MAYA DELILAH, THE LONG WAY ROUND

"What would Prince do?" That was the question Maya Delilah’s mom posed when Delilah considered becoming a surgeon. 

Having learned to play guitar by ear rather than through formal theory, an approach shaped by her dyslexia, the North London guitarist and singer-songwriter developed a distinctive blend of soul-pop, jazz, blues, and funk. As her voice and guitar skills fueled a growing online following, she eventually caught the attention of Blue Note and its president, Don Was, who encouraged her to fully embrace her wide-ranging influences rather than conform to a single sound, assuring her that her voice and guitar could serve as the unifying thread. The result is The Long Way Round, Delilah’s debut album. 

Going into the studio, Delilah had two goals: first, to create music that feels comforting, like a nostalgic Sunday morning soundtrack, records you turn to for warmth, reflection, and a sense of belonging. Second, to draw from her own life and the experiences of friends to chart an emotional journey of clarity, growth, and new beginnings. 

Delilah has accomplished both her goals with The Long Way Round. The album plays like the soundtrack that she envisioned. With songs capturing snapshots of vulnerability, resilience, and hope, balancing playful moments with quiet introspection. Whether it’s the breezy charm of “Maya, Maya, Maya” or the bittersweet ache of “I’ll Be There in the Morning,” each track feels like a lived-in memory, tenderly reimagined through her guitar and voice. It’s comforting, welcoming, and spot on for a Sunday morning.

BJØRN RIIS, FIMBULVINTER

In Norse mythology, Fimbulvinter is the merciless winter that precedes Ragnarök, a time of chaos and collapse that ultimately makes way for renewal. It’s a season marked by darkness, struggle, and survival. As the title of Bjørn Riis’ latest solo album, Fimbulvinter becomes more than a mythological reference, it’s a thematic anchor.

You may not have heard of Riis, which is a shame. He’s the co-founder and guitarist of Norway’s Airbag, one of progressive rock’s most compelling guitar-driven bands. For over 20 years, he’s helped shape a sound defined by atmosphere, precision, and emotional weight. Since 2016, he’s also built a solo catalog that pushes those qualities even further inward, offering deeply personal explorations through richly textured arrangements. 

With Fimbulvinter, Riis draws on his own experience with anxiety to explore feelings of isolation, fear, and emotional collapse with striking clarity and conviction. The reference to Fimbulvinter isn’t just symbolic, it mirrors the album’s sonic and emotional arc. What begins in heaviness and unease gradually gives way to reflection and, ultimately, a faint but meaningful sense of hope. 

Musically, Fimbulvinter balances brooding, ambient passages with bursts of jarring energy. Across 45 minutes and six songs, Riis blends introspective melodies and layered soundscapes with hard rock edges, crafting a sound that’s as introspective as it is expansive. It not only evokes the myth of endings and rebirth, it delivers one of Riis’ more powerful solo statements.

PINCHIKO, GINKGO

Panchiko’s story reads like a plot from a movie, so unlikely it almost feels fictional. Four teens from Nottingham form a band in the late '90's, record a lo-fi demo, play only a handful of local gigs to mostly empty rooms, and then dissolve and fade into obscurity until that demo cassette resurfaces online in 20216. With no information attached, the warped, lo-fi sound piqued curiosity and eventually inspired a global online effort to track down the band.

By the time the members were located, now in their forties with day jobs in teaching and music mastering, their music had become an underground cult sensation. Teenagers were getting tattoos of the tape’s artwork, and Panchiko suddenly had a new and passionate fanbase, mostly in the U.S. Reuniting in 2021, the band began playing shows to sold-out audiences and, after two decades apart, faced the challenge of making new music that honored their lo-fi origins while reflecting who they are now.

In 2023, they released their debut album, Failed at Math(s), to great fanfare. It successfully retained the warped charm of their early work while embracing more refined production, and with it, love for the band only grew....As of January 2025, Panchiko has amassed 200 million listens on Spotify and draws 1.45 million monthly followers! Despite their unconventional reentry into music, the band approaches their second life with humility and humor, fully aware of the surreal odds that brought them back together.

With Ginkgo, Panchiko step fully into the present without losing sight of the beautifully warped past that brought them here. Where Failed at Math(s) felt like the band reintroducing themselves, reconciling dusty demos with decades of distance, Ginkgo sounds like them settling in, making music with the clarity, confidence, and creative freedom that eluded them the first time around. It’s both a progression and a homecoming, steeped in their trademark wistfulness, but more expansive in scope, sharper in execution, and looser in spirit.

BROWN HORSE, ALL THE RIGHT WEAKNESSES

Brown Horse has played their fair share of English pubs over the years. Formed in 2018 as a folk quartet, the band got their start performing old-time standards, Michael Hurley covers, and original songs in pub corners across the country. Those early days carried a homespun charm, steeped in tradition but always nudging toward something more expansive.

By 2023, the band had grown into a six-piece ensemble and begun leaning into a sound that fused their folk and ‘70s country roots with the fuzzier edges of '90s alt-rock. The lineup shift brought a broader sound and more room to experiment, and it shows on their sophomore record, All The Right Weaknesses.

Where their 2024 debut Reservoir leaned into a more open and slow-burning sound, this follow-up feels looser and louder. The album delivers an energized blend of slacker-rock and folk, with banjo, accordion, and pedal steel guitar woven into arrangements that add a rich musical texture. It’s the sound of a band that’s spent serious time on the road, tightened by repetition, but still open enough to be playful in moments, giving their music an easy, lived-in vibe. 

DESTROYER, DAN'S BOOGIE

Thirty years into Destroyer, Dan Bejar is still writing, still singing, still figuring it out. There’s a kind of bemused clarity in how he talks about it now. “Usually people go up or go away,” he says. “It’s strange to be still in the trenches, but everyone you know is gone.” That sense of being somewhere in the middle, not a star, not a struggler, just enduring, runs through his fourteenth album. 

Bejar doesn’t glamorize his longevity. In a recent interview, he was frank about the industry’s obsession with youth and candid about the toll of continuing to operate in a space that often seems to have moved on. But he’s still drawn to the work itself, albeit slower now, and maybe a little less certain. “How I do it is so unconscious. I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I really don’t.” 

That looseness has started to seep into the music in new ways. Where past Destroyer records often carried a stylized aloofness, Dan’s Boogie opens space for humor and unpredictability. He’d never have felt comfortable with that in the past, but now he embraces it, and it shows up in the album’s more madcap moments. 

“As you age, I guess you stop censoring yourself.” 

There’s a spontaneity to songs like “Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World,” which Bejar essentially improvised in the studio, grabbing surreal lines from the air without knowing what might come next. Still, even amid the chaos, there’s a core to hold onto: that unmistakable voice. A voice Bejar once loathed, but now recognizes as foundational to who he is. “I probably identify myself as a singer more than anything else in the world,” he says. 

If Dan’s Boogie proves anything, it’s that Bejar is still deeply in it—not reinventing himself, but relaxing into the strange, singular role he’s carved out over decades. It’s just the right place and space to experience Bejar. He really is one of a kind and Dan’s Boogie is yet another fantastic album in a storied career.

MDOU MOCTAR, TEARS OF INJUSTICE

Guitarist and singer Mdou Moctar’s musical life took root in Abalak, a small town in central Niger, where he built his first guitar from bicycle cables and scrap wood. What started as solitary experimentation soon turned into a regional phenomenon with his early recordings being circulated across West Africa through Bluetooth swaps and SIM card trades, long before they ever reached a formal release. Over time, that homespun spirit grew louder, sharper, more defiant. By the time Ilana: The Creator dropped in 2019,Moctar’s project had expanded into a full-fledged band, blending searing electric guitar with calls for justice, liberation, and cultural pride. Though still rooted in Agadez, the group’s reach had grown global.

Their new album, Tears of Injustice catches the band in a moment of dislocation. Stranded in the U.S. after a military coup back home, they recorded the album in Brooklyn, untethered from the familiar but tethered still to a collective grief. These are acoustic reworkings of songs from 2024’s Funeral for Justice, but they don’t feel like translations—they feel like returns. Stripped of distortion, the songs find power in quiet resolve: hand drums pulse like slowed heartbeats, Moctar’s guitar playing winds and loops with the precision of ritual, and the vocals carry the ache of distance. There’s clarity here, not just in sound but in intent—a reclamation of space, memory, and identity. It’s an album made in exile, but tied to a place and people with unmistakable force.