Debut album: A strikingly alternative and genre-defying release by the south London producer and multi-instrumentalist Miles Romans-Hopcraft with influences and echoes from grunge to grime, trip hop, electronica to jazz, dark 80s Factory Records era, Tricky to DJ Shadow to Slipknot
Read moreFyfe and Iskra Strings: Interiority
New album: This collaboration between Paul Dixon and his friend and former violin tutor James Underwood is an absorbingly experimental, clever cross-genre collection from pop, folk, indie, trip hop to dark electronica and a lick of neoclassical
Read moreLaura Veirs: Found Light
New album: Sensitive, quirky, melancholy, intimate, candid, and wonderfully beautiful folk-pop by the Portland singer-songwriter dappled with acoustic instruments and arresting lines is her 12th, but first LP after splitting from her husband and longtime producer
Read moreViagra Boys: Cave World
New album: The third and perhaps best yet album by the Swedish post-punk mischief makers fronted by the charismatic Sebastian Murphy, with a fusion of rock, punk, electronica and funk and packed with punchy, ironic, humorous lyrics, clever guitar riffs and keyboard sounds
Read moreMoor Mother: Jazz Codes
New album: A mesmeric new album that began as poetry book by the American artist Camae Ayewa mixing jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop and spoken word in her own form of Black Quantum Futurism group, her multi-artform fusion of black history ontology
Read moreArt D'Ecco - After The Head Rush
New album: A witty title for a follow-up album by the Canadian artist after 2021’s breakthrough third LP, Standard Definition, with further fabulous fusion of 70s glam, 80s post-punk, and perfect original pop blend of Sparks, 80s Bowie and Ezra Furman
Read moreFern Maddie: Ghost Story
Debut album: Terrific first LP by the Vermont singer-songwriter, guitarist and banjo player who draws influence from English, Irish and Scottish folk who has a talent for poignant lyrics, beautiful playing and a quiet, but striking voice
Read moreNick Cave and Warren Ellis: Seven Psalms
New album: Less an LP of songs, more a 25-minute series of low-key ambient synth pieces by Ellis over which Cave’s spoken word prayers of reflective, intense, meditative poetry on death, sin, guilt, grief and more
Read moreGwenno: Tresor
New album: Third LP by the Welsh artist, another almost entirely in the Cornish language, is an alluring mix of pop, ethereal psych-folk and electronica inspired by recent motherhood and the lockdown experience
Read moreCola: Deep In View
New album: Thrumming, knotty, catchy, clever, crafty, stop-start indie post-punk with an occasional glimmer of glam-rock by the trio of former Ought members Tim Darcy (vocals, guitar) and Ben Stidworthy (bass) alongside Evan Cartwright (drums) with this debut album
Read moreStealing Sheep: Wow Machine
New album: The Liverpool trio of Emily Lansley, Rebecca Hawley, Luciana Mercer’s wonderfully experimental 10-song album springs from a specially commissioned project with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, taking inspiration from the female pioneers of electronic music
Read moreSoccer Mommy: Sometimes, Forever
New album: Richly textured indie, shoegaze and pop by Nashville’s 25-year-old Sophie Allison, here with her third album that contains the dark, world weary, but also tuneful and uplifting material, given extra depth by producer Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never
Read moreRegina Spektor: Home, Before and After
New album: The New York-based Russian-American singer-songwriter’s very welcome first LP for six years is a wonderfully stirring, sensitive, melancholy mix of narratives, combining piano with beautifully lush orchestration and production by John Congleton
Read morePerfume Genius: Ugly Season
New album: The alias of American composer and high-voiced performer Mike Hadreas returns with profound, strange, compelling experimental pieces, ranging from ambience to electronica to pop with range of instruments and styles including chimes, Mellotron, celeste, guitarrón, and reggae syncopation
Read moreJessie Buckley and Bernard Butler: For All Our Days That Tear The Heart
New album: An outstanding collaboration between the Irish actress and singer and the former Suede guitarist with this beautiful album of passionate, dramatic, folk music of various international styles, with all the added depth, subtlety, dynamism of emotional power of both Jeff Buckley and Joni Mitchell
Read moreNova Twins: Supernova
New album: After their pre-lockdown debut, Who Are the Girls?, the London duo of lead vocalist and guitarist Amy Love and bassist Georgia South return with a blisteringly exciting hybrid of punk, heavy rock/metal, hip hop, pop and R&B
Read moreVieux Farka Touré: Les Racines
New album: Exquisite seventh studio album by Boureima "Vieux" Farka Touré, Malian singer and sublime guitarist, the player known as ‘the Hendrix of the Sahara’, as well as being the son of Mali’s great Ali Farka Touré
Read moreHercules & Love Affair: In Amber
New album: Andy Butler and friends return with a dark, powerful new LP that in comparison to previously is less dance music, more contemplation of serious issues, featuring again the distinctive countertenor of Anohni, but also percussion by Budgie of Siouxsie & The Banshees
Read moreFoals: Life Is Yours
New album: Now a three-piece, frontman Yannis Philippakis, drummer and Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith return with a very danceable, funky and 80s indie pop-inspired single, produced by Dan Carey
Read moreWhatever The Weather: Whatever The Weather (Loraine James album)
New album: With the global climate increasingly unstable, this release by the London electronica artist and producer, originally out in April feels apposite, each piece title a different temperature, freezing, thawing, and heating, colouring moods and states with intricate synths and vocal improvisations
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