Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: October 5, 2026

Interview / 2 October 2026 ‘Community spirit is essential to defeat racism and fascism, and music must create it’ 2 October 2026 Ahead of this Sunday’s concert commemorating the Battle of Cable Street, Chris Searle speaks to trumpeter CLAUDE DEPPA, pioneer member of the Grand Union Orchestra

SYLVIA HIKINS welcomes a science-based case for optimism, with positive examples of positive ecological adaptation

WILL PODMORE welcomes a strategy that takes us well beyond Labour’s contradictory and limited ambitions for Britain’s future

PAUL DONOVAN welcomes Brown's embrace of active social citizenry and a multipolar world. But what about Corbyn, Gordon?

GAVIN O’TOOLE is chilled by astounding reportage of Donald Trump’s first year in office, and its deployment of retribution as spectacle

MARIA DUARTE, JAMES WALSH and ANGUS REID review Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, The Weight, The Portuguese House, and Child

“I BELIEVE in ordinary folks more than the powerful few/ And that the needs of people not profit should be guiding what we do.”

The title song from US-born, Canada-based folksinger Scott Cook’s new album, a kind of origin story and manifesto, includes many wise lyrical nuggets like this. Elsewhere in the almost spoken word track he namechecks his hero Woody Guthrie, Jack Kerouac, Mother Jones and Joe Hill.

On Frankie’s Braids he recounts his time working as a teacher in Taiwan, while on the amusing A Bigger Tent he highlights how contemporary cultural divides are obscuring workers’ common economic interests (“it’s less about left and right than the top against the bottom”).

Evocatively mixing folk, country and gospel with socialist principles, Cook’s catchy, ear to the ground broadsides and love songs are a breath of fresh air.

Apparently Michael Sarnoski’s new film The Death Of Robin Hood, starring Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer, is a dark reimagining of the legendary outlaw (I haven’t seen it yet). So who better to do the soundtrack than the master of brooding folk music, Jim Ghedi?

Largely made up of instrumental tracks, the powerful set sounds like an extension of the Sheffield musician’s remarkable last two albums, with added dread generated by his super talented band.

The brilliant Twa Corbies, a Scottish folk song about two crows discussing feasting on a slain knight, sits alongside two older Ghedi songs — Lamentations Of Round-Oak Waters, based on a John Clare poem, and the indignant What Will Become Of England.

An intense, sometimes harrowing listen, things are evidently not going well in Albion — both then and now.

COMING off a huge tour, Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin recorded, mastered and mixed her new album, and even had a listening party — before deciding to nix it, spending the next 11 months reworking the songs. The result is The Gem, named after the pub in the Melbourne suburbs it was recorded in.

Like her previous critically acclaimed albums, it’s full of confessional, melodic, country-tinged indie rock. If I Had The Hand Of God seems to address the downsides of being on the road (“What kind of life is that?/ After the show become an outline to everyone you know”), while closer I Wish is addressed to Jacklin’s younger self.

Detailing a situationship, Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon) is the set’s big poppy song, bringing to mind Lucinda Williams’s rock ‘n’ roll tunes.

Album Reviews / 21 September 2026 Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: September 21, 2026 21 September 2026 New releases from Biita Houdei, The Mary Wallopers, and The Tubs 

Album Reviews / 14 September 2026 Folk album reviews with Steve Johnson: September 14, 2026 14 September 2026 New releases from Sam Carter, Spell Songs and Les Thomas

Music / 31 August 2026 Jazz album reviews with Chris Searle: August 31, 2026 31 August 2026 New releases from Javon Jackson, IZE Trio, and Mal Waldron Trio

Album Reviews / 21 August 2026 Global routes with Tony Burke: August 21, 2026 21 August 2026 Re-releases of the classics Gypsy Rhumba and Buena Vista Social Club, and a stunning album by Palestinian artist Faris Ishaq