When: 7pm on Wednesday 14 October 2026
Where: YES Pink Room, 38 Charles Street, Manchester, M1 7DB

PLEASE NOTE: We have early show times for this show: doors open 7pm, with Jobi Riccio on at 7.30pm and John Craigie at 8.30pm (curfew 10pm).

We’re excited to welcome John Craigie back – to YES this time!

For over a decade, John Craigie has made music that brings people in, not with spectacle but with sincerity and songs that feel like conversations.

His new album I Swam Here, out 6 February 2026 on Zabriskie Point Records, was written and produced by Craigie and recorded between New Orleans and Astoria. Seven tracks were cut at Deslonde St Studios with musicians handpicked by Sam Doores of The Deslondes, including Howe Pearson, Max Bien Khan, Jonny Campos, and a guest appearance from Desiree Cannon. Longtime collaborator Anna Moss appears across much of the record. The remaining tracks were finished at the Rope Room in Astoria, carrying over the same spirit and palette. The cover art, painted by Brittany Schall, nods to the design of mid century samba and jazz records.

The album’s singles trace the path of its making. “Fire Season,” engineered by Bart Budwig, was one of the first songs written and features Cooper Trail, Nevada Sowle, Luke Ydstie, and Jamie Greenan. “Dry Land” was reworked in Astoria after early New Orleans sessions didn’t feel right. “Edna Strange,” inspired by Marty Robbins, is the only track where Craigie plays steel string acoustic, with Max Bien Khan on nylon string leads and a trio vocal arrangement in place of Moss’s harmonies.

Following 2024’s Pagan Church with TK & The Holy Know-Nothings, which spent six weeks at #1 on the Americana Albums chart, I Swam Here feels both expansive and intimate, shaped by the musical history of the Gulf Coast and the stillness of the Pacific Northwest.

Craigie remains a tireless live performer, touring throughout the U.S., Europe, and Australia, appearing at festivals like Newport Folk, Pickathon, Edmonton Folk Festival, and High Sierra, and sharing the stage with artists such as Langhorne Slim, Sierra Hull, Gregory Alan Isakov, Brett Dennen, and Jack Johnson. His annual #KeepItWarm Tour donates $1 from every ticket sold to regional nonprofits, and his John Craigie On The River trips on the Tuolumne and Rogue rivers have become cherished gatherings for fans.

I Swam Here is a grounded, collaborative step forward, blending New Orleans grit with Pacific Northwest quiet, and showing a songwriter still widening the world of his music.

Tour support comes from Jobi Riccio. Jobi Riccio is an artist known for her vulnerable vocal delivery, compelling live performances, and her powerfully intimate yet universal lyricism. Riccio is stepping into her next chapter with Face The Feeling, her forthcoming album on Yep Roc Records due May 15. An “Emerging Act of the Year” nominee from the Americana Music Association, Riccio first broke through with her 2023 debut Whiplash, a coming-of-age record rooted in folk and country traditions. On Face The Feeling, she pushes far beyond those foundations, embracing a bolder, electric, indie-rock-driven sound that mirrors the album’s emotional depth.

Where Whiplash captured the restless search for escape, Face The Feeling finds Riccio choosing to stay, confronting grief, rage, self-doubt, desire, and devotion head-on. Written between Colorado and Nashville and co-produced with longtime collaborators Isaiah Beard and Jesse Timm, the album balances light and dark, restraint and release, as Riccio leans into discomfort as a path toward growth. Songs like “Pilar, NM,” “Wildfire Season,” and “Doesn’t Matter” reveal an artist willing to sit inside complicated feelings rather than outrun them.

Having performed at the Grand Ole Opry, made her national television debut on CBS Saturday Morning, and toured with Lucius, Jason Isbell, and Iron & Wine, Riccio arrives at Face The Feeling with clarity and confidence. The result is her most expansive work yet: a fearless excavation of self and a declaration of artistic evolution.

