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Hifi Sean and David McAlmont: Daylight
New album: After last year’s Happy Ending album, the seasoned British duo return with a sparkling selection of electro-pop, disco and rave bangers, often with tender lyrics, all decorated with the silky beauty of McAlmont’s high resplendently soaring voice
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Empire of the Sun: Ask That God
New album: Eight years since their last LP, Australian duo Luke “Emperor” Steele and Nick “Lord” Littlemore return with an eye- and ear-catching set of synthy nostalgic 80s pop of colourful capes and astral fantasy
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Liv.e: PAST FUTUR.e
New album: Released back in May, a wonderfully wonky short album of electronica and experimental post-punk by the Dallas artist, aka Hailee Olivia Williams, with a clever, menacing, witty delivery over a suite of strange squelchy keyboard sounds
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Brijean: Macro
New album: A magical, serene, dreamily sophisticated and witty psych-pop, lounge and dancefloor new creation by the LA duo of percussionist/singer-songwriter Brijean Murphy (Mitski, Poolside, and Toro y Moi) and multi-instrumentalist/producer Doug Stuart
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KOKOKO!: BUTU
New album: The brilliant band from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo return with an LP inspired by the vibrant nightlife of that city, the titled translated as ‘the night’ in Lingala language, featuring rawer, more electronic sounds and the commanding lead of vocalist Makara Bianko
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Kiasmos: II
New album: A decade after their acclaimed debut, the award-winning duo of Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds and Faroese musician Janus Rasmussen return with an emotive, uplifting release of inspired, transportive electronica
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Charli XCX: BRAT
New album: The Essex-raised, hugely successful star Charlotte Emma Aitchison’s sixth album is a far more nuanced than her last, 2022’s Crash, still embracing mainstream pop and dance, but also with ironic twists, sleazy fun, humour, and a dirtier, more underground sound of her more experimental past
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John Grant: The Art Of The Lie
New album: The Iceland-based American returns with his seventh LP, a mixture of catchy funk and disco with slow-burn, simmering, contemplative electronica where dark humour stirs along with candid emotions and a sorrowful look at rising fascism in the US
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Angélica Garcia: Gemelo
New album: A dynamic, colourful, passionate third LP by the Los Angeles pop artist of Mexican and Salvadoran descent here singing mainly in Spanish with operatic pop, cumbia, psychedelia, dance music, with titular translation and theme as ‘twin self’
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Arab Strap: I'm Totally Fine With It I Don't Give A Fuck Anymore
New album: Menacingly poetic, darkly humorous, searingly sordid and the sweetly sarcastic? It can only be the return of Scotland’s Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton with another fabulously articulate assault on the self and society’s sadness and strangeness
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Ibibio Sound Machine: Pull The Rope
New album: Another cracking release by the London collective fronted by London-born Nigerian singer Eno Williams, a catchy, infectious concoction of Afrobeat, funk, disco, pysch and electronica, with punchy, enticing beats and grooves
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Lynks’ debut LP: Abomination
New album: After a series of entertaining singles, the flamboyant, often masked south London artist Elliot Brett’s debut LP is full of bounce and thrust – a humorous, witty, catchy collection of stylish synth-electro-pop mainly about gay sexual adventures in the city
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Four Tet: Three
New album: British musician Kieran Hebden returns, with his first album since 2020’s Parallel, with a new syncopated electronica beats, twinkling, rippling textures and rumbling ambience to invigorate the spring season
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New album: After 2022’s acclaimed Topical Dancer with Charlotte Adigéry, the Belgian musician returns with a charming, quirky electronica LP dedicated to his Hong Kong-born Chinese mother, Yu Wei Wun, and a celebration of that territory’s culture
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Yard Act: Where's My Utopia?
New album: With continuing appeal, the experimental post-punk Leeds quartet return with their second LP, with highly entertaining, broadened musical scope, frontman James Smith’s agile, candid, conversational wit musing on the ironies of success, the music business, resultant guilt, climate change, and titular worries about the future
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Talk Show: Effigy
New album: A dark, arresting, gnarly, frenzied fusion of dance-funk post-punk by the south London quartet with an LP that feels like a gripping journey through a fictional night-club underworld, with echoes of the Prodigy and Baxter Dury-style vocalisations
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Brittany Howard: What Now
New album: The Alabama Shakes singer and guitarist returns with her second solo album after 2019’s superb debut, Jaimie, with an equally brilliant but wider scope of styles, from soul to funk, jazz, but also dancefloor energy, and more than a dash of Prince
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Kali Uchis: Orquídeas
New album: With agile, crisp clarity of voice, and a diversity of beats and styles, this is another clever hybrid LP of passionate, romantic cheeky, sassy Spanish-language, clubby pop by the Colombian-American singer, joined by high-profile Latin American guests
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Black Grape: Orange Head
New album: Salford’s Shaun Ryder and Manchester’s Paul ‘Kermit’ Leveridge return with their first LP since 2017’s Pop Voodoo, and their fourth overall together, with an especially funk-filled laced with their classic banter, wit and talent for cleverly daft, surreal and addictive lyrics
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Favourite LPs of 2023, Part 2.
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 2, and Part 1 was yesterday. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order …
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