Tacoma, Washington songwriter Kye Alfred Hillig returns with “Our Remaining Pig,” the second single from his upcoming album The All-Night Costume Company, out March 4, 2026. The track pushes deeper into Hillig’s emotional terrain, pairing alternative-country and indie rock with a writer’s instinct for metaphor, restraint, and uncomfortable honesty. Where the album’s first single reintroduced Hillig’s voice, “Our Remaining Pig” begins to reveal the stakes.
Hillig has spent more than two decades rooted in the Puget Sound music scene, balancing songwriting with the realities of work, community, and long stretches away from the spotlight. Across nine solo albums, he’s developed a reputation for sharp melodies and lyrics that refuse to look away from difficult truths. His songs often sit at the intersection of personal reckoning and shared experience, finding meaning not in resolution, but in saying the hard thing plainly. Fans of The Jayhawks, Neil Young, Uncle Tupelo, Father John Misty, Kevin Morby, MJ Lenderman, and early Wilco will recognize the lineage, even as Hillig’s voice remains distinctly his own.
“Our Remaining Pig” takes its title and emotional core from an image that surfaced during Hillig’s time in art therapy. “I drew a man on his family farm wading across a river toward the final living pig, knowing he had to slaughter it,” Hillig explains. “You can tell he doesn’t want to do this, but sometimes the hard thing is exactly what must be done.” In the song, that image becomes a parallel for a relationship at a breaking point, a moment where avoidance only deepens the damage. “Sometimes couples just need to say the honest and painful thing,” he adds. “No one benefits from avoiding the suffering that comes with growth.”
Musically, the track unfolds with patience and weight, anchored by a vocal performance that carries some of the emotional directness and upward reach associated with early The Killers, paired with a Springsteen-like earnestness in tone and delivery. Fuzzy bass lines hold down the bottom end, giving the song a low, unsettled hum, while keys rise and fall throughout the arrangement, cutting light through the darkness without resolving it. Guitars remain measured and deliberate, letting the tension build rather than explode, until the chorus opens into something big and genuinely emotive, a release that feels hard-won rather than theatrical. The result is a song that feels expansive but grounded, willing to sit with discomfort instead of rushing past it.
Recorded at Ex Ex Studios in Seattle and produced and mixed by Johnny Nails, “Our Remaining Pig” continues to reveal the shape of The All-Night Costume Company. It’s a song about choosing honesty over comfort, about crossing a river you’d rather not enter because staying put is worse. As a second glimpse into the album, it signals a record unafraid of discomfort, and a songwriter willing to sit with it long enough for something true to emerge.
“Division” Video Still – Directed by Ora Cogan, Micah Henry & Paloma Ruiz-Hernandez.
Ora Cogan releases “Division,” the second single/video from her forthcoming album and Sacred Bones debut, Hard Hearted Woman, out March 13th. Today’s single follows “Honey,” hailed for its “sweet Lauren Canyon haze” by Don’t Rock The Inbox and as a “cool, misty folk rock tune” by The Needle Drop. On “Division,” Cogan’s voice echoes across a stark, reverberant landscape. The song builds like a flare in the night, a plea against the numbing cruelty that’s come to feel routine these days: “Please don’t listen // Don’t give into the division // Feeding your lines // In some bitter mood again.” Cogan sounds like she’s summoning something, maybe a higher power, maybe the part of herself that knows how to sit with pain long enough to transform it.
“Division” arrives alongside an old world, horror-meets-fantasy video co-directed by Cogan, Micah Henry and Paloma Ruiz-Hernandez. Commenting on the video, Cogan says: “This video was filmed in Lilloet. There are three beings in this realm. The Human, The Oracle and The Demon. The Human is wrestling internally in a lonely world. They seek liberation from the torment inside. The Demon is the embodiment of the worst inclinations of the human. The oracle is the storyteller, urging the human to find understanding, to find a way through the internal battle.”
Ora Cogan’s music is alchemical: part instinct, part ritual, and always conjured from the edges where life feels sharpest. With Hard Hearted Woman, she mixes haunted folk, psych rock, and a shadowy strain of country, building a realm where catharsis feels lush, mysterious and vital. Shaken by the tenor of modern life, Cogan pulled in a circle of kindred musicians and made a record shaped by someone who has looked into the abyss and decided, again and again, to choose curiosity.
