Singles Selection – Issue #26

If you’ve been fortunate enough to have attended one of Barbara’s shows over the past six months or so, you’ll be familiar with this one. Stag Do had become a mainstay of the band’s live set long before its release as a single, and that’s a status that it looks certain to hold on to.

Stag Do is a slice of unconditional fun – and it’s an irresistible singaloing, to boot. A raucous drum figure from Laurie is the band’s cue to serve up a walking-paced guitar and piano riff, before vocalist John introduces Kevin and Kate, the soon-to-be-wed couple that provide the excuse for the song. The song isn’t about the happy couple’s nuptuals, though, but about the unrestrained fun to be enjoyed by Kev and his mates in the prior event…

Singing and swaying to the song’s infectious chorus is unavoidable. Dean embellishes the tune with swooping guitar licks and Henry drives things along with some smashing barrelhouse piano. And the icing on the cake? Henry’s stately couple of bars of Here Comes the Bride that brings the song to a joyful conclusion.

Kevin and Kate’s marriage lasted for just 19 months. But Kevin has retained his fond memories. Of the Stag Do, at least…

And, you’ll be able to see Barbara perform Stag Do live very soon – the band’s 2026 Autumn Tour kicks off in Beverley, Yorkshire in just a couple of weeks’ time. Details of the tour can be found here – but don’t delay, tickets are selling like sun hats!

As a sample of what acclaimed singer/ songwriter/ multi-instrumentalist Maiah Wynne has on offer with her album, Into the Waves, Girl Dinner couldn’t be more potent.

Speaking of the song, the sometime Envy of None frontperson says: “I think this song speaks for itself in many ways. We truly are living in a dystopian reality, with late-stage capitalism. The influence of money in our governments, and the horrors of those influences on war and international politics. It is hard to read the news every day and witness so much suffering in this world. To feel so powerless in the face of everything. There is so much I want to say and will say, but for now, this song is a tongue in cheek protest tune I wrote for a little cathartic release.”

And Maiah is as good as her word. The opening couplet: “I’m getting tired of all the news – showing all of the abuse,” sets out her agenda in the most effective way possible. Her lyrics cascade forth. And they culminate in Maiah’s conclusion: “They don’t care about the rest of us” and pledging: “We’re going to eat the filthy rich.” It’s powerful stuff.

Maiah’s soft voice is of the kind that would convince the hardest-nosed listener that she’s definately to be trusted. Meanwhile, the backing is eminently tuneful but subtle enough to ensure that the lyrical messages aren’t lost. Girl Dinner is a song for our times – and an enticing portent for the new album.

If you haven’t come across Montreal folk trio (yes – that’s right – trio) Steve & Ginnie Jackson before, fear not. Because their new single will bring you right up to speed.

Make You Sing is a foretaaste of the trio’s forthcoming 3rd album. Nothing is Real will be with us in January 2027. The promise is for a collection of tales of long drives, late nights and unexpected encounters.

Driven by warm vocal harmonies, spirited acoustic instrumentation and an irresistible sing-along chorus, Make You Sing traces Steve’s and Ginnie’s journey. They met at a show, shared their first drink, then formed a band (bassist Cedric Báru Bérubé completes the lineup). Their adventure includes climbing into the van and traveling mile after mile to bring their songs to audiences around the world.

The guitar/mandolin backing is pleasant and is underpinned nicely by Cedric’s rich-sounding bass. Make You Sing is as uplifting as its title suggests, especially during the chorus: “I want the whole world to hear your voice – I’d do anything just to make you sing.”

Easy to hear, easy to enjoy and destined to become a Steve & Ginnie Jackson live show fave. If it isn’t one already…

A blissfully beautiful blend of Kate Bush and Lana Del Rey, Noum is the somewhat easier to say stage name of Noémie Ducimetière, a Swiss-French singer-songwriter based in London.

Immediately it is the blend of gossamer and steel that strikes, the delicate picking that is gatecrashed by reverberating chordage, with her voice barely tip-toeing into the frame. Placed lovingly together, like an about to topple Jenga tower, this construction is a beautiful 5 minutes of calm, the eye in a storm.

With a background in soundtracks and medieval music ensemble, Idrîsî Ensemble, now is as good a time as any for her to launch her idiosyncratic wish-mash of folk, blues and a touch of the European tradition. Yet to release much more than a handful of stand alone songs, this is the latest and the best.

It really isn’t that often that a piece of solo acoustic guitar play can crash across the myriad outpourings from media land and make as instant an impression as this. A bold and extravagant statement, it is an astonishing display of intent.

Raymond has built up a formidable name within her chosen niche of so called American Primitive, that sonic of acoustic play that is anything but. Largely originating with John Fahey, the title his own description for the blend of country blues fingerpicking with non-traditional harmonics. As a young Welsh woman, her technique is simultaneously boggling and bounteous, the notes tumbling out like a mountain stream in spate.

Newly signed to Fat Possum records, this single release celebrates that signing with a sonic warning, a brutal campfire maelstrom for the apocalypse and after. She calls it a Mutant Rag, and I like that. Who needs electricity, anyway?

Like a rush of blood to a bruised head, Dublin’s Pillow Queens steam in with a mass of Roxy meet the Stooges, with, rather than Bryan or Iggy, a quartet of shouty opinionated women.

Knowing nothing much about them, there is an instant impact of retro-positivism, where the future is merely the past that has yet to happen. But it seems they are composed of co-lead vocalists Pamela Connolly and Sarah Corcoran (who both swap between playing rhythm guitar and bass), and lead guitarist/backing vocalist Cathy McGuinness. and they have been around for a decade. Live they add drums, plying a torrid barrage of, often, polemic. Proudly LGBT, remember this is Dublin, with all the concomitant absurdities and contradictions that duly brings into play.

This songs explains itself, and doesn’t even have to, working both as a dance floor banger and rowdy confessional. It’s a play it at the start of the day song, the day thus pump primed for action and activity. Or play it at bedtime and think back on another day spared.

OK, so you’re never going to mistake Jess Silk for anyone else, so has she made her shouty brand of proclamation so much her own. Which takes nothing away from the joy of capturing some new from this always interesting performer.

Straying little from her time-honoured raspy voiced sonic palette, coupled with simple and effective acoustic accompaniment, here she is joined by Steve Alcock on a plaintive whistle, that shrill tone grounding the lyrical perspective: “How can we move forward, if we’ve all forgotten?“

Inspired by a graffitoed cabinet at the back of Carlisle Cathedral, where the inscriptions hark back 400 years and more, and has Silk musing back on those who first scratched their names, all those years ago. A chorus of multi-tracked Silks add depth to the chorus and it is a worthy addition to the fast expanding Silk songbook.