New album: An excellently colourful 36th compilation release by the Samy Ben Redjeb’s label Analog Africa features a wonderful sprinking of Amazonian cumbia - timbale rhythms, driven by spidery, treble-damaged guitar lines, and drenched in bright splashes of organ
Read moreLittle Simz: No Thank You
New album: Released without fanfare like those of the collective Sault’s recent five (with producer also Inflo involved here), a fierce, sharp, set songs, particularly about mental health issues, race and music industry evils by the brilliant London rapper
Read moreLet's Eat Grandma: Two Ribbons
New album: Released back in April, an enthralling, experimental, emotional electro-pop perspective of the last three turbulent years by the Norwich duo Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton, produced by David Wrench
Read moreMaja Lena: Pluto
New album: Beautiful alternative folk-pop by Marianne Parrish, formerly of alt-folk band Low Chimes, with an arresting range of textures and sounds and her dynamic voice inspired by the natural world
Read moreStick In The Wheel: Endurance Soundly Caged
New album: The east London punk-folk band’s latest, more of an EP, brings fresh new arrangements of past releases with a vibrant live take, recorded at the renowned Eastcote Studios
Read moreLeftfield: This Is What We Do
New album: A clever banger of a mesmeric LP, just the fourth in three decades return from the highly influential dance electronica maestro Neil Barnes including guest appearances by Grian Chatten from Fontaines DC and poet Lemn Sissay
Read moreGaye Su Akyol: Anadolu Ejderi
New album: The Istanbul singer’s fourth album is an alluring fusion of Turkish folk and pop rhythms and instruments with psych-rock riffing with a spicier flavour, her seductive voice delivering heartbreak love stories and dark anthems of dissidence
Read moreLous and the Yakuza: Iota
New album: After her hard-hitting 2020 trap, pop and Congolese beats debut, Gore, the Belgian-Congolese rapper, singer, model and artist Marie-Pierra Kakoma returns with a dreamy, smooth eclectic mix of rap, pop, and electronica
Read moreStormzy: This Is What I Mean
New album: Smooth, mellow, self-healing, candid, with many nods to his faith, the third album by the south London rapper is far from his edgier grime origins, and particularly mixes soul, R&B and spoken word alongside gospel choir and keyboards
Read moreAcid Klaus - Step On My Travelator: The Imagined Career Trajectory of Superstar DJ and Dance Pop Producer, Melvin Harris
New album: Acieeed! Packed with cleverly crafted bangers and a mischievously daft long title, wonderfully retro, yet fresh and chemically inspiring dance electronica in this project by Sheffield’s Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer, known also for International Teachers Of Pop, Moonlandingz and Eccentronic Research Council
Read moreCaitlin Rose: CAZIMI
New album: Beautiful melancholy, emotive Americana-folk-country-indie-pop crossover by the Nashville-based singer a new set of songs about self-destruction, documenting proclivity and impulse control, bad habits in life and in romantic pursuits
Read moreRichard Dawson: The Ruby Cord
New album: Poetic, vivid, and original, the third in an great trilogy after the medieval-themed Peasant (2017), and 2019’s state-of-nation first-person narrative 2020, the remarkable Newcastle experimental folk artist’s newest LP is set in the post-human future
Read moreDJ Yoda: Prom Nite
New album: A clever, inventive fusion of modern and retro , London DJ and producer Duncan Beiny’s new project captures heartbreak 50s American doo-wop song samples with live performers through soul, hip hop, harp, strings, and guest vocals from House Gospel Choir, Lily James, Homeboy Sandman, Jamie Cullum and Beardyman
Read moreWeyes Blood: And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow
New album: A sublime, 70s California-style, Karen Carpenter-evoking, melancholy new work by Natalie Mering, her fifth LP overall, and first since the acclaimed Titanic Rising of 2019, one that’s “feeling around in the dark for meaning in a time of instability and irrevocable change”
Read moreSault: Aiir, Earth, Today & Tomorrow, Untitled (God), 11
New albums: An unprecedented five albums landing simultaneously without warning, and with a temporary free download period on the mysterious London collective’s website, producer Inflo (Dean Josiah Cover) and co have again brought untold riches in soul, funk, gospel, jazz, RnB, hip-hop, experimental and contemporary classical
Read moreGold Panda: The Work
New album: A first album for six years by the London electronic artist Derwin Dicker, and it’s a welcome return with a distinctively lovely palette of twinkling sounds, loops and textures, with Japanese and other influences
Read moreSylvie: Sylvie
New album: Beautiful retro 70s-style Laurel Canyon folk and Americana by the band formed by South California’s Ben Schwab of Drugdealer and Golden Daze, inspired by finding lost tapes of his father John’s 1970s group Mad Anthony
Read moreFenella / Jane Weaver: The Metallic Index
New album: The acclaimed Liverpool-born experimental electronic artist joins forces again with Peter Philipson and Raz Ullah with an enthralling range of shimmering vintage equipment sounds and spectral vocalisations telling the story of Stella Cranshaw, the so-called paranormal ‘electric girl’ in 1920s London
Read morePlaid - Feorm Falorx
New album: A joyously nostalgic, beautiful and uplifting 11th album by the London cult electronica and dance duo of Andy Turner and Ed Handley based on a theme of a fictitious festival, Feorm, “an intergalactic shindig held on the planet Falorx”
Read moreThe Cool Greenhouse: Sod's Toastie
New album: An excellent second LP by the wittily droll wordsmith Tom Greenhouse and band, bringing oodles of hilarious, oddball short stories and killer lines about the absurdity of life, backed by strangely wonderful post-punk and electronica
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