Folk Reviews
44 Folk records in the Certified Archive. Every one of them earned five rainbow thumbs-up, because we only publish reviews of records we think are great — so treat this page as a listening list rather than a ranking. Newest first.
AJJ's 'Dirty Old Power' Is a Furious, Funny Masterpiece of Hoping on Purpose
Ninth album, self-released, and a reunion with John Congleton a decade after Christmas Island. Twelve songs about artificial intelligence, empathy and the exhausting work of refusing to give up.
Jake Xerxes Fussell's 'The Old Beloved Path' Is a Quietly Radiant Masterpiece of Interpretation
Fussell's sixth album takes nine traditional songs and treats them like living things rather than museum pieces. Produced by Ben Whiteley, recorded at Betty's in Chapel Hill, and gone in about thirty-three minutes — which is exactly long enough.
Hermanos Gutiérrez Trade the Desert for the Andes on 'Los Ojos Del Cóndor'
Ten instrumentals, the Swiss-Ecuadorian brothers' third record with Dan Auerbach producing at Easy Eye Sound in Nashville. The palette moves off Americana and onto Andean ground — Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Argentinean and Colombian traditions — with a charango and a nylon-string guitar their father gave them doing much of the talking.
Trá Pháidín's 'Cloch 's Claí' Builds an Irish-Language Record Out of Jazz, Afrobeat and Two Drummers
Ten tracks, sung and spoken largely in Irish, out on the tiny London label World of Echo. Six players, funded by the DEIS Recording Grant and Ealaín na Gaeltachta. The Line of Best Fit and Klof Mag both reviewed it in release week and both came away impressed by the same thing: the playing.
Julia Jacklin's 'The Gem' Took a Year Instead of Two Weeks and You Can Hear the Patience
Ten songs for 4AD, co-produced by Jacklin and Robert Muinos and recorded across a full year — December 2024 to December 2025 — at Rat Shack in Melbourne. Metacritic has it at 81 with nothing below a 70. The Guardian, Uncut and Slant all gave it four stars; Record Collector's review was two words long.
Biita Houdei's 'This Bed Was Made For Me' Is a Silken Masterpiece of Canyon Folk
Lisa Houdei, formerly LéPonds, makes her debut-ish on Father/Daughter Records: thirteen psych-folk songs recorded over ten straight days, produced by Haley Heynderickx in her first lead-production role, with Buck Meek dropping in. No Depression hears Carole King and CSNY in the harmonies.
Kristin Hersh's 'Sugar on Blackstone' Is a Hushed Masterpiece of Cello, Memory and Nerve
The Throwing Muses founder goes quiet and goes deep: eleven songs rooted in Providence, cut at Stable Sound Studios with Pete Harvey's cello out front and Rob Ahlers' drums only where they're needed. Live4ever gave it four stars.
Babehoven's 'I See Them, I See Me' Is a Quietly Devastating Feat of Arrangement
Maya Bon's project returns on Double Double Whammy, co-produced with Phil Weinrobe and Ryan Albert across four studios. Fiddle, slide guitar, banjo and a harmony stack that includes Karly Hartzman. Paste called it a mostly stunning collection of indie-folk tunes.
boycalledcrow's 'the sprawl' Is a Beautifully Haunted Masterpiece of Tape and Bass Weight
Carl M. Knott's twelfth-hour swerve away from folk instrumentation and into distorted textures, hip-hop weight and dub basslines, out on the micro-label Mortality Tables. Backseat Mafia scored it 89 and called it folktronica that 'goes darker and deeper.'
HUG's Self-Titled Debut Is a Patient, Gorgeous Masterpiece of Three Guitarists Listening
Devendra Banhart, Gyan Riley and Noah Georgeson make an almost entirely instrumental record for Luaka Bop. Georgeson engineered and mixed; Banhart plays kalimba, Riley plays most of the guitars, and frogs appear. Dusted called it 'a balm for the patient listener.'
Sairie's 'Beneath the Spreading Tree' Is a Starkly Beautiful Debut of Shadowed British Folk
The Brighton band's debut LP, out on Hollow Hill Records. Nine songs written by Emma Morton and Jon Griffin, recorded and mixed by Griffin in Newhaven and mastered by Simon Scott. The Guardian called it 'exquisite 70s-inflected folk'; KLOF called it 'starkly beautiful and richly rewarding.'
Angela Autumn's 'Believer' Is a Gloriously Overgrown Masterpiece of Stacked Guitars
Twelve songs from the Nashville songwriter's first full-length since 2021's Frontiers Woman, out on Gar Hole Records. Produced by Isaiah Beard at Club Roar, it runs honky-tonk, psych-rock and clawhammer banjo through the same tape and comes out sounding like one thing.