Hard Hearted Woman grew out of a blur of cold-water plunges, long river swims, late-night ruminations with friends on art and politics, and long drives through the rural Lillooet landscape to visit her godmother. Alongside her band and guests from both the country and experimental worlds, she recorded with David Parry (Loving) at Dream Club in Victoria, B.C., as well as in her studio in Nanaimo, and remotely with Tom Deis. The result glows like something pulled from smoke and seawater — intimate, shimmering, and carved with wit as much as grief. It’s a swirling, jewel-toned ode to all the angels and the demons.
A work of devotion to mystery, to community, and to the strange power of making art in a fractured world, Hard Hearted Woman is a record about hardness and resilience; it’s the shell we grow so our most human, breakable selves can survive. Hard Hearted Woman is for anyone trying to stay open, even when the world makes that feel impossible.
Ora Cogan Tour Dates: Fri. March 13 – Vancouver, BC @ The Pearl (Album Release Show) Thu. March 19 – Brighton, UK @ The Hope & Ruin Fri. March 20 – Oxford, UK @ The Nest Sat. March 21 – Manchester, UK @ Yes Pink Room Sun. March 22 – Newcastle, UK @ The Lubber Fiend Tue. March 24 – Edinburgh, UK @ Sneaky Pete’s Wed. March 25 – Glasgow, UK @ Room 2 Fri. March 27 – Galway, IE @ Roisin Dubh Sat. March 28 – Dublin, IE @ Whelans Sun. March 29 – Cork, IE @ Wavelength at Cyprus Avenue Wed. April 1 – Sheffield, UK @ Sidney & Matilda Thu. April 2 – Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade Fri. April 3 – London, UK @ Dingwalls
Dorthia Cottrell said that the title of her solo album Death Folk Country is a way to name “the world inside me.” You can guess from the album’s cover, an image of her as a vampire / werewolf / demoness / ghost, that this world is a dark place that hides and holds beauty and mystery.
After a soft instrumental opener, “Death Is the Punishment for Love,” “Harvester” curls into the room like fog that takes feminine shapes around you and threatens / entices you to stay in it forever. “Black Canyon” has Cottrell examining deep places within all of us, whether we want to admit they exist or not. They’ll emerge sooner or later “like a lover come back from the war.” The song is just her voice, an acoustic guitar, soft, rolling cymbals, and organ tones that sound like wind moving through a haunted house that eventually turns into birdsong.
“Family Annihilator” is the longest track on the album at nearly seven minutes. Cottrell sings, her voice echoing, about loss and the strength needed to continue moving forward through (and with) grief. The vocal effect of Cottrell’s voice being both lead and backing vocals (often in slightly different keys) is used throughout the record to great effect, making her sound like her physical and astral self are singing about the same thing from both earthly and cosmic perspectives.
“Effigy at the Gates of Ur” sounds like a lullaby. “Midnight Boy” brings in spaghetti western guitars and might be a love song about a back door man (to use an old blues term) or a love affair with a vampire (“If heaven could see what he’s doing to me, I’d be running like the devil in a cemetery.”). “Hell in My Water” combines violin tones with deep acoustic guitar sounds to create something that feels a bit menacing but you can’t help exploring it.
“Take Up Serpents” refers to a verse in the Bible declaring that one filled with the Holy Spirit could handle serpents without fear, and Cottrell seems to wonder if she’d ever be brave enough to seek such faith and strength. “For Alicia” is a lovely track about someone who’s going through pain and only wants someone else to carry that cross for a while. “Eat What I Kill” is just Cottrell’s haunting voice and acoustic guitar, but they’re enough to wallop you as she asks, “Are you saying my name like a curse?” and wonders if she’ll be lost forever after losing love yet again. “Of earthly pleasures, you can have your fill. I only want to eat the things that I kill,” she says. Damn. She’s not playing.
The album is bookended with “Death Is the Reward for Love,” and it’s a send-off of brighter synths and uplifting (yet still spooky) vocal effects to remind us that the amount of grief we have for love lost is equal to the amount of love we had.
It sounds simple to call this record “haunting,” but it is. It gets into you and lingers in your chest.
Lonnie Holley is singer, songwriter, artist, educator, and poet…and, surprisingly to me, a trip hop artist. I knew that his new album, Tonky (named after his nickname from growing up in and around honkytonks), would be full of gripping tales from his life and views on the current American landscape. I didn’t expect it to be layered with found sounds, electric beats, and trip hop touches.
