A second foretaste of Jamie’s looming 4th album, Running Round the Sun (release date: 4th September). Small Town Life follows on the heels of lead single, Just Begun – a song that we suggested was: “…just as intense as you’re probably expecting it to be.”

Small town life focuses upon community spirit, a subject that, clearly, resonates strongly in Jamie’s outlook. And that focus comes over particularly strongly in the song’s accompanying video which, incidentally, features cameos from national treasure Ricky Tomlinson, ex-England international footballer Toni Duggan and Betrayal star, Paddy Rowan.

Speaking of the song – and the video – Jamie says: “There is a sense of community running through it. Looking after each other, backing one another. Not because life is perfect, but because it’s real. It’s about the beauty you can find in ordinary places and ordinary lives. It’s blood, sweat, tears, pints, football, friendships and families. It’s life as most people actually live it.”

Small Town Life is a fast, driving, rocker, awash with whooping basslines and bursts of clangy guitar. As always, Jamie’s Merseyside roots are clearly – and proudly – audible in his vocals and the whole thing has an uplifting Springsteen-ish feel about it. Indeed, if The Boss had cut his teeth in Sefton Park, rather than in Asbury Park, he’d have almost certainly sounded just like this…!

All attempts to research the background of Liverpool genre-spanning 5-piece, Sisters seem to come up with the same, brief bio – which I’ll repeat verbatim:

Drawn together while studying music in Liverpool, the five-piece’s story stretches from Brooklyn and Upstate New York to Baltimore, Switzerland and a small town outside London. What emerges from disparate geography and artistic collectivism are songs that are unsettles and unsettling: weepy, ethereal and grunge-inflected, balancing resilience and fragility in equal measure.

There’s not much to go on, there but – you know what – having had a good listen to Sisters’ new single, Creatures, it all starts to make sense…

Sisters’ first 12 months was a busy period. The band – Gigi )vocals), James (drums), Odelia (bass), Mira (synth) and Lewis (guitar) – featured on BBC radio, headlined Rough Trade Liverpool, completed an East Coast US Tour and appeared at showcase events across their adopted North West of England. They also released their debut EP, Bite – Creatures is a ‘long read’ version of one of the EP’s six tracks.

Creatures is a track that encapsulates Sisters grunge-inflected etherealism. Softly-strummed guitars and vulnerable-sounding vocals dominate the verses but the listener is left in no doubt that Creatures is a volatile pressure vessel – liable to explode at any moment. And so it proves, with every chorus, as Gigi ditches her reticence to confront the world as she sings: “You see me for what I am.”

Creatures is just part of the emerging Sisters story. The immediate future see the band embarking on its debut UK tour – 7 shows that take in some of England’s most iconic small venues. Full details can be found here.

O to be female and in Scotland now might be stretching it, but it seems the waterfall of feminine artistry seems set at a higher water mark than ever, certainly pushing menfolk into the shallows.

Birdvox are a quartet of like minded souls, drawn together by more than just gender. With backgrounds each in folk, whatever that quite now means in such a nebulous galaxy, this double header consists of two songs from a forthcoming release. This is folk music where beats and electronica are comfortable companions to more traditional instrumentation. With the instant kinship of Almosts & Re-Dos’ rhythm track with Pop Musik, by M, this is and can only be a good thing. The flip, Wagtails, is more organic and informed by their collective love for bird life.

Inge Thomson we know from her work with Karine Polwart and as a member of the Henhoose collective, Jenny Sturgeon from Salt House and working with Boo Hewerdine, and they are here teamed with Sarah Hayes and Charlotte Printer, between them handling the whole gamut of writing, playing and singing, making use of all manner of studio gadgets to round out more orthodox use of wood and wire.

Given this single track is available, at Bandcamp, for as much as you want to pay for it, I guess it then counts as an official release from the always busy Clarke. Especially when the song is as good as this one.

Between issuing and touring her own works, Clarke has spent a good deal of the past couple of years touring, with her band, playing the Sandy Denny songbook. So far there have been no concrete plans for any album to complement the tour, but I would hope this marks that eventual possibility.

A passionate acolyte of the late singer, Denny songs have always popped up in Clarke’s repertoire, with reviews usually citing the faithfulness to the source material, as she too has a pure soaring voice. But this is no karaoke copycat exercise, there enough individual nuance to give her plenty enough character of her own.

Here she is accompanied by Mary Ann Kennedy’s harp, with keyboards and drum from Matt Robinson and Dave Hamblett.

Nine years on from their acclaimed debut album, Strange Hymns, and three years on from their follow-up, Honey Now, Neon Waltz return with Send Me Down – a veritable powerhouse of a single. Hailing from John O’Groats, Neon Waltz proclaim themselves as: “The most Northerly Band in Britain” and that’s not an unreasonable claim.

Send Me Down is lyricist Jordan Shearer’s reflection on his band’s wrangles with major record labels and on the tribulations involved in keeping a band on the road when every gig represents a huge logistical challenge. Speaking of the song’s genesis, Jordan says: “It’s about the fear of drawing a line under Neon Waltz but not knowing what I would do with my time. Being just a guy who ‘used to be in that band’ but Send Me Down is me coming to the realisation that I’m not gonna give it up because it’s been a rough journey. You can’t just get everything you want in life easily. It would be worthless without the struggle.”

Send Me Down is propelled along by a pulsing bassline and a pacy drumbeat. Guitars chime and, despite the resignation in Jordan’s lyrical message: “All good things must come to an end – I’m sorry, but it’s true,” the lasting impression is one of optimism. This is a man coming to terms with reality – and doing it with vigour and freshness.