Named after the city’s notoriously tangled motorway landmark, Spaghetti Junction is the third self-released album from this hometown six-piece
True to its name, the record is a sprawling, twisting, and exhilarating ride. Band members Michelle Holloway, Katie Stevens, Sarah Farmer, Emma Reading, Pete Churchill, and Ilias Lintzos have masterfully engineered a sound that is simultaneously chaotic and sharply disciplined. Their music serves as a thrilling intersection of global influences, interlocking textures, and infectious grooves, where rhythms veer into unexpected territory before snapping back into perfect sync.
The album offers plenty of sonic landscapes to get lost in. Tracks like ‘Balkan Replacement Service’, ‘Green Fingered Hectus’, and ‘Krims Krams Rŭčenica’ showcase the band’s relentless appetite for musical adventure. Meanwhile, ‘Birmingham Rain’—featuring the Choir Of No Name Birmingham—injects a soulful, atmospheric texture into the mix. Then there is the title track itself, a vivid reminder that this group prefers exploring vibrant musical back roads over sticking to predictable main highways.
Ultimately, ‘Spaghetti Junction’ functions as a lively cultural crossroads where genres collide and surprises wait around every corner. Instead of avoiding detours, the band turns them into the destination. Imaginative, passionate, and fiercely original, this is contemporary folk music with the sat-nav completely switched off—and it is a journey entirely worth taking.