The opening track, “Seeds,” is the longest at over nine minutes and has Holly telling about how fields he worked as a child until he was exhausted or often beaten so bad he couldn’t sleep. The string instruments strum out growing tension while simple synth chords are like the hums of spectres watching from the other side of the veil. “Life” is a short poem of hope with Holley encouraging us to use small actions to grow big change.
“Protest with Love” is the most punk rock song I’ve heard in a long while, and it’s wrapped in a lush trip hop track. “If you’re gonna protest, protest with love…Let love do its thing,” Holly advises. Loving thy neighbor, heck, just being nice, is one of the most rebellious acts you can do in 2025. In the jazz and post-funk (Is that a thing?)-inspired “The Burden,” Holley tells us all that it’s on us to remember those who came before and how we need to honor them (“The burden is like a spell that’s been cast upon you. Burdens of our ancestors to unravel and clarify in history.”).
“Let those who have ears, let them hear…We might not have it all together, but together we have it all,” Holley preaches in the beginning of “The Stars” — a powerful track about how people brought over on slave ships saw the same stars we now see, but how much have we progressed since then? The included rap by Open Mike Eagle is so slick it might drop you to the floor.
Holley makes sure you’re paying attention on the growling (and slightly funky) “We Were Kings in the Jungle, Slaves in the Field.” “Strength of a Song” has some of Holley’s strongest vocals on the record as he sings about finding hope and power in music. Near-industrial drums make “What’s Going On” sound like a roaring muscle car engine. “I Looked Over My Shoulder” is psychedelic jazz mixed with dark-wave synths.
“Wait a minute…” Holley says at the beginning of “Did I Do Enough?” Good heavens, haven’t we all thought that at some point — especially if you’ve been through a tragedy, or someone close to you has? The song is just Holley’s heartfelt vocals above ambient synths that build to gospel-like grandeur and it’s a stunner. “That’s Not Art, That’s Not Music” has Holley firing back the criticisms aimed at black music and culture upon their detractors.
The album ends with the hopeful “A Change Is Gonna Come,” but Holley asks, “Are we ready for something to happen?” One has to recognize the signs, when to stand up, and when to take flight. We have to be willing to accept change from divisiveness to inclusion. “How can I love God without loving you?” a woman asks not only herself, but also all of us. It’s the main message Holley wants to convey, and one we all must hear.
This is already one of the best albums of the year.
Kevin Morby and The Salvation Choir are proud to present “This Is A Photograph (The Salvation Choir Version),” a new reimagining of the title track from Morby’s acclaimed 2022 album. The Salvation Choir is a Congolese rumba choir from Congo and Tanzania based in Kevin’s hometown of Kansas City. “This Is A Photograph (The Salvation Choir Version)” is a stirring iteration of Morby’s original, and is presented alongside a new website on which others can access stems, instrumentals, tutorials and templates so they can make their own family history epics. Kevin Morby elaborates:
At some point last year, a few of you reached out with the request of getting the music to my song “This Is A Photograph” so you could make your own version and tell your own family’s history. I found this incredibly interesting and had never gotten such requests about any of my other songs before. I have decided to heed the call of those few who reached out and I have made a website
In celebration of this website, and to lead with an example, I reached out to one of my favorite bands, Kansas City’s own The Salvation Choir, to see if they would want to make their own version of ‘This Is A Photograph’ and was over the moon when they agreed. They created their own version in which they reinterpreted the music in their Congolese Rumba style and reworked the lyrics to their own story and sang in both English and Swahili to provide the listener with a window into their past.
Pelo King Wilondja, The Salvation Choir’s 15-year-old drummer, states: “We met Kevin at one of our practices. I didn’t know who he was at first but then our friend played us his music and I started really liking his songs. Now he’s in my top ten. He invited us to his concert and I was actually sweating because it was so good. Kevin asked us if we wanted to remake his song to be about our family’s history and play it in our style. It was my first time recording drums in a real studio. We loved his idea because photographs are really important to our family and we’re always playing music together. There are over 20 members in the choir and everyone has their own story. The song starts out in Africa and it ends in Kansas City where we all live now. It’s about our family’s history and how we got here.”
This month will also see the release of More Photographs (A Continuum), Morby’s companion piece to last year’s This Is A Photograph. Here, Morby returns to his landmark album’s bottomless themes with new wisdom, new imagination, and the winking, looping callbacks that tie his full body of work together in uniquely special ways. “With every collection of songs,” says Morby, “I feel I have to cast them out of me before moving onto the next project, and here I knew that what I had begun with This Is A Photograph was not finished. Releasing this collection is me tying a bow on that time and place in my creative life.” With a luxurious nine tracks – three re-imaginings and six brand new songs – More Photographs (A Continuum) is prequel, sequel and primer to an already rich and generous record from one of our most luminous modern songwriters. More Photographs (A Continuum) will be available on vinyl in the fall and is available to pre-order now.
