Beards and folk … ramshackle recording material in remote mountain huts … have resulted in brilliant music over the past 2 years. Just think Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Band Of Horses and Iron & Wine. Latest offspring is American trio The Low Anthem. They play themselves right into the epicentre of the aforementioned musical scene with their album ‘Oh My God, Charlie Darwin’. Ben Knox Miller and Jeff Prystowsky already made a debut album in 2007, entitled ‘What The Crow Brings’, but songstress/multi-instrumentalist Jocie Adams was only hauled aboard later. They scored very well at the most recent SXSW festival (just re-read our-man-on-the-spot's blog) and are now making furore with their follow-up: Album Of The Month and 4 stars for Uncut (‘A fine mix of hymnal purity and barn-storming rock’), again 4 stars from MOJO (‘the second best cabin-in-winter indie album ever made, Bon Iver wins the gold) and Q magazine then writes of ‘Pastoral folk meets Pogues-style jigs’. Don't miss this.

Mint, the that managed to ensconce itself into our collective memory with golden singles 'Your Shopping Lists Are Poetry', 'The Magnetism Of Pure Gold’ and ‘I Save My Smiles’ . Frontman Erwin Marcisz has now released a beautiful, introvert album under his own name, ‘Songs From Red Brick Road’. Yet another collection of pop gems from the hand of the songsmith from Limburg - who this time gave them a folky, almost authentic jacket. Don't miss him, because none less than Ilse 'Neeka' Goovaerts will sing backing vocals and play Casio and xylophone, while Raf 'Lazy Horse' Timmermans plays banjo, dobro and mandolin and sings backing vocals

THE LOW ANTHEM ‘To The Ghosts Who Write History Books’