Tag: folk

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Music

Marika Hackman – The Ground

Marika Hackman’s new album Big Sigh is described as the “hardest” record she’s ever made. It’s unclear whether that refers to the challenge or how it actually sounds; it’s definitely bolder and less hushed than some of her previous releases, but still contains plenty of sadness, reflection and catharsis, which is exactly what I’m interested in, and LP opener is a beautiful, haunting, (almost) instrumental starting point for what turns out to be the first great release of the year.

https://marikahackman.bandcamp.com/album/big-sigh-3

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Interviews Music

Interview: Nina Kinert

“These days I feel somewhat in control of what I choose to believe”

Nina Kinert released the album Romantic and the EP In Twos in 2018 and was awarded Composer of the year at the Independent Manifest gala in Sweden that same year. Her new album Religious – her first release since 2021’s Wild, Wild Geese – tells personal stories about growing up within the Pentecostal Church Community in Sweden, while simultaneously exploring her attraction to both nature and the supernatural.

Romantic was my album of the year in 2018, and still affects how I search for new music today. I’m pretty much always on the lookout for ‘the next Nina’; to discover an artist about whom I was previously unaware, but that goes on to have a huge significance in my life. So to say I was happy that she agreed to an interview is somewhat of an understatement.

Religious tells stories about you growing up in the Pentecostal Church, and also explores your attraction to spiritual mystique and the supernatural. Were these attractions you felt as a child, or did they come later?

I’ve always felt open to different possibilities, and maybe seen that as a result of my childhood within the church. As if it gave me an understanding of belief – no matter what the belief relies on. But when I was a child I thought everything needed to be categorised, divided into good or evil. That’s not how I see it now.

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Music

Nina Kinert – Marble Armour (In The Eye of My Maker)

I love Nina Kinert. Her 2018 album Romantic and In Twos EP from the same year are releases I return to frequently, but she’s been relatively quiet since then, averaging about a single a year in the intervening years. So I was very excited to get stuck into her new album Religious, which explores some of her stories about growing up within the Pentecostal Church Community in Sweden , while at the same time dealing with her “attraction to spiritual mystique and the supernatural.” As with most of her work, Marble Armour is hauntingly beautiful, and a great entry point into her often electronically inflected, folk-led musical world if she’s escaped your attention until now.

https://ninakinert.bandcamp.com/album/religious

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Music

Helena Deland – Roadflower

Taken from Helena Deland’s second album Goodnight Summerland, Roadflower is quietly stunning. Written in the aftermath of the death of Deland’s mother, many – if not all – of the songs deal with death and its aftermath, with its tone similar to recent albums by Tomberlin: mournful, but exquisitely, cathartically so.

https://helenadeland.bandcamp.com/album/goodnight-summerland

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Music

Sufjan Stevens – A Running Start

In a first (and probably last) for the blog, I’m posting this without listening to it. I’m so very hyped for the release on Javelin on Friday that I don’t want any further spoilers ahead of enjoying it in its entirety. But as a Sufjan obsessive, I couldn’t let today’s release go past unblogged. I expect it’s great: either way, I don’t want to know.

http://asthmatickitty.com

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Music

Sufjan Stevens – Will Anybody Ever Love Me

The new single from his forthcoming LP Javelin which lands next month, on which Stevens plays every instrument with additional vocals from adrienne maree brown, Hannah Cohen, and Megan Lui. I haven’t been this excited about an album for quite some time.

https://sufjanstevens.lnk.to/javelin

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Music

Anjimile – Anybody

Anjimile’s 2020 debut album Giver Taker came out of nowhere and was one of the year’s best, blending low-key folk with introspective, beautifully delivered lyrics. Three years on his latest LP The King just arrived, and although the introspection is still there, production-wise it’s a much bigger, brasher, more confident proposition. Time will tell if this lives up to the promise of its predecessor, but on the first couple of listens Anybody is a clear highlight.

https://anjimile.bandcamp.com/album/the-king

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Interviews Music

One Track Mind: Avi C. Engel

The Toronto-based artist on the spellbinding power of a 70-year-old composition.

The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!

Formerly known as Clara Engel, Avi C. Engel is a prolific and multi-faceted Toronto-based artist whose music has been described as “folk noir,” and “minimalist holy blues from another galaxy.” Their influences span genres and media, amongst them Vasko Popa, Virginia Woolf, Theodore Roethke, Jim Jarmusch, Arvo Part, Robert Johnson, Gillian Welch, and Jacques Brel. In their own words, “I’m not writing the same song over and over so much as writing one long continuous song that will end when I die”, which is about as beautifully bleak a statement as I can imagine.

Their latest album Sanguinaria marries equally poetic lyrics with sparse instrumentation, building atmospheres that move beyond ‘haunting’ into territory that is almost unbearably raw and unsettling, but with a lightness of touch and attention to detail that draws you in completely.

For their One Track Mind selection, Avi has dived back into the movie vaults to the soundtrack of a nearly 80 year old noir classic.

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Music

Sufjan Stevens – So You Are Tired

Our lord and saviour Sufjan is back with – IMO – one of his finest songs for years, So You Are Tired; the lead single from his new album Javelin, due out in October. It’s absolutely vintage Suffers, with an outro beautiful enough to rival anything he’s ever recorded. I have enormous hopes for this album, which is described as “his first in full singer-songwriter mode since Carrie & Lowell.” Fuck. Yes. I love everything about this, with the exception of the deeply hideous title font on the artwork. But I forgive him.

http://asthmatickitty.com

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Music

Julie Byrne – Lightning Comes Up From The Ground

Recorded following the death of her producer and close friend, Julie Byrne’s first album in six years The Greater Wings embraces her sorrow and attempts to find personal growth in the desolation of loss. Gently meandering from traditional folk compositions to more ambient, textural pieces, it’s an undeniably sad album, but richly, rewardingly so, for the listener as much as its creator.

https://juliembyrne.bandcamp.com/album/the-greater-wings