The Best of Some of My New Favorite Music

Craven Faults

On my two radio shows, “Between the Grooves” and “Night Lights” on Radio Kingston, I dedicate a total of 13 hours each week to music — the art of music, the music of art, and how music affects and reveals the past, present and future.

If you’ve been listening to my overnight show “Night Lights” for the past month or so, you’ll have heard some of the artists that I’ve recently discovered. So in the spirit of finding interesting new music, I’ve selected a few that I think represents the best of what I’ve been listening to lately. I hope you enjoy these artists as much as I do and are inspired to know more about them and their work.

GHOSTPOET

Ghostpoet is a British singer, songwriter and musician. He has become one of my favorite music poets. I’ve played a lot of his music on both of my shows over the past year.

Ghostpoet produces music that isn’t easily categorized. He blends elements of electronic, alternative rock and “trip hop” (a psychedelic fusion of hip hop and electronica with slow tempos and an atmospheric sound) and other genres that mix with his resonant, hypnotic baritone voice and his introspective, contemplative lyrics. Maybe that’s what I like about his music. It defies easy definition and keeps me intrigued and wondering what I might hear next.

Although Ghostpoet said this in an interview in NATAAL digital magazine in 2002 right before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the UK, I think this probably still reflects how he feels about his music today.

“My music is very much steeped in the world at large and the human emotions that we all experience on a daily basis. We are going through a terrible time now, so it makes sense to create music that reflects what’s real, which is something I’ve always tried to do.”

To me, this mindset is certainly present in this track from his brilliant 2011 debut album, “Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam” (Brownswood Recordings).

Us Against Whatever Ever - Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam (Brownswood Recordings, 2011)

“Round and round we go

When's it gonna stop

I ain’t been paid and I ain’t got a lot

But it’s us against whatever babe

Us against whatever babe.” — Ghostpoet

Read more about Ghostpoet and check out his music. There’s a lot to explore as he has released five albums to date. The fifth one is “I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep,” which came out in 2020.

MDOU MOCTAR

Mdou Moctar is an internationally-known Nigerian singer, songwriter and guitarist well known for his modern rock music inspired by Tuareg guitar music. The nomadic Tuareg people of the regions of Algeria, Libya, Mali and Niger are also known as the “Blue Men of the Sahara” because of the blue robes that they traditionally wear. Modou Moctar sings in the Tuareg’s Tamasheq language. His music often speaks to the colonial injustices and struggles experienced by Niger’s people. His 2025 album, “Tears of Injustice” is a new recording of his 2024 album, “Funeral for Justice,” and is performed entirely on acoustic instruments.

Imouhar - Injustice Version - Tears of Injustice (Matador Records, 2025)

BEIRUT

Beirut is a relatively new discovery of mine even though the band has been around for quite a while. The music is a blend of Balkan folk, world music and indie rock. The singing is beautiful.

Beirut was formed by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Zach Condon in 2006 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The band is named after Lebanon’s capital city, an ancient place of more than 5,000 years old. Beirut is one of the oldest cities in the world. It’s also suffered much conflict over the centuries and all the way up to the present. However, throughout, Beirut also has been long known for its intellectual, cultural and artistic beauty. Although he’d never been to Beirut, Zach said that he named his band after that city because of its history of troubles and chaos — a place where things collide, which he said resonated with him in his music.

“A Study of Losses,” Beirut’s seventh studio album, was released on April 18, 2025. The album was commissioned by Swedish circus Kompani Giraff and inspired by German author Judith Schalansky’s novel, “Verzeichnis einiger Verluste” (“An Inventory of Losses”). Zach’s short, extremely moving account of the evolution of the project can be read here. Zach is also a very interesting person who’s had a lot of life experiences traveling the globe. These experiences have informed and inspired his music so I hope you’ll take some time to read more about him and listen to Beirut.

Tuanaki Atoll - A Study of Losses (Pompeii Recording Co. & Beirut, 2024)

“The Tuanaki Atoll is said to have been an Eden-like island somewhere in the South Pacific that mysteriously disappeared under the sea during an earthquake in the 1840s,” Zach explained. “Its inhabitants were described as a people so peaceful and generous that they had no word in their language for such things as war or murder. It might be almost too obvious of a choice but nothing could fit the island vibes better than a sweet and breezy ukulele which became the foundation that I built this song around. Contrastingly yet somewhat fittingly, the lyrics took on a darker edge and ended up reflecting that side of the story. Maybe because personally I doubt that such an Eden-like place could ever exist on Earth.” (Flood Magazine, March 18, 2025)

“Letting the whole world down

How will I be sure this time around

What if the sun came round?

What if I drowned?

What if I drowned?

