Global indie pop icon Anna of the North's latest single "Call Me" is a pop gem with 80s and 90s influences shining through and Anna’s vocals and lyrics as on-point as ever.
Anna of the North is the solo project of Anna Lotterud, an Oslo-based Norwegian singer-songwriter from Gjøvik. Originally formed as a duo with producer Brady Daniell-Smith in 2014, their debut studio album Lovers was released in 2017. Daniell-Smith left the group in 2018, with Lotterud continuing to use the name. The second album, Dream Girl, released in October 2019, was made by Lotterud in association with various producers.
The music has been regarded as "soft, soul-baring electro-pop". During her studies in Melbourne, Australia, Anna met New Zealand producer Brady Daniell-Smith at one of his shows and together formed Anna Of The North, with Anna performing vocals and Brady producing the melodies.
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International award winning singer-songwriter Hayley Mckay and multi instrumentalist/producer David Neil Crabtree combine as ‘North Riding'. Following on from their 3 month USA tour - North Riding have played some of the biggest festivals in the North East of England this summer, including main stage appearances at Hardwick Festival alongside the Pet Shop Boys and Olly Murs & Mouth of The Tyne Festival. They also performed two headline shows at Durham Fringe Festival.
Legendary BBC presenter Bob Harris made North Riding his ‘New Horizon’ country artist of the week in October & played Frio River on BBC radio 2. A week earlier he had seen the band perform live at Rock N Raise in Newcastle alongside Kezia Gill & The Often Herd.
Their debut EP was released yesterday October 24th to coincide with an EP release show at Newgate Social in Newcastle. North Riding can perform as a 4 piece or 7 piece (full band). Over the years both Hayley and David have built up a strong fanbase. Hayley has won awards including Entertainer of the Year at the Hot Country awards in Ireland and International Single of the Year at the ISSA awards Atlanta USA. Between them they have supported artists on numerous occasions including Scouting for Girls, The Shires, Tom Jones, Martha Reeves and Albert Lee. In the past year David has done over 150 gigs and together they are a force!
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Malin Schell has a vision: “When I sing, I merge with the sound and become one with the music. Through this, I reach a state of deep connectedness and inner peace. May my music touch many people’s hearts, inspire them, remind them of the light within themselves, and fill the world with joy, love, and harmony.”
And yes – her new single “Mother Nature” truly does touch the soul. With its rich instrumentation, rarely heard in the indie and folk genres, the song features shimmering harp sounds, romantic and wistful strings, percussion, and a moving voice. Together, they create an aesthetic reminiscent of the Nordic music scene.
Yet Malin Schell was born in Switzerland in 1990. Since childhood, she has been singing and playing the cello, guitar, piano, and various percussion instruments. She studied Music & Movement as well as Jazz Vocals at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, where she trained under Lauren Newton, and later earned a Master’s degree in Vocal Improvisation at the Basel Music Academy under Fred Frith.
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| Photo - Elise Ideiens |
Isabel Rumble leans into life's gentle shifts on her second album ‘Hold Everything Lightly’, out yesterday October 24. Tracing the tender spaces between change and acceptance, the regional NSW-based indie-folk artist returns to the heart’s quiet centre, where resilience lives in vulnerability and softness becomes a form of power.
'Hold Everything Lightly’ moves like a slow river, its currents shifting between intimate acoustic folk and fuller, textured moments of release. Fingerpicked guitars, bowed strings, slide guitar, percussion and piano each breathe new life into every track. Isabel’s voice guides the record, warm and weightless as she balances fragility with grace, creating a world that feels both grounded in earth and open to sky.
Across ten tracks, Isabel moves through cycles of self-reflection, drawing from the rhythms of the natural world and the resolve that comes with acceptance. Written in the wake of transition, the record captures moments of honesty, growth and surrender, gently returning to what remains when everything else falls away. Speaking on the album, Isabel shares:
"Following the release of my first album, my approach to songwriting began to morph into a new phase. The songs that make up my second album are the most raw and honest I have written. They let me turn inwards and meet myself honestly in the midst of big change and transition. These songs very much travel through internal landscapes whilst, or perhaps as a consequence of, listening to the cycles of the world around me."
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West Wales songwriter Louis O’Hara announces the release of his debut album, 'A Peaceful Kind of Fun', out 7th November 2025 on Libertino Records. The news arrives alongside the release of 'Magpie', the album’s latest single, released earlier this week.
'A Peaceful Kind of Fun' is a 14-track collection that distils O’Hara’s poetic lyricism, tender folk roots, and subtle chamber-pop flourishes into a deeply personal yet quietly universal debut. Recorded with his band His Burley Chassis and produced by James Trevascus (Billy Nomates, Young Fathers, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis) in Spain, the album is shaped by themes of memory, loss, joy, and the places and people that anchor a life.
The album gathers together fragments of memory, relationships, and place, weaving them into songs that honour the connections which shape a life. Moving between moments of joy, loss, and reflection, A Peaceful Kind of Fun lingers on the small details that stay with us - the echoes of childhood, the presence of family, the landscapes of home.
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