New albums: Sparks, Perfume Genius, Nick Hakim, Charli XCX, The Magnetic Fields, Jason Isbell, Frazey Ford, Sleaford Mods, Hanni el Khatib, Witch 'n' Monk

May 19, 2020 Peter Kimpton

This week’s shiny new album selection collection

This week’s roundup has a wealth of genre-spanning artists from the wit and wisdom of Sparks and Magnetic Fields to the low-key funk of Nick Hakim, the gender-redefining pop of Perfume genius to the fusions of Witch ‘n’ Monk

Sexuality, seduction and salutations: favourite albums of 2017 – part 2

December 31, 2017 Peter Kimpton

St Vincent to Queens of the Stone Age, Marika Hackman to Laura Marling, Fleet Foxes to the Mountain Goats, this second part of our readers' favourite albums throws up lots of questions over the self and others

Sing out, act on CLIMATE CHANGE

CONDEMN RACISM, EMBRACE EQUALITY

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DRINK OF THE WEEK
Duff beer

SNACK OF THE WEEK
eggo waffles

New Albums …

Featured

Nov 23, 2024

Kim Deal: Nobody Loves You More

Nov 23, 2024

New album: After various singles over the years, the former Pixies member, and Breeders musician finally releases her first full solo album, a truly fabulous execution of superb songwriting, sharp, heartbreak lyrics, diverse musical styles and instruments across indie, rock and pop, all performed with beautiful tenderness, grit and gusto

Nov 23, 2024

Michael Kiwanuka: Small Changes

Nov 23, 2024

New album: A fourth album by the Mercury prize-winner, another gorgeously crafted and performed set of songs drawing on 70s soul and slowly simmering psychedelic rock, and the third produced by Danger Mouse and Inflo

Nov 23, 2024

Nov 22, 2024

Father John Misty: Mahashmashana

Nov 22, 2024

New album: The king of killer opening lines Josh Tillman returns with another majestic, beautifully melodic, grandiose, playfully clever, darkly humorous and philosophical set of eight epic songs fuelled by a sense of mortality and enduring irony

Nov 22, 2024

Nov 19, 2024

Fazerdaze: Soft Power

Nov 19, 2024

New album: This sophomore album by New Zealand singer-songwriter Amelia Rahayu Murray is dreamy, soft-sheen, shoegazey “bedroom stadium” electro-pop and indie on themes of womanhood, devotion and compassion

Nov 19, 2024

She Drew The Gun: Howl

Nov 19, 2024

New album: Powerful, passionate highly accomplished fourth indie-rock album by singer/songwriter Louisa Roach and band from Wirral in Merseyside, one broadening her musical scope and perspective, not just socio-political and soul-searching personal, but also spanning eons, fuelled by some personal heartbreak

Nov 19, 2024

Ventre unique by Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp.jpeg

Nov 18, 2024

Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp: Ventre Unique

Nov 18, 2024

New album: Wonderfully energetic, rhythmic stylish, inventive and witty sixth album by the 12-piece experimental Geneva collective who sing politically in French and English, their music decorated with oodles of of clever brass, violins, double-bass, marimbas, percussion and more

Nov 18, 2024

Nov 18, 2024

Sofie Royer: Young-Girl Forever

Nov 18, 2024

New album: The California-born, Vienna-based Iranian-Austrian multidisciplinary artist’s newest LP is a very catchy mix of eclectic, political and mainstream, electro-pop, disco and new wave, centred on the contradictions of being a female artist today with all of its freedoms and capitalist trappings

Nov 18, 2024

Nov 17, 2024

Du Blonde: Sniff More Gritty

Nov 17, 2024

New album: With a startling new look, the multi-talented British singer-songwriter and video artist Beth Jeans Houghton returns with her powerfully anthemic glam rock, grunge pop and fuzz guitar indie in this follow-up to 2021’s Homecoming

Nov 17, 2024

Nov 16, 2024

Warmduscher: Too Cold To Hold

Nov 16, 2024

New album: The mischievous mayhem post-punk band of Clams Baker Jr.), Mr. Salt Fingers Lovecraft, Quicksand, The Witherer, Three Piece aka the Worm and Bleucifer return with more songs on the seedier side of life, but also one of their most musically adventurous LPs of their five, with guest vocalists including Lianne La Havas, Janet Planet and Coucou Chlo