Le Ren's 'Don't Be Funny Without Me' Is a Widescreen Return Worth the Five-Year Wait
Lauren Spear's second album as Le Ren, her first in five years, made in a rural Ontario studio with a full band and no pre-written parts. Out on Royal Mountain. Exclaim! called it a reintroduction with 'a widescreen sound.'
Blaine Todd's 'Angle of Repose' Is a Plainspoken Masterpiece of Roadside Melancholy
Fifth solo record from a Bay Area songwriter, out on the small Chicago label Nudie. Bandcamp Daily's Ben Salmon places him between lo-fi folk, outsider twang and ambling psychedelia, and says the songs stuck around long after the record ended. Ten tracks of acoustic guitar, pedal steel, fiddle and lonesome horns.
Thorn Wych's 'Aesthesis' Is Folk Music Played on Instruments She Grew Herself
The Lancashire artist builds her own bowed strings, flutes and percussion out of tree branches from her own backyard, then loops them alone in her living room. Tompkins Square has given her debut LP a proper vinyl release, and Bandcamp Daily made it an Essential Release.
Elanor Moss's 'The Knife, The Needle' Is a Debut With Absolutely Nothing Loose About It
Nine songs, thirty-three minutes, produced by Pete Miles and out on Merge. Three years in the writing after two EPs, with a hushed English folk palette of classical guitar, fiddle, saxophone and flugelhorn. KLOF Mag called her a degree of magnitude above most of them.
Laura Veirs Recorded 'Temple Songs' in a Backyard Shed With Two Mics and Made Her Warmest Album in Years
Veirs' fourteenth album is her first entirely self-recorded one — two microphones and a laptop in a Portland backyard shed, over about three months. Eleven songs in twenty-nine minutes, mixed by Phil Weinrobe, with Veirs herself credited for the artwork and calligraphy.
Squirrel Flower Finds the Cure for Everything on the Open Road
Ella O'Connor Williams' sixth album, cut with producer Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios, treats the open road as both subject and cure. Paste singled out 'Cleveland' as one of the best songs she's ever written, and it's hard to argue.
Phoebe Bridgers' 'Lost Weekend' Is a Gorgeous, Unruly Leap Forward
Phoebe Bridgers trades Punisher's hush for something stranger and more crowded. Pedal steel collides with synth chaos, grief sits next to jokes, and it somehow all holds together. This is the sound of an artist refusing to repeat herself.
Arun Sood & Angeline Morrison's 'Donn/Dubh' Is a Genuinely Singular Listen
A Scottish folk collaboration that threads a 1952 psalm recording and an old Uist song through tape loops, drone, and electronica. Donn/Dubh is dense, immersive, and unlike anything else released this month.
Duffy x Uhlmann Find a Common Language in Two Guitars on 'Hot Creek'
Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Gregory Uhlmann strip their collaboration down to just two guitars, using a Mono County geothermal spring as a guiding metaphor for constant change and quiet discovery across thirteen tracks.
Hank Heaven Goes Toe-to-Toe With New York City on 'Welterweight'
Produced by Phil Weinrobe, the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter's new EP on Nice Life Recording Company turns floating through New York — and staying on guard the whole time — into six tender, twangy, live-tracked songs.
Manuela Ocampo's 'Ocasos y Albas' Finds Enlightenment One Live Take at a Time
The Colombian songwriter's sophomore record was road-tested on stages before it ever saw a studio, and you can hear the difference. Sunsets-and-sunrises poetics, recorded in one sitting, sung like she means every word.
maya ongaku's 'Nothing Space Music' Turns Silence Into an Instrument
A Japanese four-piece turns negative space into the loudest instrument on the record. Acid folk that floats instead of strums. Headphones, low volume, full attention.
Nora Stanley's 'Glass' Is a Debut That Doesn't Sound Like One
The Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist behind other people's records — Cassandra Jenkins, Beth Orton, Fred Frith — steps up front for the first time, poetry-inspired and fully formed. This is what happens when the utility player finally takes the mic.
Roy Montgomery & Martha Skye Murphy's 'Nebular' Is Too Beautiful to Pull Apart
A New Zealand guitar legend and a London vocalist built this record remotely, and you'd never guess it. Five tracks of shimmering, celestial atmosphere that reward getting lost in them.
Hana Stretton's 'tiarn' Turns Field Recordings Into Something Sacred
Released on the tiny Brierfield Flood Press, Stretton's new record wraps eleven folk songs in field recordings of birds, wind, and waves, with voices layered into rounds and unison hums. Bandcamp Daily called it a portrait of ecological grief that never loses its warmth.
