Browsing Tag

acoustic

Intimate ache and cinematic warmth met in Ida Maisey’s ‘Get Lucky’

Posted on 29 December 2025

As an artist who could easily be revered as the Joni Mitchell of her generation, Ida Maisey has a distinct way of projecting intricate beauty from candid melancholy. In her latest single, Get Lucky, that gift feels especially potent. With a voice as weightless and consoling as the steady ring of her acoustic guitar strings, Maisey moves through a confessional of pain that feels quietly fearless. The lyrics touch on common insecurities and the familiar pull of morose hunger strikes, digging deep into the trenches of the soul with an intimacy that lands close to the bone.

The way the single builds in artful beguile feels far richer than a simple exercise in experimental flourish. The diaphanous cinematic swells and sepia-soaked expanses of Americana serve a clear emotional purpose. They deepen the vulnerability at the core of Get Lucky, exposing how superficial connections that lead with lust and inhibit trust often leave you tethered to doubt around your own self-worth. These elements arrive as emotional reinforcements rather than decoration, amplifying the quiet ache that sits beneath Maisey’s delivery.

Based in London, Maisey first introduced her reflective songwriting voice with her debut EP Growing Pains, released at just eighteen. Since then, her writing has continued to sharpen, pairing acoustic warmth with lyrical clarity that never shies away from discomfort. In Get Lucky, she tackles a complex diorama of emotion with absolute grace, wrestling visceral narratives into a hauntingly dreamy soundscape that lingers long after the final note fades. It’s proof of her value as a contemporary singer-songwriter, and a reminder of how powerful sincerity can feel when handled with this much care.

Get Lucky is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Daren Reece Lamberton’s Ashes of the Clown cremated the sting of fleeting happiness through smoulderingly sombre folk melancholy

Posted on 14 November 2025

Daren Reece Lamberton cut the anticipation for his sophomore solo single short with the unveiling of the sombre sublimity of Ashes of the Clown. As a cremation of all the times you naively thought happiness might linger longer than it ever did, the 70s-tinged folk pop serenade strikes through to the tenderest nerves. Lamberton holds an almost psychic connection to his fretboard, each chord chosen with superlative sensitivity, each lyric steeped in a weary wisdom that only arrives after walking through a few too many emotional fires. The track finds him standing at the intersection of vulnerability and craftsmanship, where the soul decides to speak plainly instead of performing for applause.

As the rhythm unfolds, Ashes of the Clown feels intimately eternal, its stripped-back delivery leaving nowhere to hide and nowhere you’d rather be. The quiver in his vocals mirrors the weight of what’s been left unsaid, and the melody settles into you like the dusk of your soul. If fairness dictated the airwaves, Lamberton’s raw confessional would already be on A-lists across both sides of the Atlantic.

After forty years of making music across projects and stages, from drumming in his local youth club at seventeen to performing at Download Festival and fronting the alt-rock outfit North Blood, Daren Reece Lamberton is finally giving his voice full autonomy. His debut solo album, Life Outside the Lens, out this November, promises to stretch that introspective candour even further. For now, Ashes of the Clown leaves just enough smoke in the lungs to remind you what honesty in music feels like.

Ashes of the Clown is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

– Review by Amelia Vandergast

UK Folk singer-songwriter SOPE rendered ‘Real Love’ into his debut EP, Frame 1

Posted on 7 November 2025
SOPE

SOPE has given us a teaser of what’s to come on his debut EP, which is set to arrive in early 2023. Just as it feels like there’s another world between your waking world and sleep, the standout single, Real Love, exists as a semi-lucid meditation that lets down every conceivable defence. Standing naked, without the façade of heavy-handed production, through the candour of lo-fi saturated tape deck delay, SOPE wears his heart on his sleeves and gives the airwaves his shirt.

To juxtapose the raw wounds bleeding through the track, which allow you to imagine what Bon Iver would sound like if he took a few production tips from Elliott Smith, there’s an artful stringed folk crescendo, allowing the emotion to arrive without the posturing of grandeur. The result is an ache-soaked artefact of vulnerability, pinned to a spectrally grounded soundscape

The UK-based indie-folk project formed around a sound that drifts between organic warmth and electronic subtlety. Written and recorded in Manchester, SOPE’s debut EP Frame 1 captures the cinematic nature of memory; Real Love forms its most emotionally stark frame. Lyrically rooted in love, rebirth, and the quiet persistence of hope, it’s a song that leaves the listener more open than before. Fans of Sufjan Stevens, Nick Mulvey, or Mk.gee will recognise that same tender balance between introspection and expanse.

