#charlie-barnes

#charlie-barnes

"At 2 a.m., sitting up and contemplating our loss during my child's wake, I found myself reflecting on all the major news events that had left their mark on me through the years and the helplessness I sometimes felt to change anything. Writing the last verse was the most difficult and personal thing I've done."

Things begin promisingly enough with the darkly powerful Going Up and All That Jazz from 1980's Crocodiles, the first of the terrific four-album run which blended psychedelia, post-punk and classic songwriting to turn the Liverpudlians into one of most hallowed bands of the decade.

We made this record with a sense of immediacy and in the moment expression with the pure intention of simply having fun and making people forget about everything else, even if for only 44 minutes. Thank you to everyone that "gets it" and to all the writers for the kind words and love.

Vernon's upbringing in Surrey was typical of many children born in the mid-1940s: he sang in his church choir, listened to the jazz and show tune LPs his parents owned and was bowled over by the arrival of rock'n'roll, responding most strongly to the likes of Little Richard, Fats Domino and Larry Williams.

London band Sorry dropped two new songs today, "Billy Elliot" and "Alone In Cologne." The former premiered on BBC 6Music this morning, and the latter was released shortly after. Listen to both, out now on Domino, below.

It's been a decade since his death but David Bowie remains as great a presence in London as ever: the V&A's David Bowie Centre opened to the public last year, it's recently been announced that his childhood home in Bromley will be turned into a museum, and a lavish posthumous archive release campaign came to its head just a few months ago with final set I Can't Give Everything Away.

Meanwhile, his daytime trade as a geologist brought him from his home turf near Nashville to the Pacific Northwest, that rugged place whose seismic activity seems to thrum like the gears of a great subconscious. It's safe to say country music is in his blood-and so, one can imagine, are the seams of magma that crisscross the Ring of Fire. His new album Paleo Sol is like a seance with the elements.

Alabama country singer Drayton Farley has announced a new album, A Heavy Duty Heart, due March 27 via One Riot Records ( pre-order). Like 2023's great Twenty On High, it was produced by Sadler Vaden (of Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit), and it was recorded live to tape in Nashville with Drayton's touring band. It's got 10 new songs, three of which are out now, and two of those actually recently premiered on TV shows.

"A couple of years ago, I listened to a true crime podcast about a little-known singer-songwriter who had home-recorded her own wildly original music in the late 1950s and had then gone missing in the 1970s," says Carr. "That was the first time I had heard the name Connie Converse and within a week I had listened to her songs a thousand times.

Designed by Korean up-and-comer Woojin Yang, Everglow is a handheld mini-keyboard that fits into any bag. The "musical sketchbook" of sorts allows artists to quickly jot down ideas when they're not in front of their instruments or computers. The sleekly-designed device comes with a generative AI-based sound system that allows them to iterate and develop a song on the spot, not just transcribe the initial tune.

I tried 3 separate times over 2 years to track this song, and each time it either wasn't finished or didn't sound right and each time we had to start again. I kept hearing this really high harmony in my head, so for the fourth and final version, I asked Katie if she'd be into singing it with me. I'm a big Waxahatchee fan. I really love Katie's songwriting and her voice, so it was an honour to have her sing on 'Site Unseen.'

The band recorded the track at Abbey Road Studios as part of the new compilation HELP(2), due out March 6 on War Child Records. The record also features contributions from Big Thief, Cameron Winter, Arooj Aftab and Beck, Olivia Rodrigo, Sampha, King Krule, Depeche Mode and Black Country, New Road. The Zone Of Interest director Jonathan Glazer served as its creative director.

Originally from Illinois and now based in Maine, where he has lived for the past four years, Pokey LaFarge brings a lived-in perspective to American roots music. Drawing from early jazz, blues, swing and folk traditions, his songwriting balances warmth, rhythm and emotional clarity without slipping into nostalgia for its own sake. Over the years, LaFarge has grown into a confident bandleader, known for performances that feel loose but intentional, with space for both musicianship and connection.

"I feel like we were a different band than we were pre-pandemic," says Ryan Jarman, who along with his brothers Gary and Ross lead long-running UK band The Cribs, who just released their ninth album, Selling a Vibe. "It's been like six years since we recorded a record. We weren't sure what we were going to do. We weren't entirely sure how the band was going to move forward.