KEVIN MORBY TOUR DATES (NEW DATES IN BOLD) Fri. June 2 – Aarhus, DK @ Northside Festival Sat. June 3 – Malmö, SW @ Plan B Mon. June 5 – Manchester, UK @ New Century Tue. June 6 – Bristol, UK @ SWX Wed. June 7 – London, UK @ Roundhouse Fri. June 9 – Gent, BE @ Vooruit Fri. June 9 – Sun. June 11 – Hilvarenbeek, NL @ Best Kept Secret Mon. June 12 – Zurich, CH @ Dynamo Saal Tue. June 13 – Milan, IT @ Giardino Della Triennale Wed. June 14 – Ferrara, IT @ Ferrara Sotto Le Stelle Thur. June 15 – Munich, DE @ Strom Fri. June 16 – Sun. Jun 18 – Vilnius, LI @ 8 Festival Fri. June 16 – Dresden, DE @ Beatpol Mon. June 19 – Warsaw, PL @ Proxima Tue. June 20 – Poznan, PL @ Tama Wed. June 21 – Berlin, DE @ Columbia Theater Fri. June 23 – Vienna, AU @ Akzent Sat. June 24 – Krakow, PL @ Kwadrat Sun. June 25 – Budapest, HU @ Akvárium Klub Tue. June 27 – Ljubljana, SL @ Kino Siska Wed. June 28 – Geneva, CH @ Usine Fri. June 30 – Paris, FR @ Days Off Festival Sat. July 1 – Petit Couronne, FR @ Theatre de Verdure Sun. July 2 – La Rochelle, FR @ La Sirene Mon. July 3 – Toulouse, FR @ Le Bikini Wed. July 5 – Lisboa, PT @ LAV Thur. July 6 – Porto, PT @ Hard Club Fri. July 7 – Madrid, ES @ Mad Cool Festival Sat. July 8 – Six-Fours-les-Plages, FR @ Pointu Festival Aug. 25- Aug. 27 – Tisbury, MA @ Beach Road Weekend Sun. Aug. 27 – Rockville Centre, NY @ Madison Theatre at Molloy University Wed. Sep. 27 – Auckland, NZ @ Hollywood Avondale Thur. Sep. 28 – Wellington, NZ @ Meow Sat. Sep. 30 – Sydney, AUS @ Factory Theatre Sun. Oct. 1 – Sapphire Coast, AUS @ Wanderer Festival Tue. Oct. 3 – Melbourne, AUS @ Northcote Theatre Thur. Oct. 5 – Eltham, AUS @ Eltham Hotel Fri. Oct. 6 – Brisbane, AUS @ Princess Theatre Sat. Oct. 7 – Adelaide, AUS @ Summertown Studio Sun. Oct. 8 – Perth, AUS @ The Rechabite Sat. Dec. 2 – Riviera Maya, MX @ Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky
Charlotte Cornfield presents her new single/video, “Gentle Like The Drugs,” from her forthcoming album, Could Have Done Anything, out this Friday, May 12 on Polyvinyl/Double Double Whammy. “Gentle Like the Drugs” draws on imagery from a spring tour in the American west. “I wrote this song after a particularly special and memorable tour opening for Pedro the Lion in the west of the US. Something strong clicked on that tour, and I was experiencing joy on the road in a way I really hadn’t before, feeling fully present and just revelling in the company of my bandmates and taking in the spectacular landscape in a way that felt like a deep breath.” Cornfield says, “I had never really been to the desert before, to Southern Utah and Arizona, and I was very moved by it. This is a drifting summer song to me, about letting grief and anxiety go and feeling light and buzzed and in love and joyful.”
You can hear it in the patient pleasure of these chords, or the way Cornfield narrates her first impressions of Arizona: “I watch the colors get real / the pink and the teal / I see a dust devil / I see an elevator.” Like riding across the desert with your friends; like smoking a joint at the end of a long day; but the song’s alternating verses orient themselves towards another sensation, too: that feeling of being home, and happy, when your lover’s not around. Not because they’re gone, but because you know they will return.