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When: 7.30pm on Saturday 24 October 2026
Where: Kamera at Lloyd & Platt, 617 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton, Manchester, M219AN

We’re delighted to welcome Will Samson back – this time, to Kamera!

Will Samson presents his new album Sings Again at Chorlton’s Kamera.

With the use of his beloved tape machines, Samson has been exploring the spaces between electronic, folk and ambient music for well over a decade, with releases on labels such as Wichita Recordings and 12k, and touring with artists such as Efterklang, S. Carey and The Album Leaf.

‘Samson’s meditative mix of folk and electronica has an almost spiritual dimension’ – UNCUT

‘As a purveyor of music that ventures through complex sound layers and texturally rich tones, it’s obvious why we are fans of his’ – i-D

‘Intricacy and tenderness recalling kindred spirits such as Nils Frahm and Sufjan Stevens‘ – The Sunday Times

Local support comes from Ben Cashell, who says: ‘I am a cellist, composer and song-writer who is originally from Dublin but lives over in Manchester. Having gone to the Yehudi Menuhin school and then the Royal Northern College of Music, I fell into playing with bands and trad musicians and have recorded and toured with the likes of Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Glen Hansard, JP Cooper, The Breath, BC Camplight and many more.’

Kamera is the brand new venue upstairs at Lloyd & Platt (formerly The Lloyd’s) in Chorlton – by the team behind the Castle Hotel and Gullivers.

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When: 7.30pm on Monday 26 October 2026
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re delighted to welcome Deradoorian to Gullivers, with support from Mason Lindahl!

Fusing elements of indie rock, avant-garde electronic music, dub, and dance rhythms, Deradoorian is the name Angel Deradoorian works under as a solo artist. She launched said solo career after making a name for herself as a member of Dirty Projectors and collaborating with artists such as Avey Tare and Flying Lotus. Her albums, including 2015’s The Expanding Flower Planet and 2020’s Find the Sun, are cosmic song cycles informed by her spiritual journey. After collaborating with Kate NV under the name Decisive Pink on 2023’s heavily electronic Ticket to Fame, Deradoorian added that sound to her already jam-packed approach on 2025’s Ready for Heaven.

Ready for Heaven deals with heaven and earth, damnation and salvation, and using intelligence against rampant, naked greed. It is a classic forty-minute set of inquisitive pop songs, blessed with a lightness of touch and a sharp focus that can’t help but charm the listener. It conjures up some last, faint afterglow of the old belief that an electronic, programmed beat can smash itself – and you – into another, more egalitarian consciousness.

‘Deradoorian’s voice is the main attraction. Wispy one moment, bellowing full-throated the next, and capable of dazzling melismatic runs, it remains her not-so-secret weapon’ – Pitchfork

It is a remarkable fact that this bold and open-hearted record is made by one person, working alone. Repeatedly reworking the songs until they were complete is a painstaking process that generated an energy and space where Deradoorian could indulge in the arcana of her artform. ‘I love the production more than the songwriting. […] In fact, I don’t even feel like a songwriter at times, I feel like someone who is just inspired by so much music. And I want to try it all out! Like Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Mingus, or ESG and Silver Apples, or making weird krautrock and industrial music. I love dub, and Sly and Robbie. I love the productions of those records and the collective energies released by their creators in the studio. It’s just a weird thing to do it by yourself!’

Engaging with past musical glories helps deal with a major theme of this album; the awful nature of the world around us. Deradoorian says: ‘This album is partly about watching humanity erode. It’s about mental struggle, and it’s avowedly anti-capitalist. I mean; would we have all these identity labels we have to live by, if we didn’t live in a capitalist world?’

Tour support comes from Mason Lindahl. Guitarist Mason Lindahl – whose ‘unabashedly beautiful’ (Aquarium Drunkard) sound ‘balances the romantic dynamics of flamenco and the meticulousness of Windham Hill with the unguarded qualities of improvised music’ (Pitchfork) – released a pair of new albums, Joshua / Same Day Walking, last autumn via Mt. Brings Death.

