New album: The London-based Welsh electronic artist, DJ and producer’s fourth LP takes a new mainstream turn, celebrating daydreaming and emancipated creativity through electronica and dance music, combining ambience and beats with guest collaborators Bicep, Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers, and George Daniel
Read morebeabadoobee: This Is How Tomorrow Moves
New album: Delicately voiced, thoughtful, perceptive indie pop by the Filipino-born English singer-songwriter aka Beatrice Laus, in a third album also co-produced by Rick Rubin, it grows as it progresses, showing depth and quality of balladeer 90s-influenced songwriting
Read moreLava La Rue: 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
Read moreBeen Stellar: Scream From New York, NY
New album: A dynamic, stormy-guitar postpunk debut by the New York quintet in an LP filled with landmark references of that famous city, but also given a texture and edge under the production guidance of by London’s brilliant Dan Carey
Read moreRina Sawayama: Hold The Girl
New album: With her 2020 debut, Sawayama, the British-Japanese singer’s career was predicted on this site to go up and up, and so it has proved with this dazzlingly strong new album of high-octane pop opowerfully voiced melodies and intelligent, candid lyrics
Read moreWolf Alice: Blue Weekend
Album review: Grasping mainstream pop and rock with cleverly constructed styles and influences, a shrewd, highly polished new LP from the London indie band 2018 Mercury prize winners, jumps from soft, whispery piano ballads to big guitar bangers
Read moreAlbum reviews roundup: Gorillaz, Open Mike Eagle, Dorian Electra, beabadoobee, Autechre, Young Knives, Kevin Morby, Delmer Darion, Snowdrops
Album reviews roundup: This selection features many an eclectic style, from the cartoonish band headed by Damon Albarn with guests, clever hip from Open Eagle Mike, disturbing new sounds by Young Knives and mesmerising beauty from Snowdrops
Read moreNew albums: Tim Burgess, The 1975, Badly Drawn Boy, Nnamdï, Steve Earle and the Dukes, Woods, Eve Owen, Nídia, Jessica Winter
A gentle and melancholy trend infuses this week’s selection, including Tim Burgess and Badly Drawn Boy, Woods, Eve Owen, Steve Earle’s memorial to coalminers, plus an eclectic The 1975, and pop electronica by Jessica Winter
Read moreNew albums: Fiona Apple, EOB Ed O'Brien (Radiohead), Rina Sawayama, Gerry Cinnamon, Sonikku, Plone, Shabazz Palaces, Holly Penfield
This week’s roundup includes an extraordinary, viscerally non-digital return by Fiona Apple, Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Cinnamon, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, and Japanese pop star Rina Sawayama
Read moreNew albums: Snapped Ankles, Royal Trux, Self Esteem, The Comet Is Coming, Alice Phoebe Lou, Our Native Daughters, Hand Habits, Hejira, Robert Forster, Teen, Durand Jones, Japanese House
This week’s selection roundup includes a raucous return for Royal Trux after 19 years and Robert Forster’s second in a decade, plus a chorus of of beautiful vocalists from Self Esteem to Alice Phoebe Lou and a whole lot more
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