New album: Sensitive, experimental, dreamy, highly original electro-pop in this fourth album by the Oakland artist, songs reflecting on mindset after from splitting with her partner, and a theme of perceiving reality, referencing John Berger’s book Ways of Seeing
Read moreHENGE: Alpha Test 4
New album: A third album of ingeniously brilliant keyboard blips ‘n’ beats, squelchy, catchy, funky fun from the electro-psych-pop space alien band (actually from Manchester) packed with entertaining tunes about robots, the climate crisis and more
Read moreGuided By Voices: Welshpool Frillies
New album: Dayton Ohio’s prolific Robert Pollard and band return with another in a long line of albums of muscular fuzz-guitar rock decorated with ear-catching, oddball, original lyrics and powerful riffs
Read moreMolly Tuttle & Golden Highway: City of Gold
New album: Following last year’s breakthrough album Crooked Tree, brilliantly uplifting bluegrass and country by the Nashville singer-songwriter renowned for her finger-picking, again co-written by Ketch Secor from Old Crow Medicine Show and co-produced by dobro veteran Jerry Douglas
Read moreBlur: The Ballad of Darren
New album: Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon and co return with their ninth LP, and first since 2015, a reflective, melancholy mostly slow-paced release of vivid, wistful beauty
Read moreBeing Dead: When Horses Would Run
New album: Mischievous fun by the Austin, Texas experimental indie and art-rock band of songwriters Falcon Bitch and Gumball, packed with fantasy, satirical settings in this debut full LP
Read morePalehound: Eye On The Bat
New album: Brooklyn’s El Kempner returns with a new selection of passionate, intelligent, punchy indie-folk with songs about illusions shattering, the before and after, raw nerves and propulsive instrumentation
Read moreSam Burton: Dear Departed
New album: Very much in the mould of late 60s/ early-70s Harry Nilsson or Glen Campbell – serene, gentle, melancholy, sometimes sublime songs in this second LP by the Utah-born, LA-based singer-songwriter
Read moreSnõõper: Super Snõõper
New album: With shades of early-80s Delta 5, a fabulously entertaining, sprightly, short ’n’ sharp, stop-start punk, post-punk full debut LP by the Nashville band who combine a fun DIY girl garage-rock interspersed with electronic beeps and random conversations
Read moreJulie Byrne: The Greater Wings
New album: Gorgeously delicate, serene, thoughtful, intimate acoustic folk by the ethereal, breathy-voiced New York singer-songwriter, her third studio album and first for six years capturing a variety of moods and emotions across times of isolation and change
Read moreLittle Dragon: Slugs of Love
New album: An inventive, very eclectic, enjoyably experimental seventh studio album by the Gothenburg quartet, mixing electronica, soul, pop, hip-hop and R&B with guests including Blur’s Damon Albarn and East Atlanta rapper JID
Read moreVarious: The Endless Coloured Ways - The Songs of Nick Drake
New album: An enthralling collection of 23 cover versions of classic numbers by the legendary British folk singer who tragically died in 1974, featuring diverse artists including Fontaine’s D.C., Emeli Sandé, Aldous Harding, Guy Garvey and John Grant
Read moreCollapsed Lung: Collapsed Lung Weekend Television
New album: Nearly three decades in, packed with slick, sharp, flowing humorous lyrics, catchy beats and rockin’ riffs, the British hip-hop band best known for the hit song Eat My Goal return with their first LP since 2018’s Zero Hours Band
Read moreKNOWER: Knower Forever
New album: A third jazz-funk tour de force LP of outstanding musicianship, infinite energy, humour and invention by the LA duo of singer Genevieve Artadi and genius drummer and multi-instrumentalist Louis Cole joined by a host of brilliant players
Read moreANOHNI and the Johnsons: My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross
New album: Taking a new direction the last LP, 2016’s Hopelessness, the artist formerly known as Antony Hegarty releases a gorgeously tender soul album inspired by the sound of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On
Read morePJ Harvey: I Inside The Old Year Dying
New album: Seven years after The Hope Six Demolition Project album, Polly returns with mysterious, experimental, beautiful, alluring release in which she adapts poems from her book Orlam into songs immersed in the otherworld-underworld of her home Dorset countryside, laced with local dialect and unusual acoustic instruments
Read moreAngelo De Augustine: Toil and Trouble
New album: Beautiful, acoustic otherworldliness aplenty in this fourth album by the California singer-songwriter in a realm of tender songs of gentle fingerpicking ethereal, whispery falsetto, glass xylophone, flutes, mellotron, oddball sound effects and animation
Read morebdrmm: I Don't Know
New album: With elements of krautrock, and echoes of Mogwai and Radiohead, the Hull experimental rock quartet’s new album has a dark, yet uplifting, mesmeric momentum, moving between stormy guitar ferocity, to wistful shoegaze and meditative electronica
Read moreDo Nothing: Snake Sideways
New album: Wonderfully offbeat, playful, original, witty post-punk with superb, sweeping melodies, warped experimental guitar, swinging, alternative rhythms, and laced with wry, clever ironic lyrics in this dynamic debut by the Nottingham quartet
Read moreBen Howard: Is It?
New album: Lush yet innovative, introspective folk-pop by English singer-songwriter and composer in his sixth album, influenced still by John Martyn, this LP is filled with unusual sounds, rhythms and effects and electronica to reflect his shock experience of two mini-strokes in 2022
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