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George Ezra
New album: Mainstream pop pick of the week comes from the Hertfordshire suit-wearing suave star with a big, wobbly voice, his latest LP not quite as upbeat throughout as his previous huge sellers, with a more melancholy second half, but still packed with upbeat, catchy bangers
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Sea Souls (live) by Anna Phoebe and friends
New album: Celebrating and inspired by the beauty and sounds of the ocean, the Kent-based violinist and multi-genre composer, reworks this beautiful, revitalised version of last year’s lockdown-created original album, now given new evolved life by an expanded group of instrumentalists and vocalists
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Shearwater: The Great Awakening
New album: A welcome return by the band from Austin, Texas, their first studio LP since 2015’s Jet Plane and Oxbo, sees Jonathan Meiburg and others reconvening in a powerful, beautiful work, tackling the apparent global hopelessness of the past few years
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Forgiveness’s debut album
New album: A mesmeric, magical and strangely beautiful debut fusing electronica, acoustic, jazz, and ambient in these instrumentals that conjure bucolic landscapes, twittering flutey birds and the natural world by Jack Wyllie of Portico Quartet, JQ and Richard Pike
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Moonchild Sanelly
New album: Stylish, charismatic, sexy, with a unique mix of South African dance music – gqom, amapiano, hip-hop, jazz and electronica, with a persona somewhere between Eartha Kitt, Nicki Minaj or Doja Cat, the starry, blue-haired Port Elizabeth-born rapper, model and designer’s fabulous second and double LP is all about ‘baddies’ and personal empowerment
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Sinead O Brien: Time Bend and Break The Bower
Debut album: After a string of singles such as Limbo and A Thing You Call Joy, the Irish indie poet’s debut album emboldens her style of strikingly esoteric lines and images backed a mix of guitar, drums and electronica, with a distinctively lingering talking/semi-sung delivery
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Michael Head’s latest album
New album: The veteran indie singer-songwriter from Liverpool’s latest LP is filled with strong, stirring numbers that mix the jangly sound of the English north-west with US west coast Byrds, with 12 character-based songs from ‘boulevards of fractured dreams’ inspired by F Scott Fitzgerald
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Horsegirl
Debut album: Warmly engaging debut of shoegaze from the Chicago indie-rock trio of Penelope Lowenstein (guitar, vocals), Nora Cheng (guitar, vocals), and Gigi Reece (drums) in this album produced by John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth)
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Ural Thomas & The Pain: Dancing Dimensions
New album: The veteran octogenarian soul and blues singer from Portland, Oregon, returns with album with his excellent, tight-knit band with servings of upbeat, catchy, classic but new numbers backed with crisp piano, brass and guitar
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Wilco’s double album, Cruel Country
New album: With a double-edged title referring to both style and content, the Chicago band return with a strong, 21-track double album of country-edged music brimful with fine melodies, melancholy but sharply pointed lyrics
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Angel Olsen’s sixth album, Big Time
New album: Majestic, slow-paced and emotionally powerful, an outstanding country-tinged dark folk dream-pop sixth LP by the American singer-songwriter inspired by liberation and grief – coming out to her aged parents in 2021 very shortly before their deaths
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HAAi’s first full debut LP
New album: After a series of acclaimed mixes and other releases, the London-based Australian electronica-techno artist Teneil Throssell’s full debut album is restlessly inventive, oddly alluring, hypnotic adventure tapping into the ecstasy of slow-build and joy in repetition
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Tess Parks
New album: After a period of stopping music for painting, the Toronto-born, London-based artist with a distinctively deep, gravelly voice returns with a strong set of dark, shoegazey, woozy indie with a whirling dervish of intertwining sounds
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Porridge Radio’s sixth album (including early self-released LPs)
New album: Already a sixth LP in as many years by the Brighton-formed indie band fronted by Dana Margolin, packed with raw, heartbreak, candid emotions, sparse guitar and organ, and the distinctive use of repeated phrases to drive feelings home
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Just Mustard’s second album - Heart Under
New album: Striking, experimental, atmospheric noise music in this second LP by the five-piece band from Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland, who use traditional rock instruments to create juddery, industrial, and surreal sounds
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Florence: medieval purging
New album: Dance yourself to death? Beyond the huge machinery of mainstream hype and her voluminously voiced self-reflection, Florence Welch’s fifth album about purging her demons does also contain some strong tunes
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The prolific Shabaka Hutchings is behind many projects, but this is his debut solo record
New album: An exquisite debut solo album by the acclaimed British saxophonist, known for Sons of Kemet, the Comet Is Coming and Shabaka & the Ancestors, here with soft, shimmering, intertwining sounds including the kora, shakuhachi Japanese flute, and delicate percussion
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Sage Motel by Monophonics
New album: Smooth, swoony, classy soul with that classic Philly sound reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield, here presented in a hotel theme by the Bay area band led by Kelly Finnigan, as a place where guests experience the highs and lows of human existence on the crossroads of life on a soft pillow of soulful psychedelia
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Old friends: Mavis Staples and Levon Helm
New album: A timeless live album of soul, gospel, funk and blues capturing a 2011 Midnight Rambles show by the evergreen singer made at the home studio of the former drummer and co-lead singer of The Band who then died a year later
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Alex Izenberg’s third album I’m Not Here
New album: Mellow, easy-paced and gently decorated with piano and classical strings, this timeless, mid-70s psych-pop-rock is the third from the Los Angeles singer-songwriter who echoes elements of Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman and King Crimson
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