New album: A decade after that sensational breakthrough performance on David Letterman, the Baltimore synthpop quartet release their best since – songs of thrumming melodies and heart-on-sleeve, passionate delivery by frontman Samuel T Herring
Read moreBound by Endogamy: Bound by Endogamy
New album: Released last month, dark, oddball and original, this electronica, industrial, post-punk LP is full of fantastic visceral sounds and droll, vocal delivery by the Geneva-based duo Shlomo Balexert and Kleio Thomaïdes
Read moreFavourite albums of 2023 Part 2: Anohni to Blur to Mitski, Ren to Sufjan Stevens
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 …
Read moreFavourite albums of 2023 Part 1: Anna B Savage to Young Fathers
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 1, and Part 2 is also out here. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order. This is all about quality and innovation …
Read moreSoema Montenegro: Círculo Radiante
New album: The Argentinian singer, poet-shaman and social activist’s fifth album brings out her powerful, passionate voice with a backdrop of traditional folk alongside electronica in a beautiful, entrancing release radiant with the sun and South American music
Read moreHaiku Hands: Pleasure Beast
New album: A gloriously anarchic, energetic fusion of hip-hop, post-punk, vogue pop, electronica, bouncy 90s dance music and interwoven skits by the vibrant Australian trio of sisters Claire and Mie Nakazawa and Beatrice Lewis
Read moreH31R: HeadSpace
New album: Pronounced ‘Air’, the duo of Brooklyn rapper Maassai and New Jersey producer JWords serve up a stylish mix of bleeps, beats, industrial sounds, with clubby to woozy, inventive, minimal, alternative electronica marked by free-flowing hip-hop/spoken word
Read moreJaakko Eino Kalevi: Chaos Magic
New album: With echoes of classic sounds from The Human League to Air and even a dash of Wham!, the Finnish electro-pop artist’s cleverly textured, stylish double album also contains cosmic jazz, dub reggae, neon synthpop, tender ballads and psych-rock
Read moreVince Clarke: Songs of Silence
New album: The legendary synth-pop songwriter best known for Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure releases, at last, his first solo album, a mesmeric, ambient, darkly sci-fi cinematic work made from modular synthesisers
Read moreDavid Holmes: Blind On A Galloping Horse (featuring Raven Violet)
New album: After many collaborative projects, a brilliant first full solo album by the Belfast producer and musician since 2008’s The Holy Pictures, here featuring the vocals of Raven Violet throughout, this passionate, powerful, often political noir-synth pop release charts the unravelling of British society over the past decade
Read moreTkay Maidza: Sweet Justice
New album: Stylishly funky, slick and soulful hip-hop and R&B with dark twists and tender moments come aplenty in this alluring second album by the eclectically talented Zimbabwean-born, Australian-raised and now Los Angeles-based artist
Read moreCody Pepper: Chemical Oasis
New album: An alluring, eclectic, eccentric jazz-pop electronica LP by the London-based singer-songwriter and Zebrah flautist Pauline Janier who brings a diverse set of sounds and musicians into this enthrallingly odd release
Read moreLol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee: Los Angeles
New album: The ex-Cure drummer and the acclaimed percussionist of Siouxsie, Creatures and other bands team up with the Irish producer for a wonderfully rhythmic, sharply witty, krautrock-style/synth pop-punk fusion with guest vocalists including LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy
Read moreGazelle Twin: Black Dog
New album: A welcome, and brilliantly dream-like, mesmeric return, by the British experimental electronica artist Elizabeth Bernholz, whose twilight world is extraordinary, innovative and otherworldly inspired by childhood visions of dark, bedside canine vision
Read morePip Blom: Bobbie
New album: This third album by Amsterdam sister-and-brother-based band brings more catchy and engaging indie, but with move from guitar-written songs towards synth pop, using producer Dave McCracken in a co-writer role
Read moreSampha: Lahai
New album: The London-born, gentle-and-high-voiced singer-musician and acclaimed Mercury winner for his 2017 debut, Process, finally returns, after many other projects, with an intricate, sensitive, ethereal follow-up
Read moreFlamingods: Head of Pomegranate
New album: The eclectic London band of abundant upbringings and influences from Bahrain to Dubai, Albania, Italy and Saudi Arabia return with a heady, upbeat mix of Afro-electro synth pop, krautrock, funk, disco and alt-rock psychedelia
Read moreHania Rani: Ghosts
New album: The Berlin-based Polish singer, pianist and composer returns with her bewitching voice, elevating, ethereal, minimalistic, ambient electronica and classical, with guests Patrick Watson, Ólafur Arnalds and Duncan Bellamy of Portico Quartet
Read moreVanishing Twin: Afternoon X
New album: Mesmeric, meditative, mercurial – an experimental, dream-like release by the London trio of singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti and bassist Susumu Mukai with folky electronica, minimalism, cosmic post-punk and psychedelic pop
Read moreOneohtrix Point Never: Again
New album: Pioneering avant-garde electronic musician and producer Daniel Lopatin returns with another mind-boggling mix of synths, samples, chamber music, prog, pop and more, playfully entwined with AI-induced effects
Read more