“Gentle Like The Drugs” is presented alongside a transportive video directed by Ali Vanderkruyk. Of the video, Vanderkruyk adds: “The video is a 16mm travelogue following the hand of a wanderer writing postcards to a loved one back home. Each vignette acts as vessel for the lyrics for the song, acknowledging the beauty of home while observing the unfamiliar. We see the kitsch in chosen images for a postcard, as well as the ways one can personalize an object that is available to the masses.”
Could Have Done Anything, the follow-up to Cornfield’s break-out hit Highs in the Minuses, is a testament to this uncommon life and all its possibilities, an acknowledgment that the best musicians can turn fleeting moments into timeless songs. Throughout, Cornfield tried to channel the energy of her favorite classic records, from Tapestry to Blood On The Tracks to Car Wheels On A Gravel Road — albums where the listener is simply carried by the songs and the playing.
Whereas Cornfield’s preceding albums were made in familiar settings, with troupes of friends, this time she reached into the unknown, contacting producer Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman). The two convened in Upstate New York, first at the stained-glass-tinted Dreamland Recording Studios, then at the nearby Isokon Studio, run by engineer D. James Goodwin (Kevin Morby, Whitney) and assistant engineer Gillian Pelkonen. Four people, one album, six days; Kaufman and Cornfield (who went to school for jazz drums) played every instrument themselves, from ringing guitars to cozy piano, Hammond B3, pedal steel and synthesizers. That was the spirit of this record: connection, possibility, acceptance. “Don’t be afraid to take a left,” Kaufman would say.
After six days of recording, Cornfield went back to Canada, with a new album to mix and master. Another day-long drive; another homecoming; and one more thing, too, which would arise a little over nine months later: the singer’s first baby, who was born in mid-April. Anything can happen. Every year’s a kind of coming-of-age, and over these nine magnetic tracks, Cornfield begins yet another chapter as a mother.
CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD TOUR DATES Thu. July 6 – Sun. July 9 – Winnipeg, MB @ Winnipeg Folk Fest Fri. July 21 – Sun. July 23 – Nelsonville, OH @ Nelsonville Music Festival Thu. Aug. 31 – Sun. Sept. 3 – Dorset, UK @ End of the Road Festival Thu. Sept. 28 – Montreal, QC @ Rialto Rooftop – Pop Montreal
Dorthia Cottrell envisions her music as both a document of love and a reconciliation with death. On her new album, Death Folk Country, Cottrell wards off death through creation – the most distilled form of love. The spirit of love passed on through her words will be the ultimate reward for earthly suffering. Cottrell’s enigmatic presence guides listeners down a path of introspection – Death Folk Country‘s massive scope touches upon tales of love, loss, and so much more.
Cottrell was raised in rural King George, Virginia, a town with less than 5,000 inhabitants. Forests and tall-grass fields stretched before her. Beauty and boredom soared. That vague melancholy and memory of the American South is smudged all over Cottrell’s music. Cottrell grew up a goth, an outcast in a small town – a time and place she revisits throughout Death Folk Country.
“This album to me is about painting a picture of a place where my heart lives,” Cottrell explains. The title Death Folk Country is partly me describing a genre that fits the sound – but it’s also meant to be taken as a Naming, a coronation of the world inside me. Death Folk Country is the music and also the land where the music takes place, and the two have always been inextricable from each other.”
The album’s lead single “Family Annihilator” directly speaks to the unease and tension of Cottrell’s surroundings. “Porch lights keep the demons at bay,” she sings over crashing cymbals and a field recording of birds. “I had never played it before, I kind of brought it out of the attic,” Cottrell says of the song. Despite being over a decade old, “Family Annihilator” spoke to the moment she was in. With the threat of another four years of conservative offices in power, Cottrell thought of family back in the South who would be voting, and remembered something her grandfather, a farmer, had told her years ago: “If a crop is diseased, you have to burn the whole crop.” “‘Family Annihilator’ is a result of me wondering if the whole field must burn today, to save the flowers of tomorrow,” Cottrell says.
Elsewhere, the sounds of Cottrell’s childhood can be heard all over the album, and no more so than on “Harvester” and “Black Canyon” – tracks decorated with chimes and monk’s bells; what Cottrell would have heard when sat out on her front porch in King George. These are sounds of nature longing. These are sounds Cottrell associates with both her upbringing and also the world of Death Folk Country.
Cottrell’s voice, a quavering alto, fills the emptiest of canyons. Singing in echoing harmony with itself, her voice is a kind of prophecy, bringing home to the present thoughts and realizations from the future, even as Cottrell buries herself in remembrance of the past.