And what were you safe from?

Did you roll a heartbeat but wrong?

I found a new island

What do we do if they don’t run?

And I been alone again

Don’t try to lose

Don’t try to win

We coming longer than done

Up here and around, I can’t swim

And what were you saved from?

Did you roll and shoot the gun?

What were you saved from?

Should I run or should I turn?” — Zach Condon

CRAVEN FAULTS

Artist Craven Faults is a man of mystery whose real name is a closely guarded secret. He’s been called “a purveyor of exquisite modular synth soundtracks, all suffused with the dark beauty of the oppressive moorland [of West Yorkshire, England].” — Bob Fischer, Electronic Sound magazine, July 2023.

Craven Faults is one of my favorite artists these days. There is something very seductive, energizing and hypnotic about his work. There’s also something romantic in the fact that all his music is performed and created on an old modular Moog synthesizer probably dating from the 70s. I’m sure he uses some modern instruments, too, but the primary instrument is the original modular Moog synthesizer that changed the world, musically, that is, especially when people started hearing it on Beatles records, for example, on “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.”

Hangingstones - Erratics & Unconformities (The Leaf Label, 2020)

SATELLITE JOCKEY

French band Satellite Jockey is also a recent discovery of mine although they have been around for a while, too. In 2022, one reviewer called them “one of the most exciting pop bands of the moment” and another reviewer said the band makes “delightful danceable Indie rock with nods to 60s baroque pop and sunny yacht rock.” However, I think much of their music is more interesting, varied and even serious than just “pop” but then I’m not writing the reviews.

“Brest (France), 2011. Rémi Richarme records his first record by piling up random tracks on a computer. Convoluted pop compositions evoke his heroes Kevin Ayers, Pink Floyd, or David Bowie, in a shoegaze cloud. His friends from the sound engineering school turn Satellite Jockey into a collective adventure by helping him create a live band. The group discovers shows, life on the road and pleasures of a creative life that will get more and more intense throughout albums and shows.

Lyon, 2017. Keyboard player and singer Pauline Le Caignec (aka Kcidy) and one of the most delightful drummers from Lyon, Florian Adrien, join the band to form an unusual sextet. Satellite Jockey turns into a pop orchestra that mixes violins, trumpet and rock instruments. This formation filled with multi-facited timbres is in the spotlight of the trilogy, “Modern Life.” In it, Rémi pays tribute to the 60s, to the baroque pop of the Zombies, and to the psychedelic rock of The Beatles. Very well received by the public and fans of the genre, these three elegant opuses will lead the band to open for Damon Albarn project, “The Good, The Bad and The Queen.”

December 2020: Satellite Jockey releases a new album, “Le Week-End.” A new stylistic evolution, nonetheless consistent, and sung in French for the first time. The band becomes a quintet and grows up, setting acoustic instruments aside to focus on synths and electric guitars. Satellite Jockey has never worn its name so well.” — Band bio from Spotify

Satellite Jockey - Stars (Another Record, 2013)

KOSMISCHER LÄUFER

“In the DDR [Democratic German Republic] in the early 1970s, Martin Zeichnete worked as a sound editor for DEFA, the state-owned film studio. Like many young East Germans of the time he would listen furtively to West German music and became infatuated with the Kosmische Musik epitomised by the likes of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Cluster emerging from his neighboring country. Martin, a keen runner, hit upon the idea of using the repetitive, motorik beats of this new music as a training aid for athletes. He thought it could benefit the mind as well as the body with the pulsing, hypnotic music bringing focus. After sharing his concept with colleagues, Martin was taken from his studio to East Berlin and was surprised to find himself put to work by the NOK immediately. Installed in a cold Berlin studio with the few electronic instruments the state could supply he began one of the strangest journeys in music.

Known to the government as State Plan 14.84L, Martin and his fellow musicians informally called it “Projekt Kosmischer Läufer (Cosmic Runner). For the next 11 years Martin would be spirited to Berlin to work on tracks with little notice. He created hours of music fusing traditional rock instruments with synthesizers, early drum computers, tape slicing and looping techniques he and his engineer formulated themselves. His output included for running at various paces, warm up pieces, ‘ambient’ music to play in gyms during training and pieces for artistic gymnastic routines.” — From Kosmischer Läufer’s bio on Spotify

Flug 164 - Track Club EP (Unknown Capability Recordings, 2024)

Listen to “Between the Grooves” (Sundays, 8-10 pm ET) and “Night Lights” (Tuesdays and Saturdays, 2-5 am ET and Sundays from midnight to 5 am ET) on Radio Kingston, WKNY 1490 AM and 107.9 FM in Kingston, NY and streaming at https://radiokingston.org/.