Though packaged together, Joshua and Same Day Walking chart distinct worlds. Recorded in northern California and produced by Robby Moncrieff (Dirty Projectors, Zach Hill), Joshua is woolier and warmer, evoking haze, humidity, and overgrown Spanish moss. Meanwhile, Same Day Walking – recorded in Iceland and produced by Moncrieff alongside two-time GRAMMY-winning composer/sound designer Sam Slater (Joker, Chernobyl) – is, appropriate for its icier climes, windswept and beholden to the vast emptiness of harsh landscapes. As a pair, they provide a thorough portrait of Lindahl’s singular and versatile playing.

Described by friend and contemporary Hayden Pedigo as ‘the greatest living guitar player,’ Lindahl’s ‘austere, gothic flamenco… dares you to submit to this odd and immersive sonic universe’ (Uncut). The North Carolina native’s solo instrumental debut Kissing Rosy in the Rain, released in 2021 via Tompkins Square, was praised as ‘gorgeous’ (Petal Motel) and ‘a minimalist gem’ (Everything Is Noise). Prior to that, his only other solo release is 2009’s Serrated Man Sound.

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When: 7.30pm on Tuesday 27 October 2026
Where: YES Basement, 38 Charles Street, Manchester, M1 7DB

We’re excited to welcome Penelope Isles back – to YES this time!

Hailing from the Isle of Man via the uncomfortable shingles of Brighton beach, Penelope Isles resurface – shimming in sunlight and shadow.

Three years since their last show, life has quietly reshaped everything. Two solo records released into the world, new bands formed, old rhythms broken, and a magnetic pull back toward each other that couldn’t be ignored – Penny Isles’ sound remains unmistakable — fuzz-drenched, melody-rich, and charged with feeling.

Now expanded into a true three-piece with drummer Joe Taylor, Penelope Isles sound bigger, looser, and more alive than ever. Guitars shimmer and collide, harmonies ache and lift, drums crash like eerie weather rolling in fast off the coast. The Wolter siblings write songs like postcards from somewhere just out of reach — Brighton seafront flats, off-kilter restaurants, memories half-burned in the sun. Beautiful, fragile, and always on the edge of slipping away.

Still obsessed with love, heartbreak, and what lingers after, Penelope Isles are at their most open, luminous, and unsteady. And everything feels like it’s moving again.

Tour support comes from AtticOmatic. Brighton’s’ AtticOmatic resists easy definition and quite literally dances on the edge of simplicity and discord. Each one of their five members weaves together threads of jazz, post-punk, hip-hop, folk, and electronica. The energy of their live shows resonate with a shared understanding of the pain and beauty of this world.

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When: 7.30pm on Saturday 31 October 2026
Where: Hallé at St Michael’s, 36-38 George Leigh Street, Ancoats, Manchester M4 5DG

We welcome Toria Wooff back – for a Halloween night special at St Michael’s!

Lancashire’s woman in black Toria Wooff returns to Manchester to haunt the stage of Hallé at St Michael’s on Halloween night. Following the success of her eponymous debut album (championed by the likes of Uncut, Clash, Shindig, Record Collector, 6 Music and Radio X) and last year’s sold out show at YES, Toria will be joined by her full band playing songs from both her first record and her yet-to-be-released sophomore record.

Containing tales of love, loss, hope, relationships and womanhood, the eponymous debut album is both an exorcism of torment and an invitation to feeling only what is good and as the record takes listeners deeper into her bittersweet world, it’s only a matter of time before countless others will fall under her spell.. Tugging at the cloaks of contemporary folk souls Jake Xerxes Fussell or Richard Dawson, it offers a contemporary twist on the Anglo folk tradition through a bloody cocktail of classic rock origins and transcends time as it nods to the lyrical narratives of Led Zeppelin, Fairport Convention and Townes Van Zandt – all the while infused with inspiration from her collection of gothic literature and historical texts. ‘The self-reflection in the title demonstrates a life lived,’ Toria tells. ‘The songs are chapters to dip in and out of, moments immortalised in time, bound together by nothing more than the human experience.’

