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Gruff Rhys: Sadness Sets Me Free, his 25th album overall
New album: The effortlessly talented Welshman, former Super Furry Animals frontman and all round nice guy returns with a gorgeously bittersweet album of wry humour and fabulous tunes inspired by the joys of writing about sad subjects
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Sweet 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
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A selection of favourite LPs for 2022. See the lists below to go from top row left to right onwards
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
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Imarhan’s beatiful new album, Aboogi
New album: Mesmerically beautiful third LP by the Algerian tuareg desert quintet, all atwirl with superb vocals, clever layering, intricate guitar work, and a somehow wonderfully entwined guest vocal appearance by Gruff Rhys
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Gruff Rhys – Seeking New Gods
Album review: This seventh solo album by the Super Furry Animals frontman set out as conceptual biography of East Asian active mountain volcano Mount Paektu, but this piano-led set of songs with a 70s psych-pop grandeur also has personal elements, and is produced by Beastie Boys producer Mario C
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Halsey
A mixture of dark and light, hope and hopelessness decorate this week’s huge roundup of releases across many genres, including oddities and eccentricities, passions and playfulness from Emimen to Ivor Cutler, Halsey to Keeley Forsyth
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FKA twigs
The second part of this year’s LP favourites again includes several superb female artists. Also check out the first part published yesterday
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Sampa The Great
Our latest new album selection includes the US grunge pioneers taking a spooky goth turn, another eclectic piece of brilliance from the Welsh wizard, and some African funk from rapper and singer Sampa The Great
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Trash Kit arrive at new Horizons
The latest roundup includes more collaborations via Damon Albarn’s African Express, sharp postpunk from Trash Kit, sensitive songwriting from Jesca Hoop, a classical masterpiece, and more from veteran country singer Willie Nelson
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Dystopia depicted: Gruff Rhys’s album Babelsberg
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
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Modern dystopia: a gif for Gruff Rhys's Babelsberg
Wales and Sweden feature much this week, with interweaving solo artists’ melancholy-pop with the Furry Animals man, Lily Allen and Lykke Li, plus three promising debuts from Jorja Smith, Boy Azooga and Echo Ladies
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