Crooked Words #01: Joanne Robertson, Joshua Burnside, Destroyer & more

Joanne Robertson - Blurr (LP)

Cliches are usually cliches for a reason and this cliche says that we often find special things when we need them the most. This whole month has been something of a blur(r). I've been traveling a lot, and tired a lot, and I've pushed and pulled myself into various different shapes, some comfortable others less so. Right at the end of that I found this new album from Joanne Robertson, right at the point when I needed it the most.

Blurr is Joanne's sixth album but has found a way to breakthrough, thanks, most notably, to a 9.0 score and a best new music nod from Pitchfork upon its release last week. A frequent collaborator with Dean Blunt, Robertson also finds kinship here with the cellist Oliver Coates, and the result is a mesmerising swirl of folk-ish, dream-like textures, all foggy and meandering and utterly compelling.

The spell is instant, opening song 'Ghost' immediately wrapping you up inside to the soft cloud of sound that barely allows you space to breathe over the following 40-minutes or so. Something like Grouper, if those same hues were formed in a pastoral English hillside, the album's most engrossing moment is perhaps its longest: the seven-minutes of 'Friendly' an engrossing snapshot of the layered, engrossing nature of the skewed world Robertson creates here.

The more time you spend with it, the more it feels like one of the year's most quietly remarkable records. And I am living in it, in this blurr.

Cole Davis - Tooth And Nail (feat. KINFU)

The new album from NYC upright bassist Cole Davis brings in a host of collaborators and guest turns, which makes it feel more like a mixtape than a standalone record. Which isn't meant as a negative at all.

There's still a real flow here, despite the shifting tones and textures. It's far from a jazz record, even though Davis has spent a number of years as a key part of the NYC jazz scene (he also plays in upright bass in Lambchop). It opens with a RnB/pop hybrid before inviting Justin Vernon in for a jazz-infused ballad – something like a refined take on Beth/Rest's grandeur.

The album was produced by Ryan Olson of Poliça, and bandmate Channy Leaneagh adds her voice to the beautiful closing track. It's the one-two of 'Tooth And Nail' and 'Backseat Driver' that really shine though, two sparkling tracks that showcase the work of KINFU and Senegalese artist Papa Mbye respectively.

Joshua Burnside - Nicer Part Of Town

Having already released one of my favourite records of 2025 – with the wonderful Teeth of Time LP – Belfast songwriter Joshua Burnside has released a brand new single today. Lyrically playful, such is his way, the song is a subtle and tender strum, fiddle dancing quietly in the shadows behind; the quiet ache of the world drifting by outside your house.

Beautifully affecting in that unique way he seems to pull magic from the world around him, the song is a result of a prolonged burst of songwriting inspiration he'd been wrapped up in recently, something he spoke about on stage during his recent run of UK shows.

How strange it is, this life.

Destroyer - Same Thing As Nothing At All

A flash of serendipity with this one. It took me a little while to get into the new Destroyer record. I've learned to trust Dan Bejar though and my patience paid off. I think I just needed the heat of the summer. I needed a trip to Italy, to wander around Bologna in its glorious evening light that doesn't make sense; that bends shadows. Where it all feels alive. "It intends to see you in this particular light," Dan sings here.

It helps that there's a song on the record called Bologna, but the whole thing opened up to me during that trip, where real life was pushed a little to the edges, where I was looking for a seed of something, and I struggled to listen to anything else. Destroyer's music has always existed there for me; in the fiery edges of what could be.

I realised recently that I hadn't mentioned the album here, and then, just like that, this video popped up in my feed – a brand new video for 'The Same Thing as Nothing at All', the album's spiralling opening track, some six months after its initial release.

It's a magnetic, majestic opener, all enigmatic and tumbling; a heart on fire. Even listening now, I'm right back in those orange hues, in the electric-glow of a city that is bristling with energy. Closing one door and opening another (the same thing as nothing at all?).

Thanks for being here. See you next time...