Light), co-released by independent labels Perro Andaluz (Uruguay) and Circe (Argentina). The album was critically acclaimed and lauded as the first 'new age' project to come out of Uruguay. Yet lumping Un Exceso De Luz into that most vast and heterogenous confluence of musical genres, akin to 'world music', dismisses the alchemical breakdown of minimalism with gestures of contemporary jazz, exemplified by the shifting harmonic figures of 'En Los Campos de Colonia' ('In the Fields of Colonia'). Pereyra and Roland sound strings in tandem, forming harmonic compositions that generate unexpected resonances. Together they build a climatic character that gives the sound of Ensamble Acustico its most distinctive seal, sharing more with the aesthetics of contemporary jazz than the nebulous new age label.

Review: A third album of wonderfully intimate, idiosyncratic songwriting from multi-instrumentalist Stephen Gilchrist - formerly the Stuffy in the much loved Stuffy & The Fuses - in his Stephen EvEns guise. The name may be singular, but from the choir of voices singing the opening tune 'A Song For Europe' to the child's voice at the end of seafaring epic 'Hello Salty Salty', this is very much a community effort and feels like it, with Stephen's core collaborators Jimi Scandal (guitar) and Crompton Whesp (drums) joined by guests like former Curve/Echobelly bassist Debbie Smith, longtime Cardiacs keyboard player William D Drake and Hurtling/My Bloody Valentine guitarist and keyboard player Jen Macro. The mood palate is on just as grand a scale as the personnel list, from the Nick Drake-style acoustic guitar/strings interplay of 'Firefly' to the beefy hip-hop backbeat of 'BBQ Head & 7 Bells', a two part track, the first half dedicated to the joys of cooking in the garden, the second about paranoia and the threat of violence. Elements of psychedelia, some gorgeous analogue synth tones, a penchant for a quirky time signature and/or arrangement all add to what's already a very tasty concoction that anyone with an ear for a tenacious earworm or two will love.

Review: Since turning his hand to music production midway through the last decade, XL Recordings owner Richard Russell has delivered a couple of predictably hard to pigeonhole, guest-packed albums as Everything is Recorded. Russell, of course, has an admirably bulging contacts book and as deep a knowledge of British music - be it hip-hop, grime, rave, jazz, experimental electronica or otherwise - as anyone. The depth of both is naturally evident on third album Temporary, with Russell and a dizzying list of guests delivering atmospheric, sample-rich fusions of head-nodding, hip-hop leaning grooves, field recordings-heavy sample collages, woozy dream pop, sub-heavy nods to UK bass, slow-motion neo-folk, blunted trip-hop, contemporary UK jazz, hazy Americana and much more besides. That it works as a coherent and sonically adventurous album is testament to Russell's increasing skill as a producer and standalone musical artist.