Sarah Gillespie - Half Cut (2024) Hi-Res

More than her previous four albums, Half Cut sees singer songwriter Sarah Gillespie delving into her American roots where, growing up, she spent long summers in Minnesota , soaking up jazz, blues, beat poetry and the wordsmithery of fellow Minnesotan, Bob Dylan. Partly composed during lockdown – and perhaps because of this – the album conveys an overarching sense of emotional and physical claustrophobia, punctuated by the euphoria of escape as the album veers from delicate melancholic l aments to raucous piss-taking pastiche and Tom Waits-esque blues.

Musically the album takes in jazz, folk, country, Americana and more. It’s all of these things and yet none; turbocharged with lop sided, alt-county melodies, spring-​ loaded poetry and folk tales populated with characters fighting, loving, loosing each other and themselves.