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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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Gentle Sinners: These Actions Cannot Be Undone
New album: An intriguing, innovative new collaborative project by James Graham of The Twilight Sad and Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap culminates in this mysterious, genre-defying, experimental album of oddly poetic numbers
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Sault spring another surprise with sixth album Air
New album: A sixth album in just three years by the collective run by prolific producer Inflo, aka Dean Josiah Cover, has a striking new direction - instrumental, orchestral works with brass and largely non-verbal choir parts, yet this cinematic release still has echoes of the black experience
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Daniel Rossen’s debut solo album
New album: A mesmerically rich, beautifully swirling fusion of acoustic and flamenco guitar, symphonic folk, classic and jazz by by the Grizzly Bear guitarist and vocalist whose voice has the sensitivity, warmth and honest of Elliott Smith, in this wonderful solo debut
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Father John Misty: Chloë and the Next 20th Century
New album: Lavishly orchestrated, marrying the ironic and the romantic, filled with stories and profound lines, Josh Tillman’s theatrical fifth LP is perhaps his finest yet, a fusion of the cinematic, jazz, swing, country, and folk-pop
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Hannah Peel and Paraorchestra: The Unfolding
New album: A beautiful conceptual collaboration between the Northern Irish composer and the Bristol orchestral ensemble of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians mixing analogue, digital and assistive instruments, the music evoking human links to nature and shared beginnings in the universe
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Mario Batkovic: taking the accordion to new places on Introspectio
New album: A mesmeric, magical fusion of boundary-pushing electronica, saxophone and organ by the Swiss virtuoso solo accordion player born in Bosnia now based in Bristol, with guests including saxophonist Colin Stetson
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Marta Del Grandi’s debut album Until We Fossilize
New album: This delicate, beautiful debut by the Italian singer from Milan with a jazz background infuses her songs with folk and classical and eastern elements in an LP inspired by the Greek myth of Amethyst who defies the patriarchy
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Ìxtahuele: Eden Ahbez's Dharmaland
Album review: Serene, strange, magical a wonderful collection performed by the Swedish experimental band of newly discovered sheet music of instrumentals and songs by the composer best known for Nature Boy, written for Nat King Cole
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Promises more than fulfilled
Album review: This transcendent, astonishingly beautiful work, from a five-year collaboration, culminates in genre-spanning exquisite music over nine continuous movements that could easily top the best of the year
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House Music is Bell Orchestre’s first album in a decade
Album review: A wondrously absorbing and beautiful first release in a decade by the Montreal-based group of musicians with 10 tracks flow seamlessly into each other via coalescing classical and electronic instrumentation.
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Smerz’s album Believer
Album review: From stark and abstract, to serene, ambient and dancefloor, the debut LP from the Norwegian duo Henriette Motzfeldt and Catharina Stoltenberg is an experimental adventure taking in everything from classical to techno
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Great albums of 2020: clockwise from top: Agnes Obel, Phoebe Bridgers, Bob Dylan and Sault’s Untitled (Rise)
Albums of 2020 roundup: Out of crisis comes great art. A year of lockdowns, no gigs, alternative sounds, experimentation and surprises. This is the second half of our roundup of favourite albums of 2020. Part 1 was here
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Lianne La Havas, Fiona Apple and Yves Tumor are among three artists who have released outstanding LPs
Albums of 2020 roundup: A year of lockdowns, alternative sounds, experimentation and surprises. This is the first half two roundups of a total over 50 favourite albums of the year that musicians stayed at home. And here’s Part 2.
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This week’s nine is filled with contrast, but also many 2020 themes …
Album reviews roundup: A selection of contrasts – some dark, 2020-slanted Christmas other recent seasonal releases and other recents and earlier releases, from Chilly Gonzales to Mark Lanegan and a Beethoven anniversary piece
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Nine more albums to help complete further selections reflecting on 2020
Album reviews roundup: From the former Beatle to a country/pop mainstream artist, 2020’s running theme seems inspire isolation, survival, DIY and experimentation. But as this selection shows, there are also many new, innovative artists out there
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This week’s selection …
Album reviews roundup: This week’s selection includes a surprise but strong return for the Aussie rockers, three innovative debuts in in hip hop, pop and folk, and an outstanding series of instrumentals by a Welsh guitarist
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This week’s very colourful square of album covers is matched by the quality of the music
Album reviews roundup: This week’s selection again reflects the times - divided political America to grief and isolation, but also presents an abundance of creativity, wit and musical invention crossing everything from jazz to hip hop
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Nine more albums of note
Album reviews roundup: Hip hop comes up strong this week with Black Thought and a recent Public Enemy release with heavyweight guests, but there’s not shortage of other highly original artists from Future Islands to Sylvan Esso
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The latest mesmeric musical nine
Album reviews roundup: This week’s selection mixes deep emotions with philosophy, evolution with the elemental, with a mixture of folk, pop, electronica and indie, and including drone music featuring five ancient church organs
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