Follow SOPE on Instagram to stay up to date with news of his release.


Review by Amelia Vandergast

‘Better Days’ by Iyla Elise mapped out a bluesy backroad to redemptive clarity

Posted on 31 October 2025

Iyla Elise delivered the gospel of blues with her latest single, Better Days, a soul sermon that cuts to the quick of existing in a world so removed from what once felt familiar. Her take on modern disillusionment isn’t an empty promise that the sun will rise shinier tomorrow, but an intimate exploration of moving forward when forward is no longer linear. As Elise traces the backroads through melancholic introspection, she illustrates how it’s possible to let your soul steer you somewhere softer, somewhere more yours, while the rest are swept away by whatever current has them.

Better Days becomes a mirror to the soul, where the distortion of modernity doesn’t swallow you whole but instead reflects the grace needed to keep walking. Elise’s vocals pierce through the earthy amalgam of blues and Americana like a thread of light through fog. As the guitar scales roll in, sometimes swelling with amplified redemption, sometimes dancing through intricacies, there’s a sense of solace woven into the composition.

Originally from a small town on the east coast of Virginia, Elise draws on a wide pool of influences, from John Denver to Norah Jones, but in Better Days, the sound is unmistakably her own. Her 2023 release Outlier already cemented her lyrical reach, and Better Days proves she’s still tapping deeper into her well of truth, resilience, and hard-won clarity.

Better Days is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Flying Hearts reached the epitome of affecting with their acoustic punk outpour of grief, Bury Me in England

Posted on 9 November 2024
Flying Hearts

The UK duo Flying Hearts reached the epitome of affecting with their acoustic punk single, Bury Me in England, which puts Frank Turner to shame when it comes to rendering visceralism into an acoustically accompanied narrative.

The tenderness of the indie-tinged melodies juxtaposes the urgency within the vocal delivery, which mourns the loss of singer-songwriter Joe Wenman’s best friend. There are few greater tragedies than a life lost too soon, and that rings deafeningly true through this fitting tribute to the connection shared. The elucidation of the pain that’s left behind will resonate with everyone who knows how it feels to be left with everything-wrenching emotion and find themselves at a loss with how to contend with it.

With lyricism which pierces the psyche with an exposition on the fragility of life and everything we can so easily take for granted and Flying Hearts acting as a beacon for the disenfranchised, the duo will undoubtedly break major ground with this release given the disillusionment-imparting times we are all enduring in our own way.

Bury Me in England was officially released on November 8th and is now available to stream on all major platforms. Find your preferred way to listen via Flying Hearts’ official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Emerge from your naval daze with Phantom Electric’s acoustic rock symphony, ‘Hope So’

Posted on 27 September 2024

The quasi-psychedelic indie singer-songwriter Phantom Electric may have innovation running deep in the veins that connect to the heart he wears on his guitar strings, but his latest single, Hope So, revisits classic song crafting, allowing the thematic underpinnings of the release to draw you into the artful gravity of the single.

Hope So is a haunting intersection between the atmospherically nostalgic air of Chris Isaak and the soul of Bryan Adams; the Adams influence tempers the dark melancholic chill of the lyrics which are slick with existential yearning.

Hope So unfurls as an artful reflection on how easy it is to succumb to navel-gazing and forget to care about anything but yourself—a theme all too relevant in our era of rampant individualism. With spectrally arcane melodies that tear through the soul, Phantom Electric produced one of his most affecting singles to date by looking to the darkest side of the human condition and showing a better way to be.

Hope So will be available to stream on all major platforms from September 27; stream the single on SoundCloud first and head over to Phantom Electric’s official website for more ways to listen.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Robin Shaw borrowed from Bright Eyes in his acoustic indie single, Bus 2 Nowhere

Posted on 16 September 2024

From the first effervescent notes of the acoustic guitar chord progressions in Robin Shaw’s latest single ‘Bus 2 Nowhere (Acoustic Version)’, your soul sets alight and your senses scintillate to the timbre of the euphonically rugged rhythms. Equally sweet are Shaw’s folk-leaning indie pop vocals, which synergise with the summery melodies.