Recorded with partner in rhyme and intuition, producer, mix engineer and guitarist James Wyatt in his Sloe Flower studio, the album honours songwriting’s roots with an authenticity captured by its delicate restraint. Only allowing pedal steel and wurlitzer to fill out the intimate space at just the right moment, opener The Plough introduces Toria’s affecting tone and guitar with intoxicating simplicity before a sonic expansion which explores the physical and metaphysical truth of womanhood. Grief comes to the fore in Song For A, which assuredly acknowledges helplessness in the face of an inevitably bad situation and is then healed by the love and commitment which eeks through the cracks on reassuringly uplifting live favourites That’s What Falling In Love Will Do and See Things Through. Toria’s story-first approach closely reflects the emotions of moments in time, and they’re never written down, only manifest as a result of her inspired process.

A painter, poet, songwriter and storyteller, music is just one facet of Toria’s wildly creative imagination which metamorphoses in many forms. Steeped in gothic romanticism, pagan and Germanic tradition, Toria’s unique view of the world is enchanting through an alchemy of sound and vision; a magical blend of her own spellbinding folk-rock concoction. ‘It’s mostly about making mundane things in life beautiful,’ Toria says. ‘There’s a pragmatic reason behind all I do, and I always take the most aesthetically pleasing approach. I combine everyday language with prettier, longer, and poetic words so the surface might have one meaning but there will be many others the deeper you go. The most beautiful words are desperate, pinning and punch at the gut.’

‘Darkly seductive… outstanding’ – Uncut

‘Potent gothic folk’ – Clash

This concert takes place in Hallé at St Michael’s – a former Roman Catholic church, which was founded in 1859 and became the heart of the Little Italy Community in Ancoats.

This is a 14+ show. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

Poster hand-painted by Toria Wooff.

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When: 7pm on Saturday 7 November 2026
Where: YES Pink Room, 38 Charles Street, Manchester, M1 7DB

After back to back sold out shows Gustaffson return to Manchester for their biggest show to date at YES Pink Room.

Gustaffson are back with a UK tour in 2026. The five-piece Manchester outfit are on a journey to redefine what it takes to make ‘real music’ as a band in 2026. They encourage their fans to pick up the lyric book, unite as a collective and disconnect from the numbing comfort of the algorithm.

Gustaffson are quickly becoming renowned for their curation of venue-specific, standalone shows that become calendar shaping events for their audience.

Their debut elbow produced album Black & White Movie achieved critical and commercial success, reaching #14 in the Official Record Store Chart as well as being featured in Rolling Stones’ ‘7 Albums You Need To Hear This Week’. It earned high praise from Jo Whiley, Chris Hawkins, Guy Garvey, and Gaby Roslin. The band celebrated with a spectacular sold-out show at London’s Bush Hall.

They finished 2025 with an elbow produced single Dance To The Algorithm. A retro funk anthem which featured on ITV Granada Introducing and had Gustaffson included in The Manc and Audio North’s ‘best artists of 2025’ alongside Richard Ashcroft and The Charlatans.

This year the band will return to the studio to record their second album with elbow’s Craig Potter.

‘The vivid musical world Gustaffson creates here is truly technicolour’ – Rolling Stone UK

‘Gigs of the year 2025’ – RGM Magazine

With special guest to be announced.

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When: 7.30pm on Monday 9 November 2026
Where: YES Pink Room, 38 Charles Street, Manchester, M1 7DB

We’re delighted to welcome Matthew and the Atlas to YES as they mark the 10th anniversary of Temple!