“I grew up deep in a Virginia Pine forest in a house built entirely by my grandpa,” Cottrell recalls. “The only type of door I knew was made of plywood and had a hook instead of a knob. We were excited to have our washing machine and dryer on the porch so we didn’t have to hang clothes up to dry in the winter. Our heat came from burning wood. If you didn’t cut the wood you didn’t get warm. If you didn’t make a specific effort for something, you went without it. And I loved it. I still love it. The smell, the air, the way it looks, the way it sounds. The way it doesn’t sound. The feeling.”
Death Folk Country takes these nostalgic ideas of “home” and confronts them with their own imperfections and darkness.
“There are things I don’t love about it too. Dark things. Misguided ideas. Fear of things not understood. An altogether monstrous and violent evil that seeps unsuspecting and aloof (seemingly) into even the most (seemingly) innocent conversation. As I grow older, the things I love and hate about it only become more and more vivid and I often think about how to keep the two worlds apart–how to separate the divine from the evil and if it’s even possible.”
Death Folk Country sees its release April 21 via Relapse Records, her first for the label and follow up to her highly acclaimed, 2015 S/T solo debut. All songs on Death Folk Country were written / played by Dorthia Cottrell and recorded / produced by Jon K. and Cottrell at SANS Studios in Richmond, Virginia.
Today Snow Ghosts return with their fourth album, ‘The Fell’, due for release on February 24th through Houndstooth.
‘The Fell’ sees the trio of Hannah Cartwright (Augustus Ghost, Masakichi), Ross Tones (Throwing Snow) and Oli Knowles (The Keep, Sex Swing) return with a collection of old folk songs that were never written – an album that conjures images of animals and ancient tales experienced within a future landscape. Ancestral marks imprint the endless terrain of ‘The Fell’ and their songlines still sing.
Today they share the album’s first single and accompanying visual, entitled “Curse” – a violent storm of wrath; a song that explores the folklore of shapeshifting women and highlights historic misogyny that still exists.
Vocalist Hannah Cartwright comments: “Curse reflects the folkloric trope of witch to hare metamorphosis. It is the furious revenge of the hunted hare, exacted upon her tormentor.”
A seed of an idea was planted in 2015 during a conversation between vocalist Hannah Cartwright and fellow founder Ross Tones about his home in Weardale. The trio, completed by Oli Knowles, have had three releases since that time, giving the album time to slowly grow its roots deep into their creative subconscious.
“The concept of The Fell as a living thing was there from the beginning” explains Ross. “That imagery provided the overarching environment” Hannah continues, “which then left us encompassed by human, floral, faunal, mythological, folkloric and magical elements to explore as and when we approached each piece. It was a chance to completely immerse ourselves in another world, its history and perception through other inhabitants.”
‘The Fell’ is also a liminal or ‘thin’ place. Bog land preserves organic remains, like time capsules, a quality that made it a special place to prehistoric people. These relics serve as starting points for new stories and songs. Folk tales talk of the metamorphosis of animals into people and back again which talks to a deep rooted ambiguity of where people begin and the land ends.
“The moorland fell looks beautiful, wild and desolate.” Ross continues. “From certain places you can look in all directions and see no obvious signs of humanity. Yet it’s a completely man made landscape. We used it as a multilayered metaphor, containing stories of the interaction between humans and nature which express themselves in folklore.”
The arrangement too is multilayered in its approach. 2019’s colossal ‘A Quiet Ritual’ contained a score for a full orchestra and the ancient Carnyx. ‘The Fell’s’ instrumental arsenal consists of esraj, dulcimer, daf and bodhrán drums, violin, guitars, and a variety of synthesisers. Whilst equally vast, immersive and other-worldly, these tools are used to create intimate, personal stories. Sharing a mutual influence of the shadowy elements of folklore and the heavier side of experimental noise, a disparate array of reference points and this extensive collection of instruments combines to form Snow Ghosts’ bewitching and often intoxicating sound.
On ‘The Fell’, they return for a captivating new album where ancient folk motifs intermingle with dark electronics, violins and primordial imagery to create an album of vast contrasts – heavy, yet flowing; electronic yet organic; modern yet steeped in nature and history.
‘The Fell’ will be released on February 24th via Houndstooth. Pre-order/pre-save links here.
