Single #4 from Palka’s forthcoming album/audio book project, Moment in the Sun. Regular readers may recall that the project documents Matt’s recent 5-week sojourn by bicycle across some of the highest and most remote roads in the USA, and revisits the experiences he enjoyed during that journey, and the people he met.

There’s a dash of self-pity in this latest sample of the treats in store on Moment in the Sun, as Matt explains: “I was nursing a breakup with bottom shelf wine when I imagined dropping in on all my literary heroes – but then reality – and the hangover – hit. I was still a heartbroken and unknown artist.”

…Pass That Old Jug of Wine is a swampy, bluesy rocker, with a joyful jugband sound. Crashing percussion, howling harmonica and resonant handclaps call the shots here and it seems that self-pity is the last thing that’s bothering Matt. His vocals have a happily inebriated tone – indeed, it seems that the Old Jug of Wine has passed his way quite a few times already – and the inspiration that he appears to have taken from it is infectious!

Is Barnsley the home of folk-pop now, then? If you enjoy insanely catchy melodies bound to a vibrant backbeat, with a fiddle thrusting in for some rootsier content, this should be right up your street.

Common Culture have been around for all of two years, delighting festival audiences the length of the land with their hook-laden pure pop for folky people. With a boy, girl, boy, girl line-up on fiddle, guitar, bass and drums, vocals are shared and swapped around, for short and sharp songs that carry more than a hint of Merseybeat about them, if hewn into different shapes by the instrumentation.

The song references the battle-ground between blind optimism and hard-earned pessimism, and finding unexpected common ground. The clarion call of an album, of the same name and same release date, take your pick as to which you go for.

Not content to regale us with and rest on the laurels of her latest full length release, no sooner is it out than a further single drops. Recorded also during the same spree that delivered the album, this is a thoughtful diversion away from the style presented there.

Almost Laurel Canyon in construction, you almost expect rows and rows of angel hair as Zak Hobbs picks out the intro. But rather than Joni, it is O’Connor’s gossamer voice that issue forth, in a dreamy sepia reminisce. Some rich cello, from Beth Porter, adds to the timelessness of the overall sound.

Rather than working from a traditional template, here the song is totally her own, reflections on girlhood, love and disillusionment. “I wish love was just a little game to play“, she sings, sounding bruised, if better prepared, in the knowledge that is isn’t ever that simple.

Colin McIntyre is a busy fella, what with writing novels, alongside his ongoing musical project, Mull Historical Society. His latest album of new music combines, to some extent, his two loves, in that he invited a bevy of acclaimed authors to collaborate. This is the second such volume of shared work, and the full release is heralded by Dopamine Eyes, which pairs McIntyre with Irvine Welsh, the bête noire of Scottish fiction.

The song kickstarts with some choral vocals from The London African Gospel Choir, ahead accelerating into a bouncy rush. The tale Welsh tells is the one around he and his wife first meeting, masked, during covid. Buoyed along by meshed guitars, acoustic and electric, McIntyre’s delivery outlines the urgency and excitement of the outcome, the dopamine “smash”, with the choir dipping back in and out to give the added emphasis.

The only word to describe the song is joyful, which, given the backdrop of the virus, is no mean feat, and McIntyre applies ladlefuls.

The first glimpse on new music (what they call Hunnu Rock) from The Hu – a spectacular taste of Hun, their new album, and in anticipation of their upcoming tour. A song whose false sense of security in the dance floor filler of the opening few moments, soon shifts gear into a typically gruff and groove packed Hu stomper.

The culture transcending collaboration with Jonny Hawkins of Nothing More shifts the goalposts into a genre hopping kaleidoscope of melodic choruses from Hawkins and pounding riffs from the Hu quartet as Metal crosses swords with the mainstream and traditional Mongolian.

The message of resiliency, fortitude, and strength comes with some hearty yells, the Mongolian chants and the “born to be a lost soul” chorus. Uplifting and a call to arms – seems like most The Hu songs fall into the category – but can’t wait to hear this in the set in the theatres in the Autumn and one for the Maiden hordes to herald at Knebworth.

---