Nov 16, 2024

Nov 14, 2024

Fie Eike: Water

Nov 14, 2024

New album: A delicately beautiful distillation through fluid subject in different contexts by the Copenhagen-based artist composer and singer, Anne Sofie Strandheim Eike, with Norwegian roots, creating a soundscape from piano, electronic elements and natural field recordings

Nov 14, 2024

Friedberg: Hardcore Workout Queen

Nov 14, 2024

New album: A wonderful engaging, energetic third LP by Anna Wappel, aka Anna F, the Austria-born singer-songwriter and indie band, with witty, eccentric, warm, humorous, hair-in-the-wind LP with the feel of a road trip

Nov 14, 2024

Nov 12, 2024

Our Girl: The Good Kind

Nov 12, 2024

New album: The London indie trio of singer/guitarist Soph Nathan, drummer Lauren Wilson and bassist Joshua Tyler’s new LP has a beautiful warmth of sound and optimistic honesty in lyric, borne from a theme of celebrating of determination against difficulty

Nov 12, 2024

Lou Hayter: Unfamiliar Skin

Nov 12, 2024

New album: Sleek, smooth, shimmering synth-pop and and funky disco, very much with an 80s retro sound by the London-based musician, DJ, singer, producer and former New Young Pony Club member, comes with echoes of artists such as Bananarama to Axel F and Harold Faltermeyer

Nov 12, 2024

Haley Heynderickx: Seed of a Seed

Nov 12, 2024

New album: Delicious, intelligent, playful, gorgeous, witty folk with a country flavour by the honey-voiced Oregon singer-songwriter, packed with lyrically vivid images and perceptive, humorous lyrics, with fabulous finger-picking guitar, with added cello and trombone

Nov 12, 2024

new songs …

Featured

Nov 24, 2024

Song of the Day: Kelora - Something Else

Nov 24, 2024

Song of the Day: Mesmeric, shimmering, haunting psychedelic dream pop and cyber folk by the Glasgow-formed, London-based duo of Kitty Hall and Benedict Salter, heralding their new album, Sleepers, out on 10 February via True Panther Records

Nov 24, 2024

Nov 23, 2024

Song of the Day: Marie Davidson - Sexy Clown

Nov 23, 2024

Song of the Day: The Canadian DJ-producer, electronic musician and vocalist returns with a sassy, talky, catchy, witty electro-pop dance number heralding her new album, City of Clowns, made in collaboration with Soulwax and Pierre Guerineau out 28 February 2025, via Soulwax’s own DEEWEE label

Nov 23, 2024

Nov 22, 2024

Song of the Day: Franz Ferdinand - Night or Day

Nov 22, 2024

Song of the Day: Glasgow’s favourite art-pop-rockers, fronted by the articulate Alex Kapranos, return with another catchy, jaunty new love song heralding their forthcoming album, The Human Fear, out 10 January 2025 on Domino Records

Nov 22, 2024

Nov 21, 2024

Song of the Day: Sunny War - Walking Contradiction

Nov 21, 2024

Song of the Day: With sharp, socio-political lyrics on modern paradoxes, absurdities and inequalities, this beguiling duet with the legendary singer from anarcho-punk band Crass, heralds a new album by the Nashville born, LA-based folk-punk artist Sydney Lyndella Ward, Armageddon In A Summer Dress

Nov 21, 2024

Nov 20, 2024

Song of the Day: Echolalia - Odd Energy

Nov 20, 2024

Song of the Day: Mesmeric, magical, adventurous psychedelic folk with eclectic Robert Wyatt echoes come all aswirl in this first single by a new Nashville group featuring Spencer Cullum, Andrew Combs, Jordan Lehning and Dominic Billett and friends heralding a self-titled forthcoming album, out on 28 February via Full Time Hobby

Nov 20, 2024

Nov 19, 2024

Song of the Day: Getdown Services - Dog Dribble

Nov 19, 2024

Song of the Day: Droll, catchy, glam-rock hip hop disco grooves by the enterainingly downbeat Bristol duo of Josh Law and Ben Sadler taken from their new EP, Your Medal’s In The Post, out on Breakfast Records

