For singer/songwriter Becca Stevens, making music is a charmed form of service—a means of mining her own experience for insight into the beautiful complexity of being alive, in the hopes of providing others with understanding and solace and a renewed sense of strength. But in the early days of 2023, the North Carolina-bred artist felt an overwhelming need to process two monumental changes in her life (the death of her mother and the start of her own journey into motherhood), and soon sought the comfort and catharsis of pure self-expression. By the time she emerged from that period of unfettered creativity, Stevens had completed her new album Maple to Paper: an illuminating glimpse into her most private moments of grief and transcendence, rendered with both stunning clarity and heartfelt devotion to music’s alchemical powers.

Jana Mila crafts songs with powerful lyrics and surprising, catchy melodies—songs she delivers with compelling expression. Americans label her music as Indie Americana Pop. Last year, she took a substantial collection of self-written songs to Nashville and returned with a dream debut and a record deal in hand.

Laura Veirs releases her eleventh solo album My Echo via Bella Union. The album features guest appearances from Jim James, Bill Frisell, Karl Blau, Matt Ward and others.

Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker releases songs and instrumentals on 4AD. songs and instrumentals are two distinct collections, both written and recorded in April after Big Thief’s March tour was abruptly cut short due to coronavirus. After returning to the states from Europe, Lenker decamped to a one room cabin in the mountains of western Massachusetts. This recording is 100% analog-analog-analog (AAA). No digital process was used in the production of this sound recording. The album’s stunning artwork are watercolour paintings done by Adrianne’s grandmother, Diane Lee.

Nation of Two is the second studio album by Australian singer-songwriter Vance Joy. The album was announced on 3 November 2017, with Vance Joy explaining: "Nation of Two describes a perfectly self-contained couple; their world beginning and ending at the bed they share, the car they ride in, or any other place where they're together… the idea that their love for each other gives them their bearings; a point of reference that makes sense of life."

Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Khruangbin and more appear on our latest free CD. All copies of the May 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Total Blam-Blam – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Jessica Pratt, Michael Head and Khruangbin to Mint Mile, Gospelbrach and Arthur Melo. Now dive in…

Bonny Light Horseman’s new album, Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free, is an ode to the blessed mess of our humanity. Confident and generous, it is an unvarnished offering that puts every feeling and supposed flaw out in the open. The themes are stacked high and staked even higher: love and loss, hope and sorrow, community and family, change and time all permeate Bonny Light Horseman’s most vulnerable and bounteous offering to date. Yet for all of its humanistic touchpoints, Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free was forged from a kind of unexplainable magic.

Fink, Long-established alt-folk trio, return with Fin Greenall’s eighth studio album under the genre-hopping moniker. Coalescing around the emergent urgency in each of the album’s ten tracks and intimate, closed-door sessions in picturesque Cornwall, the soul-reaching Beauty In Your Wake is released on the band’s R’COUP’D label.