Matthew and the Atlas is the project of Hampshire-based songwriter Matt Hegarty — one of the first artists signed to Communion Records. Over fifteen years and seven albums, he has traversed a range of musical territories from classic acoustic folk to synth-laden electronica and guitar-led alt-rock, touring extensively across the UK, Europe and the US with the likes of Mumford & Sons, Bear’s Den and The Civil Wars, and earning the tag the “British Bon Iver” from Q Magazine along the way.

Temple was recorded in Nashville in 2015 with production duo Foreign Fields and released in April 2016, producing fan favourite Elijah. Later that year, Hegarty headed back into the studio with the rest of the band and producer Ian Grimble to rework the songs using the instruments they had — acoustic guitar, harp, clarinet, banjo, piano and double bass. Temple Unplugged came out quietly in December 2016 and found an audience Hegarty hadn’t expected — over the years it has become the record fans mention most at shows.

This autumn, Hegarty heads out as a three-piece alongside longtime collaborators Emma Gatrill and Alex Roberts to celebrate the tenth anniversary of both records — a rare chance to hear Temple Unplugged performed from start to finish, in the intimate spirit in which it was originally made, alongside favourites from across the MATA catalogue.

‘A very rare talent’ — Clash

Tour support comes from AK Patterson. AK Patterson is a London-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose music blends gritty honesty with haunting beauty. Known for her unflinching exploration of dark and complex themes, Patterson crafts songs that find hope in the bleakest corners of human experience. Described by fans as ‘Buckley with boobs’ (in reference to Jeff Buckley), she prefers to label her style as modern chamber pop fused with the melancholic spirit of 90s Lilith Fair.

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When: 7.30pm on Wednesday 11 November 2026
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re delighted to welcome Flora Hibberd to Gullivers!

Like a textile artist, Flora Hibberd weaves layers of meaning into her music. Born in London, she has called Paris home since the age of eighteen. As likely to veer into guitar or synth-driven pop as to take up a 17th century traditional, the songs pulse with surreal allusions and mundane emotions, a tapestry of everyday life shot through with cosmic signs. Hibberd sees her songwriting as a walk in a strangely familiar neighbourhood, revealing and reveling in the oblique and the mystic.

Her acclaimed debut album Swirl (2025, 22TWENTY) was recorded in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and praised by press internationally, including Le Monde, who hailed it as one of the standout indie-folk releases of the year, and KEXP, who hailed her last release as ‘a timeless collection of sweeping folk-pop’. With her haunting melodies, literary lyricism, and magnetic live presence, Flora has quickly established herself as one of the most compelling new voices on the scene.

Hot on the heels of her acclaimed 2025 album, Flora’s new record Mammoth gets weirder. Produced by The National’s Ben Lanz between a Basque mountain and the Paris suburbs, the album is peopled with ghosts of history and prehistory that roam the present, to stare into the future with a clear and unblinking eye. Echoes of Lanz’s trombone and longtime collaborator Victor Claass’ feverish guitar, and whispers of familiar voices drift down from the hill, the swirling mists of an album that is at once more energetically pop, and more odd and disquieting, than what came before.

Local support comes from Run Remedy. New Jersey-born, Manchester-based songwriter and violin nerd Robin Koob makes lo-fi alt-indie as Run Remedy, wobbly guitars, scruffy edges, emotionally precise songs and a healthy dose of grief and goof. Somewhere between Wilco and Mitski, with a little stand-up-comedy energy thrown in.

She’s had BBC 6 Music spins and even been hailed ‘an amazing songwriter’ by her champion Guy Garvey. She’s played everywhere from New Colossus NYC to Kendal Calling, across the pond and tip to tail of the UK (but mostly in Manchester), earning an ‘utterly beautiful’ from Record of the Day and an ‘on the rise’ from The Line of Best Fit. After years of being everyone else’s strings and sings, she’s finally letting her scruffy Jersey girl energy take the spotlight. She’s currently performing songs from her latest release, Not at the Table, five tunes about uncomfortable conversations, finding the right words, and getting them out before the end of the meal.

