Further Listening:

5. America Is Anywhere Nan Macmillan Wants It To Be

Nan Macmillan is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, based, like so many of my favourite musicians recently, out of Brooklyn. Originally from Charlottesville, Virginia, Nan first appeared in 2020 with the EP, August and the In Between, before recently returning with her new single, From Both Eyes. That was the title track from her debut album, which will arrive next March, and was made in collaboration with the acclaimed producer, Alex Bingham. Ahead of the release this week Nan shared the second taster of the record, via her new single, America, Anywhere.

America, Anywhere is in many ways a reflection on the two-tone nature of America, and how on moving to Brooklyn Nan suddenly felt like, “I don’t live in America”. The track zooms in on the difference between the small town where Nan felt she, and her queerness, didn’t belong, and the metropolitan culture of New York, a city that seems to accept you for whoever you are. The song seems to play on the idea of home as a place where we feel safe, instead it reflects that for small-town outsiders home can be a place of isolation, “the pressure fades like a distant father, and the sky begins to clear, and you’re there, I’m anywhere but home”. Musically, the track feels wonderfully spacious, nodding to the likes of Basia Bulat or Natalie Prass, as warm rolls of bass and breezy Rhodes-like keyboards, create a hazy, almost nostalgic atmosphere, for Nan’s playful vocal melodies to pirouette and twirl like a ballroom dancer. On From Both Eyes, Nan promises us songs of love and heartache, but as evidenced here, also songs of growth, self-discovery and finding the people and the places where you truly belong.

From Both Eyes is out March 8th. For more information on Nan Macmillan visit https://www.nanmacmillanmusic.com/.

4. One True Pairing Keeps A Well Stocked Freezer

Back in 2018, there was something of a collective sigh from the UK music scene, when the much loved Mercury-nominated Cumbrian’s Wild Beasts decided to call it a day. With every ending though comes the promise of a new beginning, as shown by One True Pairing, the solo project of the band’s co-frontman, Tom Fleming. In 2019 Tom released his debut solo offering, a record praised for both its quality and its confrontational look at, “class frustration and self despair”. Four years on, and Tom is currently gearing up to share more One True Pairing music, starting with this week’s release of a new single, Frozen Food Centre.

Recorded in Dublin with the help of producer John ‘Spud’ Murphy, Frozen Food Centre is a track that’s been in Tom’s head, “for about seven years”, and finds him going back still further to a small-town upbringing and the way it continues to shape the way we see the world even when it has become the distant past. Musically, the track is an expansive take on a folk song, bringing to mind the likes of Leo Robinson or Kiran Leonard as the initially stripped-back accompaniment of fluttering guitars swells with adornments of grandiose harps and strings, the luxurious arrangements contrasting the bleak lyrical exploration of expectations without opportunity. Perhaps ultimately this is a song about returning home, even if that’s only in your mind, Tom references a quote from the French polymath Chris Marker, “I have been around the world several times, and now only banality interests me“. Our bodies may travel the world, and see everything there is to offer, but our minds and our memories always know where we came from, whether he wants to or not, Tom drifts back to his teenage anger, his misplaced masculinity and yes the frozen food centre, the moments that shape and scar and make us who we are, whether we want them to or not.

Frozen Food Centre is out now via Domino. For more information on One True Pairing visit https://www.onetruepairing.co.uk/.

3. Bonnie “Prince” Billy Is Spilling His Secrets

Released back in August, Keeping Secrets Will Destroy is the 21st studio album Will Oldham has shared under the Bonnie “Prince” Billy moniker, and also his first record of new material for four years, a rare sabbatical for a musician whose reputation is built on unerring quality in the face of rare prolificacy. As it’s already come crashing into a string of (in my opinion rather early) end-of-year lists, it seems for the Bonnie Prince this album was well worth the wait. Two things were missing from the record though, both of which were resolved this week, the less obvious of which was an accompanying beer, a hopless, “6.1% sour yarrow gruit” courtesy of Kendal’s Great Yan Brewery. The more obvious missing piece was a title track, that his record label states, “for royal reasons, and no concern of ours, wasn’t included in the album”, but did finally see the light of day this week.

