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Tyler, the Creator: Chromakopia
New album: American rapper and producer Tyler Okonma’s eighth LP is an eclectic, electric, eccentric creation featuring his oddball masked persona, and addresses subjects such as fame, getting old, and with several songs featuring his mother Bonita Smith
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OneDay: Formula OneDa
New album: The debut LP by the Mancunian rapper and poet with a Nigerian heritage is a punchy, powerful release fuelled by female empowerment, mixing hip-hop, drum’n’bass, afro-trap, and afrobeats, heralding one of the most charismatic British hip-hop artists since Little Simz
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Killer Mike: Michael & the Mighty Midnight Revival - Songs for Sinners and Saints
Lava La Rue’s Starface
New album: A brilliantly clever, rich, eclectic concept album and debut LP by the West London multi-media artist, fusing indie-pop, funk, hip-hop and glam rock, and themed around the character of a gender neutral alien who visits Earth to explore its self-destructivity only to get mixed up in it
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Berwyn: Who Am I
New album: A candid, uncompromising, starkly personal and powerful rap-folk-R&B LP by the Trinidad-born 28-year-old east Londoner Berwyn Du Bois, who among other emotions, captures his experiences of Britain’s hostile environment immigration policy since arriving in the UK aged 9 in 2005
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Lupe Fiasco: Samurai
New album: A fluid, nimble, articulate playfully smooth ninth short, snappy LP by the American rapper and record producer with a title inspired by the late Amy Winehouse comparing rap battles to Samurai word weapons in a meta release about the joy of his genre
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KNEECAP: Fine Art
New album: Alongside their upcoming feature film, a stylish, witty, smash’n’grab, satirical, brilliant and sometimes brashly in your-face hip-hop debut by the West Belfast trio of stage names Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, who rap mostly in the Irish language
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Lip Critic: Hex Dealer
New album: A dazzlingly high-octane, white-knuckle ride of a debut album by the New York-based electronica-punk-hip-hop-hardcore-noise-rock band, who push the musical boundaries with express vocal delivery and double drummers
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Barry Adamson: Cut To Black
New album: The Manchester legendary singer and composer, bass player of Magazine, The Bad Seeds and other bands, returns with a stylish, swaggering, 60s-influenced 10th studio solo LP, including timeless Motown, seductive blues, and vividly noir cinematic hues
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Kamasi Washington: Fearless Movement
New album: The acclaimed jazz saxophonist returns with a genre-hopping emphasis across funk, hip hop as well his excellent big band, an overarching spiritual theme, and collaborators including George Clinton, Thundercat and André 3000
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Bob Vylan’s second album: Humble As The Sun
New album: The London hip-hop-punk-heavy-rock duo return with a second helping of articulate, pull-no-punches, take-no-prisoners social and political commentary, taking aim at Tory-ruled Britain, corrupt police, toxic masculinity and other social ills, but alongside righteous rage, some doses of positivity
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The Black Keys: Ohio Players
New album: With a 12th LP, the title and artwork inspired by the legendary funk band from their home state, the duo of singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney return with a collaborative spring in their step, their bluesy rock stimulated by co-writers Beck, Noel Gallagher and other guests
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Tierra Whack: different ways of seeing
New album: After many singles and 2018’s Whack World EP of 15 one-minute numbers, the Philadelphia rapper’s debut LP is an oddball, collection of eccentric vocals, an inventive, colourful, lucky dip of hip hop, soul and R&B
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Africatown, AL: Ancestor Sounds
New album: A beautifully evocative, documentary compilation of anonymous spontaneous performances and field recordings from descendants of slaves in a northern section of the city of Mobile, Alabama, one of the last places in the US to receive slave ships
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Moor Mother: The Great Bailout
New album: The American poet and musician Camae Ayewa returns with with a pointed, powerful release aimed at Britain’s murky, slavery-profiting colonial past, with a vivid, profound, visceral, declamatory narrative and soundscape that charts many injustices about wealth and compensation
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Yard Act: Where's My Utopia?
New album: With continuing appeal, the experimental post-punk Leeds quartet return with their second LP, with highly entertaining, broadened musical scope, frontman James Smith’s agile, candid, conversational wit musing on the ironies of success, the music business, resultant guilt, climate change, and titular worries about the future
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Black Grape: Orange Head
New album: Salford’s Shaun Ryder and Manchester’s Paul ‘Kermit’ Leveridge return with their first LP since 2017’s Pop Voodoo, and their fourth overall together, with an especially funk-filled laced with their classic banter, wit and talent for cleverly daft, surreal and addictive lyrics
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Favourite LPs of 2023, Part 2.
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 2, and Part 1 was yesterday. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order …
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Part 1 selection of 2023 favourite albums
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 1, and Part 2 is also out here. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order. This is all about quality and innovation …
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Haiku Hands: Pleasure Beast
New album: A gloriously anarchic, energetic fusion of hip-hop, post-punk, vogue pop, electronica, bouncy 90s dance music and interwoven skits by the vibrant Australian trio of sisters Claire and Mie Nakazawa and Beatrice Lewis
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