Nov 19, 2024

Nov 18, 2024

Song of the Day: FEET - Number One

Nov 18, 2024

Song of the Day: Following the excellent Make It Up album in the summer, a strutting, catchy new indie single by the London five-piece band, out on Submarine Cat Records

Nov 18, 2024

Nov 17, 2024

Song of the Day: Beirut - Caspian Tiger

Nov 17, 2024

Song of the Day: This beautiful, melodic, gentle new release by the American experimental rock band fronted by Zach Condon was written to accompany the performance the idiosyncratic Stockholm-based contemporary circus group Kompani Giraffe

Nov 17, 2024

Nov 16, 2024

Song of the Day: Decius - Birth Of A Smirk / Walking In The Heat

Nov 16, 2024

Song of the Day: A pair of entertainingly sensual and alternative acid house/ electronica numbers in this fun side project featuring Lias Saoudi from Fat White Family, brothers Liam and Luke May (founders of Trashmouth Records) and Quinn Whalley from Warmduscher

Nov 16, 2024

Nov 15, 2024

Song of the Day: Squid - Crispy Skin

Nov 15, 2024

Song of the Day: This epic, enigmatic experimental new track, featuring harpsichord sounds alongside intricate guitars, driving beats and menacing lyrics, heralds the Brighton art-rock-post-punk band’s third LP, Cowards, out in February 2025 on Warp Records

Nov 15, 2024

BADBADNOTGOOD featuring Tim Bernardes - Poeira Cosmica.jpeg

Nov 14, 2024

Song of the Day: BADBADNOTGOOD featuring Tim Bernardes - Poeira Cosmica

Nov 14, 2024

Song of the Day: The Toronto instrumental trio of Chester Hansen, Alexander Sowinski, and Leland Whitty return with a fabulous jazz-Brazilian poetic fusion with the smooth, tender, soaring voice of singer-guitarist of the São Paulo band, O Terno

Nov 14, 2024

Julia-Holter_20a_PC Camille-Blake_300dpi.jpeg

Nov 13, 2024

Song of the Day: Julia Holter - The Laugh Is In The Eyes

Nov 13, 2024

Song of the Day: A gorgeous, delicately quirky, synth-laden and gently percussive new single by the brilliantly innovative Los Angeles artist whose previous acclaimed works include the 2024 album Something in the Room She Moves and 2018’s Aviary

Nov 13, 2024

Word of the week

Featured

Nov 15, 2024

Word of the week: circumbendibus

Nov 15, 2024

Word of the week: Not a snaking elongated piece of public transport but still a very evocative 17th-century word for a circuitous, long-winded route or way of doing something or telling a story …

Nov 15, 2024

Deoch an Dorus pub in Partick, Glasgow.jpeg

Oct 16, 2024

Word of the week: doch-an-dorris

Oct 16, 2024

Word of the week: From the17th-century Scottish Gaelic phrase, deoch an doruis (and also with the form deochandorus), this literally means “door-drink” – a toast made with, or to honour, someone about to depart

Oct 16, 2024

Oct 4, 2024

Word of the week: eel-skins / excruciators

Oct 4, 2024

Word of the week: Aside from the literal outer layer of the ray-finned slippery fish, this evocative, slightly suggestive 19th-century slang means very tight trousers, while this week’s bonus word, excruciators, points to the experience of wearing very tight shoes

Oct 4, 2024

Sep 19, 2024

Word of the week: flittermouse

Sep 19, 2024

Word of the week: With other variants such as flickermouse and flinder-mouse, this rather charming Tudor-period English noun is a rather evocative and onomatopoeically descriptive one for that quietly sonic-guided night creature – the bat

Sep 19, 2024

Sep 5, 2024

Word of the week: gnomon

Sep 5, 2024

Word of the week: From the Ancient Greek, γνώμων (gnṓmōn)this pointed noun literally means one that knows or examines, but it is specifically the part of a sundial that casts a shadow as well as referring to other mathematical terms

Sep 5, 2024