As a true troubadour to the diehard romantics, Shaw knows exactly how to pull you into his panoramic narrative of infatuation that rings with hints of 00s indie pop nostalgia. If you’re a big fan of bands in the vein of Bright Eyes and The Shins, you’ll be downright sycophantic for ‘Bus 2 Nowhere’.

Before making waves in the music industry, Robin started off as a street dancer at age 16, which included appearances on Britain’s Got Talent. He established himself as a singer-songwriter after an audition in Soho, and began his career with Regent Street Artists, eventually moving to work independently. Now, he records across a variety of studios in West/Central London with his producer, Chris Hall.

Robin Shaw has been a hit with music lovers and critics alike after his tracks have been transmitted on BBC Introducing Norfolk and Suffolk, South Devon Sounds, Islington Radio, Watford VIBE FM as well as reaching Global stations in Ireland, Ohio, Toronto, Helsinki, Canberra, Los Angeles and many more.

With his new release, he’s one step closer to sealing his fate as one of the most accoladed singer-songwriters of his generation.

Stream the Acoustic Version of Bus 2 Nowhere on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Whispers Through Time: Samaël’s Acoustic Revelations in Ancient Whispers

Posted on 28 August 2024

Samaël, the seasoned Canadian guitarist and composer, has stirred the strings once again with his latest acoustic composition, Ancient Whispers, the debut single from his anticipated album, CASCADIA.

The accompanying music video is a mesmerising prelude to a visual trilogy, entrenched in narrative depth and an artistic flair that dares to push the sensory boundaries. The baroque beguile of the high-production video marries perfectly with the mystical lens Samaël forces the listener to peer through with his intuitive notes. Each progression is a masterclass in musical clarity as the notes are sustained with celestial quality. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Ancient Whispers is enough to rival epic sagas in the vein of Divine Comedy.

Educated at the prestigious Musicians Institute and further honed in the halls of Concordia and the University of Montreal, Samaël’s academic journey is as storied as his creative output. From his debut album Halcyon Night to his introspective work Shadow, he has evolved into a virtuoso of minimalistic yet affectingly cinematic soundscapes. His forthcoming album is set to unveil some of his finest work to date.

Stream the official music video for Ancient Whispers on YouTube now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lara Eidi and Ed Blunt conjured the sweetest sound of the summer in the soul-folk single, Orange Sundress

Posted on 10 August 2024

For her latest single, Orange Sundress, the Grecian soul folk goddess, Lara Eidi, collaborated with the equally esteemed artist Ed Blunt to hold the magic of summer.

After a chance meeting at a songwriting retreat in Edinburgh, Orange Sundress was written as an impromptu act of sonic serendipity, and that’s so much more than the origin story behind the single. The naturalistically spontaneous synergy resounds through the weightlessly blissful single which is fraught with the imagery of a love story unfurling to an Athenian backdrop.

Slip into the single and live vicariously through the tenderly warm narrative which serves as yet another attestation to Lara Eidi’s ability to transcend sound with the soul she infuses into each of her sonic landscapes.

With acoustic instrumentation as seraphically sweet as the interplay between the harmonies of Eidi and Blunt, Orange Sundress immortalises the ephemeral utopia of sun-kissed days marked by the rapture of devotion.

Orange Sundress was officially released on August 2nd; stream the single on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Simon Ewing serenaded through the eras in his acoustic indie folk triumph LULLABY

Posted on 23 April 2024

Simon Ewing’s latest single, LULLABY, artfully blends a spectrum of musical epochs with a mastery of guitar play that fans of folk and beyond will find irresistibly compelling. The track is a confluence of lo-fi charm and intricate guitar work that nods to The Maccabees’ Toothpaste Kisses while embedding a distinctly Americana vibe interlaced with blues’ soulful essence.

LULLABY won’t sing you to sleep; instead, it vibrates with life, signifying the Bristol-based troubadour’s knack for weaving narratives that affirm the sensibility of the soul. The song’s architectural simplicity in structure belies a complex, layered emotional resonance that hooks the listener from the first chord.

Ewing’s ability to synthesise swathes of genres into a seamless, flowing piece shows not just versatility but a deep reverence for the roots of each genre. Each note reflects a rhythmic exploration that feels both classic and innovative, making LULLABY a testament to Ewing’s ability to transcend traditional storytelling through music.

If Elliott Smith’s songs had veered away from melancholy towards this vein of succinct sweetness, they might have touched the same bright corners of the soul that Ewing reaches with this track.

Stream LULLABY on SoundCloud and YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast