folk

There’s something faintly perverse about covering an artist’s self-titled debut in full; you’re not just borrowing their songs, you’re borrowing the album that was meant to be them. Asher White seems to know this, and the strangeness is part of the appeal. Pratt’s 2012 record still sounds like nothing else—at once ancient and contemporary—and White, working from a louder, more experimental-pop palette, reimagines it without trying to outdo it. “Mountain’r Lower” becomes something akin to a proper rock song; “Casper” has blasts of noise. Elsewhere, prepared piano and synths drift in where there used to be only fingerpicked guitar. You don’t need to know the original, though, if you do, the recognition is half the pleasure.

svn4vr (“seven forever”) makes lo-fi folk–hip-hop hymns: fingerpicked guitar and quivering vocals pulled through the clipping, stray noise and loose structures of bedroom rap. Herts on fire is seven tracks of battered gospel, prayers addressed unambiguously to Yahweh, and it took me seeing “Hertfordshire” written in the lyrics to clock that “herts” is a home-counties pun; the accent sounds West Coast, not West Watford. The production is genuinely difficult. Things hiss and thud where you’d want them to settle, and the first pass is more confusing than rewarding. But the songs underneath are real, and the religious content is unusual enough (devotional without being either kitsch or knowing) that the mess starts to feel like the point rather than a failure of means. Qualified recommendation, and I’ll keep listening.

Eisenberg’s experimental instincts haven’t gone anywhere: the melodies still take unexpected turns and the guitar work still catches you off guard, but here they’re folded into something closer to the 1970s singer-songwriter tradition. Folky, with jazzy touches. The avant-garde scaffolding of earlier records gives way to songs that breathe differently, and Eisenberg’s voice sits at the centre in a way it hasn’t quite before. The lyrics circle memory, time and youth without tipping into overt nostalgia. If you’ve bounced off their more uncompromising work in the past, this is the way in.

Hannah Pruzinsky’s work on this record is unmistakably that of a writer. They co-run a NYC music publication, and the LP shipped with a limited run of illustrated choose-your-own-adventure booklets. The songs share that sensibility: patient, considered, attentive to small pivots. Mostly hushed instrumentation—fingerpicked guitar and piano, but also Wurlitzer, sax, and synth—threaded with improvised interludes that keep the sequencing loose. The lyrics circle dependency and control without ever landing too hard on either.

The quiet gets broken twice, usefully. “if you cannot make it stop” pushes toward shoegaze: Grouper at one end of the dial, My Bloody Valentine at the other. This makes the surrounding calm feel like a choice rather than a default.

Cornfield’s first record since becoming a mother in 2023, and it sounds like the perspective shift has unlocked something. The pedal steel (courtesy of Adam Brisbin) threads through the album beautifully—country-tinged without ever tipping into full country, giving even the more vulnerable moments a warmth and sway. It’s her most collaborative album to date, and the guest list reflects good taste and good company: Buck Meek, Feist, Christian Lee Hutson. There’s something worth noting in that openness—becoming a parent seems to have made her more willing to let other voices in, both literally and in how she writes. The themes of renewal and perseverance through awkwardness land without ever feeling heavy-handed. Closer “Bloody and Alive” addresses motherhood most directly, spare and unguarded, and it earns the weight it carries. Highly recommended.