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When: 7.30pm on Thursday 12 November 2026
Where: Kamera at Lloyd & Platt, 617 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton, Manchester, M219AN

We’re delighted to working with Spafford Campbell for the first time!

Spafford Campbell are twenty-something mould-breakers, fiddle player Owen Spafford and guitarist Louis Campbell.

The two first met as teenagers playing traditional music. The connection, they say, was immediate. The duo Spafford Campbell began playing live in 2018, prompting double takes with their delicacy, dynamism and seemingly telepathic exchanges, with the startling intimacy of musical conversations nurtured in improv-led writing sessions.

Their latest album Tomorrow Held is a visionary body of eight largely instrumental tracks that hold space, resolve into mystery, that fold in elements of jazz, post-rock and chamber classical music while raiding the folk music toolbox. Call it what you want: post-folk. Trad-noir. Folk nihilism. Then know that Spafford Campbell are blazing a trail that erases genre — and finds gold in the embers.

While redolent of Talk Talk’s moody, experimental 1988 opus Spirit of Eden, and riven with a Bon Iver-ish sense of transcendence, Tomorrow Held is a work of bold singularity. A whole greater than the sum of its parts — parts that include effects pedals, ambient cassette loops, flashes of electric guitar, electronic processing on fiddle and impressionistic accompaniment.

‘Mingling traditional tunes with influences from minimalism, post-rock and jazz, they shift moods exquisitely’ – the Guardian — 10 best folk albums of 2025

‘This is a fusing of the traditional and the futuristic that is quietly groundbreaking, and beguiling with it’ – The Times — albums of the year so far 2025, 4*

‘England’s finest and most innovative instrumental duo’ – Songlines — Top of the World, 5*

Local support comes from Quincey May Brown. Quincey’s second album Careful, Pockets is out now on Other Shoe Records. Marked by her distinctively tender vocals, acerbically playful lyrics and harp-propelled textural arrangements, DIY musician Quincey May Brown is a singular force. Raised in Northamptonshire and now based in Manchester, her songwriting has been praised for its depth and subtle humour.

Following the release of her debut album, Basic Surgeon, the new album expands on Quincey May Brown’s intoxicating exploration of both organic and non-organic sounds in unexpected ways. Quincey leans away from folk conventions, instead creating a world of strings, drones and woodwind, dancing to the beat of its own off-kilter drum. Careful, Pockets is a collection of stories on loss, human nature and childhood scrapes.

Kamera is the brand new venue upstairs at Lloyd & Platt (formerly The Lloyd’s) in Chorlton – by the team behind the Castle Hotel and Gullivers. The pub downstairs offers Indian street food by Chapati Cafe.

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When: 7.30pm on Saturday 14 November 2026
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re delighted to be working with Zoh Amba for the first time!

In April, Zoh Amba announced their Matador debut album Eyes Full, out June 5th, an album of tough and soulful songs that feel like a pure transmission from the heart. Today, Amba shares the album’s pensive and darkly hypnotic title track, a song about what makes someone’s heart full, and questioning why. It’s accompanied by a video directed by Grace Bader Conrad, featuring Amba and album musicians Jim White (drums) and Kevin Hyland (electric guitar).

‘Eyes Full’ follows first single ‘Another Time’, on which The Guardian said, “the free jazz saxophonist turns equally remarkable songwriter for a record that twists their Appalachian roots with openhearted, choppy indie rock”, and Stereogum in their Best 5 Songs of the Week noted, “that voice, along with those lyrics about being lost and seeking transcendence, make for pure beauty, rustic country-rock style.”

Alongside a recent sold out headline show at New York’s Nightclub 101 previewing songs from the new album, Amba performed in Coachella as part of Iggy Pop’s band. They will tour the US throughout the summer supporting Courtney Barnett and Folk Bitch Trio. A full list of tour dates is below.