‘The Fell’ track list: 1. Given 2. Hearths 3. Filaments 4. Curse – Visualiser 5. Buried 6. Hawthorn 7. Avine 8. Prophecies 9. Home 10. Magpie 11. Vixen 12. Taken
Today, UK-born and now New York-based artist Fenne Lily announces Big Picture, her new album out April 14th on Dead Oceans, and presents its lead single/video, “Lights Light Up.” She also announces a month-plus North American co-headlinetour with Christian Lee Hutson, as well as a UK and EU run, on sale this Friday, January 20th at 10am local time. A gorgeous and gripping portrait of Fenne’s last two years, Big Picture was pieced together in an effort to self-soothe and offers a brilliant catharsis. Tracked live in co-producer Brad Cook’s North Carolina studio, the album delineates the phases of love and becomes a map of comfort vs. claustrophobia. “Writing this album was my attempt at bringing some kind of order to the disaster that was 2020,” Fenne states. “By documenting the most vulnerable parts of that time, I felt like I reclaimed some kind of autonomy.” This collision of repose and harsh reality is laid bare in Big Picture’s lead single “Lights Light Up,” a prophetic and insightful account of love at its temporary best. Written partially as a conversation, it tracks the tender details of a burgeoning relationship and recognizes the transitory nature of any shared thing; the bittersweet truth that you can only walk hand in hand with someone as long as you’re going in the same direction. With delicately interwoven guitar lines, propulsive rhythm and a chorus that offers the feeling of a voicemail left by someone from your past, it feels at once deeply personal and universal (“and you said so do you ever wanna leave here / and I said well that depends on the day / and you said oh do you even wanna be here / and I said well that depends on the way”)
“I’d never really written about love in the present tense before this, but even though I was still in love and not thinking about the end, there was something else going on subconsciously that led to a song about moving on before the moving on had begun,” comments Fenne. “When it came time to record, the band and I had been playing it live for a while and it’d become something joyful and positive, but when I started recording vocals, the lyrics made me cry. By that point the song was over a year old and I thought those wounds had healed but I guess it hurt to admit I’d been letting go of something while still trying to hold on.” The song’s accompanying video, shot throughout Brooklyn, was directed by Haoyan of America.
Though its creation took place amid personal and global turmoil, the ruminative yet candid Big Picture is Fenne’s most cohesive, resolute work to date, both lyrically and sonically. “This isn’t a sad album — it’s about as uplifting as my way of doing things will allow,” she says. “These songs explore worry and doubt and letting go, but those themes are framed brightly.” With confidence and quiet strength, each track provides insight into Fenne’s ever-changing view of love and, ultimately, its redefinition — love as a process, not something to be lost and found. Notably, these 10 songs are Fenne’s first and only to have been written over the course of a relationship; 2018’s On Hold and 2020’s BREACH both confront the pain of retrospection, saying goodbye to a love that’s gone. Big Picture does the exact opposite — rooted firmly in the present, it traces the narrative of two people trying their hardest not to implode, together. After writing Big Picture in the solitude of her Bristol flat, Fenne consciously aimed to make the recording process her most collaborative thus far. Co-producing with Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby, Snail Mail) at his Durham studio, Fenne’s core intention was to make something that sonically reflected the kind of compact space the songs were written in; something warm, honest and comforting. Alongside Fenne’s touring band, the album features Christian Lee Hutson (guitar), Katy Kirby (vocals), and was mixed by Melina Duterte of Jay Som. Big Picture’s cover art, constructed on a miniature scale by the artist Thomas Doyle, shows the collapse of a home confined within a bell jar and features several inch-high models of Fenne in various places throughout. This physical representation of a self-contained disaster is a reminder that we are small in the grand scheme of things which, for Fenne, is a relief: “We only really know the one world we find ourselves in at any given time” Fenne expands. “It’s only when that world changes or collapses that we realize there are other narratives available — that we’ve known only one of many possible ways to exist.”
