Author: Hor40Admin

A timeless yet specific reflection on empathy and loss, Sufjan Stevens’ 2015 album Carrie & Lowell stripped away many of the singer’s flourishes to reveal something barren and reverent, compassionate and utterly human. Writing in the wake of his mother’s death, Stevens used Carrie & Lowell to grapple with their fraught and often absent relationship,…

Few would have predicted Chris Stapleton’s dominance earlier this decade, but he’s commanded the spotlight for long enough now — through show-stealing televised performances, major awards show wins and enviable album sales —to bring what it is about him that people are responding to into focus. The 39-year-old Kentucky native relies on Dave Cobb, Nashville’s…

The last material we heard from Björk was a bit of downer, wasn’t it? 2015’s ‘Vulnicura’ was a sweeping, majestic break-up album that saw her creating a raw, emotive narrative within her otherworldly soundscapes. It was incredible, but damn it was gloomy. Happily, the febrile ‘Utopia’ sees her on more upbeat – but no less…

When Sharon Jones died of pancreatic cancer last year, the world lost its greatest exponent of vintage soul; that she’d first hit her stride in the ’00s with the revivalist, detail-obsessed Daptone label, made the accomplishment all the more striking. Recorded over her last two years with longtime sidemen, genre-masters all, Jones meets darkness with…

Indie queen Angel Olsen has come a long way from her days as part of the Cairo Gang; her legion of fervid fans steadily growing with each subsequent release. It’s a trajectory that mirrors the evolution of Olsen’s sound—and the size of her band—from the stark, indie-folk of 2012’s Strange Cacti, to the expansive, swirling…