This week’s indie folk sits with the hard things and refuses to look away. Grief, fading faculties, the search for a bit of light in the chaos: songs that trust quiet over spectacle and find their power in honesty rather than volume.
Mark Cee – How You Left Me Still
“How You Left Me Still” is a gorgeous, deeply human piece of indie folk from Mark Cee, the kind of grief song that sits next to you and comforts rather than wallows.
Mark Cee’s latest tune is a song built entirely from real hands and real air. Atmospheric and guitar-led, it layers delicate string arrangements and flute accents around a vocal that never reaches for melodrama, letting the stillness carry the feeling instead. There’s touch of George Harrison to it, and the track captures that frozen moment when someone disappears before a goodbye is possible. It’s got a lovely, warm, lived-in texture of music made with a whole lot of heart and emotion.
Mark Cee is an ambient indie folk artist from Babylon, New York, who has been writing poetry and music since 1995 and frames his work as a soulful read on the Gen X experience. This single comes from his LP Ghost Talk Show, a record that pointedly shuns AI and over-production in favour of simple rhythms and authentic storytelling. And we’re very glad for it, because the results are brilliant. A beautifully put together song.
Simon J Knight – When the Boat Comes In
“When the Boat Comes In” is a brilliant piece of fiery folk-rock from Simon J Knight, intimate and electric by turns and quietly devastating throughout.
This one moves between whisper and roar. It opens in intimate folk territory before swelling into soaring electric leads, and that dynamic range is exactly what gives it its charge, the calm passages making the louder ones land harder. There is real rage in here, a refusal to go gently, set against passages of aching tenderness. The guitar work does as much storytelling as the words, shifting from delicate fingerpicking to full-throated lead lines. It is a song that earns its intensity, never loud for its own sake, always in service of the feeling.
Simon J Knight is a South Wales singer-songwriter from Chepstow who holds a doctorate in English Literature, and that intellectual grounding shows in how carefully his songs are built. This one was written about his father, a Welsh vicar whose early-onset dementia robbed him of the retirement he had earned. Knight cites John Martyn, Neil Young and John Lennon as influences, and is currently recording his debut solo album, drawing openly on his own experience of mental health struggles throughout his writing.
Sinta Dos – Gravity (Acoustic Live)
“Gravity” is a stunning acoustic reading of the John Mayer classic from Sinta Dos, a cover that finds its own quiet centre in a familiar song.
This is a cover that earns its place. Sinta Dos strip John Mayer’s song back to voice and acoustic guitar, and the live setting gives it an unguarded immediacy that polished studio takes often lose. The arrangement leans into space, letting the melody and the famous plea to be kept where the light is sit completely exposed. Their reading is patient and warm, more interested in the song’s emotional core than in showing off, and that sincerity is what makes a well-worn track feel freshly considered all over again.
Sinta Dos is a Melbourne-based acoustic duo of siblings who have made music together since childhood, rooted in a family tradition spanning several generations. Their setup is genuinely intercontinental: instruments for this recording were tracked with a session-musician brother based in Seattle, with final production and mastering completed back in Melbourne. As an emerging cover act, they bring fresh, considered interpretations to beloved songs while keeping an authentic connection to those deep family roots, working across thousands of miles and several time zones.