Pre-order Big Picture Big Picture Tracklist: 1. Map of Japan 2. Dawncolored Horse 3. Lights Light Up 4. 2+2 5. Superglued 6. Henry 7. Pick 8. In My Own Time 9. Red Deer Day 10. Half Finished Fenne Lily Tour Dates: Sat. Apr. 15 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club Sun. Apr. 16 – Dublin, IE @ Workman’s Club Tue. Apr. 18 – Glasgow, UK @ St Luke’s Wed. Apr. 19 – Manchester, UK @ YES Thu. Apr. 20 – London, UK @ Islington Assembly Hall Fri. Apr. 21 – Bristol, UK @ Trinity Sun. Apr. 23 – Brighton, UK @ Patterns Mon. Apr. 24 – Brussels, BE @ AB Club Tue. Apr. 25 – Amsterdam, NL @ Bitterzoet Thu. Apr. 27 – Hamburg, DE @ Nochtspeicher Fri. Apr. 28 – Copenhagen, DK @ VEGA Ideal Bar Sat. Apr. 29 – Berlin, DE @ Frannz Mon. May 1 – Munich, DE @ Ampere Tue. May 2 – Cologne, DE @ Stadtgarten Wed. May 3 – Paris, FR @ FMR Thu. May 11 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room * Fri. May 12 – Felton, CA @ Felton Music Hall * Sat. May 13 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall * Mon. May 15 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos * Tue. May 16 – Portland, Oregon @ Aladdin Theater * Wed. May 17 – Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre * Fri. May 19 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court * Sat. May 20 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater * Mon. May 22 – Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck * Tue. May 23 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line * Wed. May 24- Milwaukee, WI @ Back Room at Colectivo Coffee * Thu. May 25 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall * Fri. May 26 – Kalamazoo, MI @ Bell’s Eccentric Cafe * Sat. May 27 – Toronto, ON @ The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern * Tue. May 30 – Portsmouth, NH @ 3S Artspace * Wed. May 31 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair * Fri. Jun. 2 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg * Sat. Jun. 3 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer * Sun. Jun. 4 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat * Mon. Jun. 5 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall * Tue. Jun. 6 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West * Wed. Jun. 7 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East * Fri. Jun. 9 – Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic Lounge * Sat. Jun. 10 – Fort Worth, TX @ Tulips * Sun. Jun. 11 – Austin, TX @ The Parish * Tue. Jun. 13 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf * Thu. Jun. 15 – Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge * Fri. Jun. 16 – West Hollywood, CA @ Troubadour * * = co-headline with Christian Lee Hutson
Today, Medicine Singers release their self-titled debut album on Stone Tapes/ Joyful Noise, and present the video for “Hawk Song.” Medicine Singersis a genre-smashing kaleidoscope of sound firmly rooted in the intense physical power of the powwow drum, and is the inaugural release on the new Joyful Noise imprint, Stone Tapes. “Hawk Song,” written by band member Ray Two Hawks Watson, is a modern powwow favorite which infuses the Eastern Algonquin tradition with a rock edge. “The guitar turned it into a rock song,” says bandleader Daryl Black Eagle Jamieson. “The two styles mesh together so well, it’s like a fireball taking off, and you can see it in the audience when we play it live.” With hand-held footage of the band performing “Hawk Song,” the accompanying music video – directed by Roy andGigi Ben Artzi – captures a propulsivity that extends across Medicine Singers’ 10 tracks.
The creation of Stone Tapes was inspired in part by Jamieson’s work as an artist and activist, and to make a space for traditional musicians to collaborate with other experimental artists. One dollar from each Stone Tapes album sale will go toward a charity of the artist’s choice. For Medicine Singers, the funds will go to Jamieson’s organization Pocasset Pocanoket Land Trust. “We’re buying back all the land from the original Pocasset purchase – that the colonists took from us. What we are trying to do is preserve the pristine land…Keep it from being built on…Bring it back to our people to have a place to go. Because here in the Northeast most of the land has been taken and built upon, and it’s so expensive that Indian people cannot even afford it,” said Jamieson.
Medicine Singers expands on years of collaboration following a spontaneous 2017 performance by Eastern Algonquin powwow group Eastern Medicine Singers and Monotonix guitarist Yonatan Gat. Bridging multiple dimensions of sound, Medicine Singers expanded into a remarkable supergroup that also includes ambient music pioneer Laraaji, Thor Harris and Christopher Pravdica of Swans, no wave icon Ikue Mori, and rising jazz trumpet star jaimie branch, who also painted the album cover. Alongside producer Ryan Olson (of Gayngs), Medicine Singers’ debut album combines traditional powwow music with elements of psychedelic punk, spiritual jazz, and electronics in a stunning blend.
“I look at it like this, everybody is my brother and sister, no matter where they come from,” Jamieson reflects. “If their culture or music is different, I want to learn about it, and I want to play with them. I think it’s our responsibility as artists to show the world that life is not about war and hate. Life is about music, peace, and culture. We need to communicate with people of different cultures and backgrounds. We need to show people how we can work together and make something beautiful.”
