Ellur – At Home In My Mind (album)
Halifax-based singer Ellur – named after the Yorkshire pronunciation of her name Ella – comes from a familiar musical background. Her dad is Richard McNamara, one of the co-founders – along with brother Danny – of 90s indie-rock band Embrace.
Ellur’s songwriting has evolved over a high number of single releases – 21 of them since her 2020 debut Reflection. And in that time she has enjoyed support slots with the likes of Kaiser Chiefs, Blossoms and Supergrass. But her sound is far removed from the guitar crunch of such indie-rock stalwarts, or the epic pop of her forbears.
Nurture and nature have combined to give Ellur the kind of lush, Americana vocal that packs a punch without degrading any of the melody. It’s a vocal that producers love to work with – dynamic, radiant and flush with emotion.
Her most recent single, the woozy Dream Of Mine, tickled the fancy of Steve Lamacq at the start of the year and a bunch of airplay on 6Music has since raised interest in, and expectations of, her debut album, At Home In My Mind.
Across its 10 tracks, Ellur projects confessional narratives to spacious, dynamic pop-rock chord sequences, utilising a range of instrumentation and harnessing a bucketload of studio trickery. She writes songs about feeling, battling with, and ultimately drawing comfort from, vulnerability. Her voice is the chief characteristic here but there’s much to admire beneath the surface too – strident soundscapes in the vein of War On Drugs or Sharon Van Etten, touches of psych rock and modest swathes of epic balladry.
The title track is a case in point. At its outset, we find Ellur at her most delicate and fragile – and at her most intriguing. Building to a heroic crescendo, strings and all, it’s the song on the album that most calls to mind her dad’s band, Embrace, and the epic, rallying-call closers they used to craft so expertly – songs like That’s All Changed Forever, The Good Will Out and Out Of Nothing
The album closer, Knowing, has a similar impact. Soporific, tender and reflective, it feels calmly assured. And it’s a beautiful way to round off a polished debut.
Molly Rymer – City Half Awake (single)
Molly is a Leeds-based folk-pop artist who’s recently caught the keen eye of The Grayston Unity booking team.
Her new single, City Half Awake, is the pre-cursor to a new four-track project, Alone When The Lights Come On, exploring themes of heartbreak, identity and self-deception. It’s also her first song featuring a full-band line-up.
A self-proclaimed “grandma in the body of a 20-something” there’s an undeniable sense of nostalgia to the track. It has a warm, homely, folksy feel. Picked strings provide intriguing rhythmic pulls, the sweeping cello brings a theatric richness to proceedings and the harmonies are delicately enchanting.
Inspired by Lizzy McAlpine, there’s also, at times, a Joni Mitchell country-blues vibe at play. Perhaps hints of Alanis Morissette too, if we consider songs like These Are The Thoughts and Perfect.
The lyrical sentiment also nods to the maturity of such songwriters. Written nearly a decade ago, City Half Awake uses a metaphorical lens to unpack the complexities of early-adult relationships.
“I always thought I’d leave the mess behind when I entered my twenties”, says Molly, “but I see it everyday, in my friends, in my mum and dad, in myself. A decade on, we’re still just strolling through.”
With City Half Awake, Molly is perpetuating the fine tradition of classic singer-songwriters, handling the genre with care and skill, and adding her own original touches of artistry along the way.
Lines of Silence – Radiate (EP)
Experimental komische duo Lines Of Silence had us all in a veritable lather two years ago with their third album The Long Way Home, released on the excellent Todmorden label AnalogueTrash. As we inferred at the time, it’s a record brimming with motorik beats and soaked in moonlight transcendence.
For their follow-up, Lines Of Silence have moved to the Sprechen label, just down the road in Stockport. It’s another fitting home for the band. Sprechen is run by Chris Massey, a keen advocate of cosmic electronica and limitless experimentation – “wonky and weird, banging and beautiful” goes the mantra.
On Radiate, the band’s first pre-album teaser, Lines Of Silence have, to some extent, swerved their usual guitar-based psych core and chosen to wade in more ambient-electro waters. It’s a sound they’ve previously tinkered with, particularly on tracks like Phantom Galaxy and A Stranger Shore, but it’s one they more fully embrace here.
The three-track EP leads off with Transcendental Radiation, a succulent slice of metronomic, gliding ambience. A loping, lava-like, mid-tempo beat lays the foundation for bright, hypnotic pulses and ghostly synth-whispers. There’s a gently psychedelic, playful gloopiness to the whole thing, much like the work of Swedish duo Carbon Based Lifeforms, or Secede.
It also calls to mind Global Communication, the acclaimed project of influential dance producers Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton, whose 1994 album 76:14 was a landmark in the ambient house movement. In hindsight, that album established a ballpark in which musicians much like Lines Of Silence, straddling both ambient and rhythm-driven repetition, could freely play.
Pre-order: Lines of Silence – Radiate EP>
The Radiate EP comes with a remix of Transcendental Radiation by Bristol-based AV performer Kayla Painter who explores the more ethereal ambient echoes of the original.
The final track – a reworking of the old LOS song, Walrus, by Amaury Cambuzat, the founding member of Ulan Bator and sometime member of Faust – is a shadowy affair, full of abstract glitches and surreal tones.
Radiate is a tantalising first taste of a new album which promises to contain numerous ingredients.
Sprechen boss, Chris Massey: “David [of Lines Of Silence] sent me about four tracks and I loved them. They were all definitely in the krautrock vein. I asked to hear the full album and that fully sealed it for me. It’s a really interesting listen, which covers kraut, cosmic, ambient, soundscapes and a lot more.”
Cavan Murphy – An Anti-Imperfection (EP)
This might well be Cavan Murphy’s debut EP but he is certainly no newcomer to the local music scene. Having gigged around West Yorkshire for the last five years, much of that time playing as a solo acoustic act, the teenage singer-songwriter from Boothtown in Halifax pulled together a full band line-up in the summer of 2025. The move has added new dimensions to Cavan’s songs, as demonstrated across these four tracks.
The EP is fast out of the traps with The Narcissist, a chunk of vintage high-energy, urgent indie-rock that binds crunchy guitar and rattling drums. The lyric is cheeky and daring and the vocal wrapped in Cavan’s distinguishing Yorkshire accent (comparisons to Arctic Monkeys are hard to ignore, though that’s no criticism).
History pulls at the more melodious aspects of indie-pop flagbearers Los Campesinos! Spacious, warm vocals and a cascading guitar hook give it instant appeal.
The second half of the EP seems to explore a more serious side to Cavan. The guitars on No Surrender are given a bit of sneer and snarl to match the mood of the lyric, while closing track Miracle appears to offer a thoughtful reflection on life’s struggles and the necessity of hope. Stirring stuff, indeed.
Follow Cavan Murphy on Instagram.
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