COUNTRY/ FOLK

Jason Lenyer Buchanan’s Lazarus is a three-song Americana EP about loss, transformation, family and the uneasy possibility of finding something worth holding onto after life has changed shape. Released as Buchanan relocates from Wyoming to Oregon, it also marks a creative shift: after building his catalog around guitar, he turns…

Oslo collective Soul Zimon & His Kozmic Combinations strip country music back to its warmest, most human elements on “Wild River Rose,” a gentle single built around memory, mortality and the struggles of ordinary life. Formed by two brothers and a close friend, the project draws from country legends such…

UK-based songwriter and composer Michael Waters has built his work around emotional storytelling, memorable melodies and the space between reflective ballads and feel-good pop. His songs have already found international attention, with compositions such as “A Baby Of My Own” and “The Boy Who Really Loved You” reaching the World…

Marty Van Wells returns for a third time with Songs To Send, an album that finds folk intimacy meeting a more upbeat, full-bodied sound. Still rooted in the simple relationship between a voice and a guitar, Van Wells allows the arrangements to breathe a little wider this time, bringing in…

Kenny Mehler’s Cornbread & Whiskey is the country-rock album that wears its personality loudly. It is playful, nostalgic and full of movement, blending pop-country warmth with big harmonies, sturdy rhythms and hooks that seem designed to stick around. Across the record, Mehler moves between mischievous memories, relationship fallout and outright…

Dave Hill Jr. turns the search for inspiration into something tender and deeply ordinary with “Chasing Stars.” Rather than romanticizing the creative process, the Seattle singer-songwriter places it right in the middle of everyday life, where there are children running around, practical responsibilities waiting and barely enough time to sit…

Sometimes the people closest to you are the ones who know exactly where to press. Scott A. Flaxman turns that painful realization into “The Love of Strangers,” a moody indie singer-songwriter ballad about creative isolation, dismissal and the unexpected comfort of being understood by people who barely know you. The…

Sean Coats turns heartbreak into a three-song journey through disappointment, anger and the slow acceptance that follows. Released August 30, Hello Cloudy Skies is the Pekin, Indiana singer-songwriter’s most personal and expansive project yet, blending fictional storytelling with emotions drawn from real experience. Recorded largely in his home studio while…

John Muka Band’s “Bus Stop” arrives from another era, but its questions feel strikingly current. Originally written in the early 2000s amid the fear and uncertainty surrounding 9/11, the Jacksonville indie-rock/Americana band’s latest single finds a new home in a world where people can communicate constantly and still feel strangely…

There is something wonderfully strange about music that feels less like it was recorded in a studio and more like it was discovered somewhere in the wilderness. Man From The Woods has built precisely that kind of atmosphere. The enigmatic English artist, best known for “Migration Song,” which found a…