New album: Annie Clark’s follow-up to 2021’s 70s-inspired Daddy’s Home is a striking, stylish self-produced LP, with a rawer, starker edge, fierce guitars, a theme of characters pushed between their true selves and how they’re perceived, an includes guests Dave Grohl and Cate Le Bon
Read moreWilco: Cousin
New album: A 13th LP by Jeff Tweedy and co of the veteran Chicago band, this time with the innovative Welsh artist Cate Le Bon as producer, bringing a more experimental sound than last year’s alt-country double LP Cruel Country, and something more reminiscent of 2001’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Read moreH. Hawkline: Milk For Flowers
New album: Cardiff’s Huw Evans releases his fifth LP, a charming, tender, wistful, sensitive, intelligent, and beautiful collection of alternative pop with a folk/country hue, co-produced with Cate Le Bon, and players including Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo)
Read moreSweet Baboo: The Wreckage
New album: A very welcome return after five years from Wales’s Stephen Black, who having worked with Gruff Rhys, Cate Le Bon and others, releases a selection of beautiful, gentle folk rock songs of delicious melody, creativity and sensitivity
Read moreKendrick Lamar, Big Thief, Fontaines D.C. to Kae Tempest: Favourite albums of 2022 - Part 1
Favourite albums of 2022: Welcome to the first part of a selection for this year, many of which continue to come to terms with pandemic, climate change and other current issues but also show how music can continue to innovate, surprise and entertain
Read moreCate Le Bon: Pompeii
New album: The brilliant Welsh musician’s follow-up to 2019’s Reward is a low-key, slower paced affair, simmering with lockdown’s solitudinous lyrics, sparse keyboards, spongy bass, sax and little brass blasts, with echoes of Bowie and Talk Talk
Read moreJohn Grant: Boy From Michigan
New album: The American’s newest LP is his most autobiographical to date, filled with trademark electronica sounds, but an overall mellower sound than previous, smoothly produced by Cate Le Bon, coloured by childhood recollections
Read moreBillie Eilish to FKA twigs to Weyes Blood: favourite albums of 2019 – part 2
The second part of this year’s LP favourites again includes several superb female artists. Also check out the first part published yesterday
Read moreNew albums: Cate Le Bon, Amyl and the Sniffers, Mavis Staples, Steve Lacy, Flying Lotus, Areni Agbabian, Youssou N'Dour, Faye Webster, Honeyblood, Frankie Lee, Gia Margaret, The Claim, Petrol Girls
A huge selection and range this week includes the unique and original sound of Welsh artist Cate Le Bon, Australian punk rockers Amyl and the Sniffers, soul, funk and hip from The Internet’s Steve Lacy and cinematic rap from Flying Lotus
Read moreAnna Calvi to Idles: favourite albums of 2018 – part 1
The first part of our annual roundup of notable albums includes several great debuts by young bands, plus work that reflects dystopian political turmoil, gender issues and growing human relationship with technology
Read moreNew albums: Drinks (Cate Le Bon), Alexis Taylor (Hot Chip), Jeffrey Lewis, Gurrumul, Sting & Shaggy, Perel
This week’s selection includes a farewell from great blind Aboriginal singer, plus Kate Le Bon’s new collaboration, the Hot Chip singer, East Berliner Perel, a Jeffrey Lewis tribute to counterculture, and a strange joint album between Sting and Shaggy
Read moreNew albums: The Cribs, Randy Newman, Girl Ray, Dead Cross, Frankie Rose, 5 Billion In Diamonds
Our latest selection of recent releases includes cutting satire with the return of Randy Newman, The Cribs going back to their roots, plus a hardcore punk supergroup, plus melancholy pop and psychedelia
Read moreBowie to the Beach: favourite and fitting albums of 2016 – part 1
Bowie? Beyonce? There's no such thing as the best album of the year. But instead we round up favourites, apt and lesser known new albums as suggested by readers in part 1 from a profound 2016
Read moreThis is Vinyl Tap: new releases for week beginning 11 April 2016
The Song Bar has a new section – after suggesting songs, slip over to Vinyl Tap and join in with the discussion on new weekly releases. Not just on big black discs but in any format, analogue or digital
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