Eyes Full is distinctly, instinctively tied to Zoh’s hometown of Kingsport, Tennessee and the rediscovery of their first instrument, the guitar. The album courses with a type of muddy, loose acoustic blues, punctuated with bursts of feedback-laden electric guitar and sweet burnishes of Appalachian folk. It’s a remarkable turn for an artist who has already become one of the most exciting saxophonists to emerge from NYC’s avant-garde scene,

In music, Amba is always striving for greater proximity to the divine. On Eyes Full, they’ve never come closer. Every song circles the idea of seeing and being seen. The record looks closely at the lives of working-class folk in small towns who bust their asses off while trying to find any salvation they can.  “I hope these songs touch people’s hearts,” Amba says. “They’re about people who really need to be seen and heard.”

For years, Amba tried to find an identity outside of where they came from. Raised in the mountain towns of Tennessee, they left at seventeen for San Francisco, then moved to New York City soon after. Yet no matter how far they traveled, home always wrapped itself around their ankle. “When you try to run from something it ends up catching up to you,” they say now, speaking in a thick Southern drawl they no longer attempt to hide. “And you have to deal with it.”

Though Amba had long believed that pure instrumental music could help souls, and that transcendence could be reached without language, words eventually pushed their way in. While playing saxophone, they often felt as though they were being carried heavenward: their body burning, tears rising, the music opening a direct line to God. But alongside that ecstasy came flashes of darker childhood memories. The guitar became a way to face those visions directly, to hold them at eye level rather than flee. They sang their way through it, and back to Kingsport.

Growing up, Amba watched their small town pass through a difficult, destabilizing period. For a time, they tried to keep that reality at arm’s length, only later recognizing how thin the line was between themselves and those who suffered most. They grew a greater sense of grace and understanding for these people. Each song on Eyes Full, which is entirely character-driven — from the kid benumbed by medication (‘OCD’) to the weed-eating man who plays hide-and-seek with God (‘Weed Eating’) — is an act of love for them. “They all deserve to go to heaven,” says Amba, rejecting the punitive theology that surrounded them in the Bible Belt. Songs about damnation never made sense to them; what interested them instead was mercy, and the possibility of redemption.

The record was tracked live at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, an hour from Amba’s hometown, with no overdubs. Their best friend Kevin Hyland plays electric guitar, while drummer Jim White, whom Amba met on the streets of New York years earlier and now calls the closest thing they’ve had to a family, plays drums. The three musicians rehearsed relentlessly, playing together all day, every day, “until we got real tight,” says Amba. White and Amba play interlocked, while Amba and Hyland weave around one another, Amba playing rhythm and Hyland playing lead; currents of life running alongside one another.

The music itself sounds moonshine-drunk, Amba’s voice snarling and fiery, their guitar slowing then gathering speed like a steam train edging off the tracks. They veer suddenly between abrasion and gentleness. One moment they’re all teeth, the next, they go soft and still. On ‘Emahoy,’ they play a drowsy and velveted guitar line while singing with unguarded tenderness about the sadness dancing in their soul.

Standout ‘Southern Soil’ is the song with the most stakes, its eyes the most difficult for Amba to look into. “When that song finally came to me, I was like oh shit. I could have cried.” It was a feeling Amba had been trying to get to the bottom of their entire life: the reason their heart would swell at a show only to deflate again once they returned to the hotel room. Writing it filled and emptied them at once. Addressed to the people who first taught them what could and couldn’t be said, it confronts the silence that shaped much of their young life. The lyric “you don’t have to keep a secret,” the most hard-fought of them all, is Amba’s triumph over pain with grace. They consider it one of the greatest achievements of their life.

Eyes Full is a lesson in how to look and to stay open to the universe, and to all the hearts that inhabit it. Through Amba’s gaze, the album restores spirit and dignity to those who are often overlooked or dispossessed. Across Eyes Full, Amba sings for people who rarely see themselves reflected back with tenderness. The music carries an ache for communities pushed to the margins, for those growing numb or losing touch with their innermost sense of self. These songs insist on sustained attention: on looking closely, meeting another person’s gaze, and refusing to look away.

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