In some ways we can perhaps think of Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You as the light at the end of the tunnel of the album to which it gives its name. While the album was made in Louisville with a small collection of local musicians, “as a necessity of what we hope will be a season that never returns”, the single saw him travel once more, get the old band back together and let his studio creativity run wild. While it comes with a much larger backing, Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You, like so much of Will Oldham’s best work, feels wonderfully intimate as if he’s whispering his wisdom straight into your ear. Indeed even as the three strong chorus of backing singers soar into those wonderfully dense harmonies, it still manages to feel engulfing as if they’re all appearing around you, tapping you on the shoulder and inviting you to come stay a while and really listen to this tale of distinctly personal romanticism. The song seems to reflect on ideas of openness, both how another person can bring that out of us, “tell me what’s wrong with me, and say it in a clear cold whisper”, and how only by truly knowing ourselves can we really live, “how can I grow old if I don’t know”. Never one to really pay heed to the rules of the industry in which he works, Will Oldham remains a fabulously creative outlier, a well-established, boundary-pushing, rule-breaking songwriter, as thrilling today as he was when he started making music some thirty years ago – here’s to another three decades of this Prince’s unforgettable reign.

Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You is out now via Domino / Drag City. For more information on Bonnie “Prince” Billy visit https://www.instagram.com/wignifier/

2. ladylike Board A Southbound Train

Formed in Brighton in 2022, ladylike have taken a slightly old-fashioned route to a debut single. While bands tend to appear online before they take the stage, ladylike instead spent their first eighteen months as a band honing their craft on their home city’s vibrant music scene, sharing stages with the likes of Divorce, ĠENN and The Paranoyds. Thankfully for those of us many hours away from the South Coasts biggest music scene, ladylike this week made their online debut, with the release of their debut single, Southbound, recorded at Farm Road studios and produced by the band’s own Spencer Whitney.

Southbound makes an instant impression via an eight-second blast of clattering of guitar chords, before it rapidly resolves into something a little more subtle. Atop an arpeggiated guitar, vocalist Georgia Butler arrives like the middle ground of Adrianne Lenker and Cate Le Bon, as she plucks out a tale of the mundanity of young adulthood in a song she describes as, “to being in your 20s and witnessing the people around you attempting to find a spot to settle in”. Throughout the track, ladylike demonstrate a shape-shifting quality, one second channelling the emotive Maths-rock of Mothers, the next sliding off into dreamy intimacy, the whole thing rising and falling like a series of waves crashing down upon the listener. A debut single that impresses both with its ambition and its quality, here ladylike show the value in taking your time, with songwriting this good it would be criminal to rush.

Southbound is out now. For more information on ladylike visit https://www.instagram.com/ladylike.band

1. Braithe Throws It To The Jackals

While Braithe is a brand new project, the band’s principle creator is something of an old hand. A fixture of the Leeds music scene, Harry Ridgeway spent years writing and releasing music as a solo artist, before forming the DIY-band Cruel World. After Cruel World called it a day back in 2019, Harry stepped back from making music for years, focusing on other projects. Thankfully for us, the pull of songwriting couldn’t let Harry go for long, and he quietly returned to the stage earlier this year with his new project Braithe. With, “none of these shows ending in total disaster”, Harry decided it was time to hit the studio, recruiting a host of familiar West Yorkshire faces from bands like Crake, Spielmann and Ellen & The Escapades, to bring to life the debut Braithe single, Jackals, which he shared earlier this week.

With Harry citing influence from the likes of Magnolia Electric Co. and The Band, Braithe’s music perhaps owes as much to the American North East as it does to West Yorkshire, with a deeply melodic spin on Americana and indie-rock. Lyrically the track seems to touch on ideas of conflicting desires and how they can seep into a relationship over time, as Harry sings, “I realised I’d always wanted kids, not enough to clean my shit from this paradise we’ve built but enough to string the two of us along”, reflecting the balance between enjoying the moment, while knowing the cracks are waiting down the line. Towards the songs close he seems torn still further, as he absent mindedly shares an unwanted conversation with an old acquaintance who’s, “laughing like a jackal”, as Harry’s thoughts drift, “every second you were lonely was a lifetime of the earth, it’s enough to drag me back in every song, yes it helps me to forget we’re going wrong”. A stunning return, Jackals feels like a songwriter who’s lived a little, grown into their sound and their thoughts and come out of it sounding ready for a moment in the spotlight, Braithe may have been years in the making, yet now looks unquestionably ready to shine.

Jackals is out now. For more information on Braithe visit https://lnk.to/Braithe

Header photo is Braithe by Sam Airey.