New music

Dry The River have been described as 'folky gospel music played by a post-punk band.' Their second album, Alarms in the Heart, was released through Transgressive Records on Monday:

'Produced by Charlie Hugall (Florence and The Machine, Ed Sheeran), Paul Savage (Mogwai, Franz Ferdinand) and Peter Miles (We Are The Ocean, Futures, The King Blues) and with arrangements and strings from Valgeir Sigurosson (Sigur Ros, Bjork), the resulting 10-track album is bold, expansive, confident and cohesive - an undeniable step up in both diversity and volume from their critically acclaimed debut, Shallow Bed (March 2012).

The first track from the album to be unveiled, Gethsemane, uncovers the spiritual heart of the record, delivering a Buckley-esque narrative: "Excavating down you'd find the drowning and the drowned /And then there's us, babe."'

Swimmin’ Time, the new album from Shovels & Rope, came out on August 26th: 'Thrilling music rooted in old country with touches of blues and gospel, that can’t help but remind you of Jack and Meg and Johnny and June.' The first Shovels & Rope album, O’ Be Joyful, is 'a delightful combination of knee-slapping, bordering-on-gospel folk tracks and bluesy guitar-driven rock.' Husband and wife team, Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst, both have solo careers, while Trent is also lead singer of The Films.

MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger says of their latest album, 'Lateness of Dancers', 'I'm interested in our thresholds, and how we convince ourselves to surpass them. Lateness is an album that continues my search for a spiritual home and a position on faith, and reckons with what our obligations are to others and to ourselves" ('Uncut', October 2014).

Ed Ochs wrote of Bob Carpenter, whose sole album Silent Passage, has been re-released: 'Bob was a prophet. His songs are meditations. Certainly he wrote his songs but they were given to him. His music came from the source, in his case a spiritual teacher who gave him a most unusual gift: the vision and the voice to express the inexpressible. He was just a regular guy until he opened his mouth and began to sing. Then, oh Lordy! There was no place to hide, nowhere to go, nothing to do but close your eyes and fly away!' Carpenter died in 1995 and 'the last decade of his life was spent in religious devotion.' 'He joined a Buddhist monastery shortly before his death.'

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Dry The River - Gethsemene.

Music update

The first single from the album ... “Now” ... shows that Paramore is back in full force. "It just feels like the perfect way to start this new journey we are embarking on not only as a band but as a movement," the band wrote. "To show people that you can lose battles but come back and win full-on wars. You can rise from ashes. You can make something out of even less than nothing. The only thing you have to do is keep moving forward."

"My grappling with spirituality is … I’m not a church going person. Any first year divinity student could debate circles around me with religion. But I’m not talking about religion, I’m talking about spirituality. It’s important to me to try and understand what my perspective is on a higher power, and to understand what role that sort of belief might play in my life. It’s critical to me to think about this stuff – a lot." (M. C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger)

The Relatives’ sound bridges the gap between traditional Gospel, Soul and Psychedelia. In the early 1970’s, they recorded three obscure singles and a previously unreleased session—all of which are compiled on the acclaimed 2009 anthology, Don’t Let Me Fall. The release of the anthology brought The Relatives back together as a band, planting the seeds for their 2013 Yep Roc release, The Electric Word, which was recorded and produced by Jim Eno of Spoon.

Ricky Ross will be releasing a new solo album ‘Trouble Came Looking’ in April and touring Scotland, Wales and England in April – May to support it. Ricky began writing ‘Trouble Came Looking’ as the wheels started to fall off the economy. It’s a modern Celtic folk album about the helplessness we all felt as governments signed off billions to protect the banks and institutions, and then sat back and watched as normal people lost everything.

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Hiss Golden Messenger - I've Got A Name For The Newborn Child.