Fresh Cuts: Lost Boys may be facing a Reckoning

Fresh Cuts! Here we are. Cindy’s picks. Cindy hosts. We have the ED of FA, Sarah LaDuke, writing about some of the songs for the Fresh Cuts blog post. Where is that? You’re reading it right now.

Cindy’s weekly Fresh Cuts radio hour airs every Friday at 2pm ET / 11am PT on Folk Alley’s 24/7 stream — available on our website, mobile app, or your smart speaker. You can always hear the best new folk music around on our Fresh Cuts stream.

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Mary Gauthier – “Reckoning”

🎶“When the pain of the familiar outweighs the fear of the unknown you can feel it in your body – down where the spirit meets the bone.”🎶

Mary Gauthier’s “Reckoning” roils with a certainty that though the long arc of the universe may have deviated of late – it’s still bending toward justice. 

Gauthier: “This record came together quickly. It was born from a surge of creative energy, sparked by the times we are living through. I followed the songs where they led. …I wasn’t chasing a concept or trying to make a statement, but these songs have a through line: they take place at a fork in the road, a point of no return.⁠A moment of reckoning.⁠”

The lyrics on the title track posit, through forceful and vivid nature imagery, that when good hearted and brave people rise together:  their victory is inevitable. 

Eunice – Uchindere

Fresh Cuts loves ‘Sounds of Malawi, Vol 1.’ – out now from Hen House Studios. This is the exciting compilation’s third showing in as many weeks. 

Eunice was, according to provided album materials, a well known theater artist who transitioned to singing. Her voice is powerful and direct – but with an unforced quality and rich, smooth, lightly reedy timbre

The way I danced to this song in my kitchen! My friends, I was toasting a bagel and I was free. Danced like no one was watching – easy, because no one was. The dog hates it when I dance. He acts embarrassed and goes upstairs. 

Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers singing “I don’t feel bad, but I’m sorry” nicely wraps up a lot of things for me.

Bridgers, who often looks at society through her music and says “come on, why?,” sings about the emotional distance – and sometimes manipulation – that people tolerate from their partners until they can’t. The inability or unwillingness to continue to grow will doom you, every time. 

We’re featuring the acoustic version of the song from her upcoming album “Lost Weekend” (Dead Oceans 8/14/26). The non-acoustic and official music video version linked here for your ease of location. 

Cindy’s list this week also features Kelly Hunt’s “Clouds” which we premiered this week; Raul Malo’s beautiful “Forever and Ever,” recorded live at what would prove to be his final performance; and more. 

~Fresh Cuts List~
Mary Gauthier – “Reckoning”
Phoebe Bridgers – “Lost Boys (Acoustic)”
Kate MacLeod – “The Old Charles Town Pike”
Riley Downing – “Landfill Poetry”
Kelly Hunt – “Clouds”
Lindsay Lou – “All I Ever Loved Was You”
The Slocan Ramblers – “Forever Has Come to an End”
Eunice – “Uchindere”
The Family (feat. Dylan LeBlanc) – “Everybody Loves You Now”
Chris Pierce – “It Ain’t Ever Wrong to Be Free”
Ruthie Foster – “Take Time”
Katie Pruitt – “Little Boxes”
Raul Malo – “Forever and Ever (live)”