Hear the Best New Folk Music with Fresh Cuts Friday
Ready for some of the best new music we’ve heard this week? It’s a great list as you’ll see below — and as you’ll hear when you join me for my ‘Fresh Cuts’ radio hour! Listen every Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific via the 24/7 stream on our website, app, or your smart speaker.
Or, just click on the Fresh Cuts stream whenever it’s convenient for you.
In the meantime, check out some of the best new music we’ve been listening to this week.
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Folk Alley is able to produce and offer this weekly new music hour thanks to support from our members. If you enjoy the Fresh Cuts hour please donate to Folk Alley or consider becoming a sponsor.
Michael Kiwanuka, “Floating Parade”
Michael Kiwanuka is a space alien sent to us from the future. The proof is in his music, especially in his new single “Floating Parade.” The press release (which was written by an outer space person) shares: “The song itself is loosely written about utilizing your senses to find an escape, particularly in oppressive circumstances, whether spiritually or physically. The floating parade is the metaphorical movement of taking yourself out of an uncomfortable situation and seeking comfort elsewhere, driven almost solely by the power of the mind.” Got that? Someone call Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Here’s an idea: play that Michael Kiwanuka song and then immediately follow it up with Rose Cousins’ new single “Forget Me Not.” You will be W R E C K E D. Your favorite Canadian Cousins wrote the track watching the seasons pass by during the pandemic. She shares, “I became fascinated with each new budding, blooming thing, and every returning songbird. It all felt novel and it stirred a desperate desire to soak in every moment of the fleeting spring and summer, as if I might not get the chance again, wanting to remember it and wanting to be remembered in it.”
Jeffrey Foucault, “Solo Modelo”
Nothing will prepare you for Jeffrey Foucault’s new album, The Universal Fire (out September 6). The record serves as a working wake to beloved musician (and Foucault’s best friend), the late Billy Conway (who played with JF, Treat Her Right and Morphine). Conway died after a long illness in 2021. “Solo Modelo” references the lone beer he would have after losing the friend he always shared it with. This one’s gonna hurt.
UK singer/songwriter Laura Marling’s new album Patterns in Repeat (October 25) was written after the birth of her daughter in 2023, and finds Laura reflecting on the patterns at play in the constellation of a family. The songs are grounded in a very specific and revelatory time in her life, diving deeper into her reckoning with the ideas and behaviors we endure through family over generations.