Margaret Glaspy's 'I Am Both' Strips Everything Back and Says More
Produced by Joe Henry with just four musicians in the room, Glaspy's fourth album trades the guitar-forward attack of 2023's Echo the Diamond for something quieter and more exposed, turning relationship friction into plainspoken folk-pop. No Depression called it 'a masterpiece of simplicity and directness.'
Elijah Wolf's 'track star' Turns Catskills Ennui Into Gorgeous Small-Town Poetry
A surprise-dropped tenth record about upstate New York dive bars and dead-end expectations, recorded with Felix Walworth of Told Slant and Florist. Warm, unhurried, and quietly devastating.
June McDoom's 'Without You' Is a Gorgeous Argument for Staying Present
The lead single from June McDoom's long-awaited debut album 'Follow the Light' is a spacey, patient meditation on gratitude and commitment. Moves slow, lands hard.
Ezra Williams' 'Blight' is a Hushed Masterpiece of Comforting Dissonance
The Irish songwriter formerly known as Smoothboi pairs warm, nostalgic guitar with pedal steel and a set of lyrics about watching something end. Gentle on the surface, unsettled underneath.
Josaleigh Pollett's 'If I Let It Quiet' Is a Long-Distance Fourth Album Worth the Wait
The Salt Lake City songwriter's fourth album was built across continents with producer Jordan Watko while the two were apart, folding lo-fi charm, distorted electronics, and Boards of Canada-tilted synths around songs about sleeplessness and self-reinvention. KLOF Mag called it 'a treasure trove.'
Cinder Well's 'A Blooming Body' Finds Beauty in the Barest Moments
Amelia Baker's fifth album as Cinder Well brings in guest strings, horns, and organ without losing an ounce of her gothic-folk intimacy. Restraint has never sounded so devastating.
Sam and Louise Sullivan Make This Decade's 'Tusk' on 'Love & Devotion'
Two Philadelphia teachers and ceramicists build a family-band folk record out of coffee-can percussion, exercise-ball thumps, and pure homemade devotion. Jeff Tweedy is a fan for a reason.
Max Subar's 'Anything Could Be' is a Warm, Hard-Won Debut of Lakeside Folk-Rock
A Chicago studio hand who's spent years producing for Case Oats and Sleeper's Bell finally steps out front with an 11-track debut cut at a Wisconsin lake house. Newcity called it a case for hope; Merge Records signed him for it.
Star Moles Turn Restraint Into Real Magic on 'Highway to Hell'
Emily Moales has quietly released some forty-odd records since her GarageBand teens. This one — cut live-feeling in a South Philly row house with the Historic New Jersey crew — is the one where holding back becomes her superpower. Yes, it's called Highway to Hell. No, not that one.
Tremolo Fields Paint Four Perfect Pictures on 'red birds on a branch'
A Portland, Maine professor who came up in Iowa City basement shows, produced by Wild Pink's John Ross. Four songs, thirteen minutes, zero press. The richest small thing you'll hear this month.
Beth Orton's 'The Ground Above' is What Creative Peak Sounds Like
Intelligent folk built on piano and strings, with a superb looseness of improvisation held inside immense control. Thirty years in, Orton is somehow still ascending.
Kelsey Lu Refuses to Sit Still on So Help Me God
Experimental chamber folk that genre-jumps like a parkour athlete and sticks every landing. Chameleonic vocals over ever-shifting sonic landscapes, with collaborators who clearly showed up inspired.
Bill Callahan Invites You Into the Living Room on My Days of 58
A living room record that builds whole atmospheres from minimal arrangements. Callahan proves again that intimacy, done right, is its own kind of grandeur.
Aldous Harding Keeps It Beautifully Strange on Train On The Island
Harding's strangeness endures, and thank goodness for that. Minimalist arrangements, economical lyrics, and a tightrope walk between control and abandon.
My New Band Believe's Debut Is Theatrical Folk Magic
Cameron Picton goes full theatrical visionary on this chamber-folk stunner. Precise vocals, avant-folk arrangements, and a fearless look at fame's dark side. It believes in itself, and so do we.
Wendy Eisenberg's Self-Titled Is a Quiet Revelation
Chamber folk that asks questions and lets the silence answer. Spacious, hopeful, and bittersweet all at once. A record about becoming yourself, produced with room to actually do it.
Mitski Writes Circles Around Everyone on 'Nothing's About to Happen to Me'
Chamber pop, Americana, slacker rock, and alt-country folded into one seamless indie folk record. Mitski's songwriting precision and emotional control are operating at full strength.