New album: Ethereal, shimmering, poetic, sensual delicate experimental folk and synth-pop in this substantial 17-track sixth LP, following 2021’s Mythopoetics, by the New York singer-songwriter and producer Nandi Rose Plunkett, with lingering release about pain, grief, but resilience and beauty
Read moreKelly Lee Owens: Dreamstate
New album: The London-based Welsh electronic artist, DJ and producer’s fourth LP takes a new mainstream turn, celebrating daydreaming and emancipated creativity through electronica and dance music, combining ambience and beats with guest collaborators Bicep, Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers, and George Daniel
Read moreMarysia Osu: Harp, Beats and Dreams
New album: Truly gorgeous experimental work by London’s Trinity Laban-graduate harpist of Polish parentage, who as well as conventionally rippling the strings of instrument, creatively uses it with other effects, adds sea other nature sounds with electronica, with magical sprinkles of guest vocals, cello, woodwind and percussion
Read moreW.H. Lung: Every Inch Of Earth Pulsates
New album: The Manchester-formed synth-indie-pop five-piece return with fresh toe-tapping electro retro sounds, but also with a particularly big, live sound, achieved by relocating to Sheffield to work with producer Ross Orton (MIA, Arctic Monkeys, Working Men’s Club)
Read morecumgirl8: the 8th cumming
New album: Provocative in name, and after a couple of great EPs, the Manhattan four-piece are now fully released in LP form, with their infectiously catchy, witty, punchy, dirty electro-cyber-punk-pop, influenced in part by The Slits and girl-punk era of the late 1970s, new wave, horror and anime, and self-described as “a scantily clad Creature from the Black Lagoon”
Read moreHayden Thorpe: Ness
New album: The former Wild Beast singer’s new LP is a beautiful, experimental release inspireed by Robert Macfarlane’s book of the same name, an ode to the Suffolk coast’s mysterious ten-mile long shingle spit at Orford Ness, the now wilderness but former Ministry of Defence weapons development site
Read moreThe Smile: Cutouts
New album: Following January’s Wall of Eyes, the trio of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke, alongside Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, return with a second LP this year, and third overall – of intricacy and invention – with dark, moody lyrics, and musical excellence
Read moreSOPHIE: SOPHIE
New album: This posthumous and final album by the extraordinary, innovative, experimental electro-pop and trans artist Sophie Xeon, who tragically died in 2021, is here finished by co-producer Benny Long and with a huge cast of guest vocalists, but also leaves the question of how much more there could have been
Read moreMustafa: Dunya
New album: This tenderly delivered debut LP by Sudanese-Canadian performance poet, film-maker, and singer-songwriter is a hushed-voiced, acoustic form of folk, the title translated as “the world in all its flaws” in Arabic, and variously touches on religious devotion, childhood trauma, gang violence to romantic intimacy
Read moreFloating Points: Cascade
New album: Inspired by the dance culture of Manchester, cleverly crafted, evolving, clubby but intricate and supremely infectious work by the British electronica artist and producer Sam Shepherd
Read moreJónsi: First Light
New album: Beautiful experimental classical and electronica by the vocalist and multi-instrumentalist from Iceland’s Sigur Rós, in his latest solo release, a cinematic, evocative work capturing the landscape of his homeland but also a utopian vision in a climate threatened world
Read moreNala Sinephro: Endlessness
New album: Mesmeric, experimental new work and the follow-up to 2021’s meditative Space 1.8 LP by the Brussels-born, London-based pedal harpist who mixes jazz and electronica and with extraordinary and unconventional results
Read moreThandii: Dream With You / Come As You
New album: Two albums and 20 songs released together in an outstanding combination of upbeat, clever, innovative, eclectic, refreshing electro-pop and dream-pop, funk, jazz and soul by the Margate duo of Graham Godfrey and Jessica Berry
Read moreMura Masa: Curve 1
New album: A fourth LP by the Guernsey-born electronic and dance music producer Alex Crossan, now on his own label, Pond, is a cleverly experimental, sweaty underground feel mix of oddball beats, sounds and voices, with a variety of guest including Singaporean artist Yeule
Read moreLaurie Anderson: Amelia
New album: The veteran American experimental artist and musician returns with an evocative first-person narrative album charting the fateful summer 1937 six-week global flight of the pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, with orchestral strings from Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno and gorgeous vocals by Britain’s Anohni
Read moreJon Hopkins: Ritual
New album: Originally commissioned for a multi-sensory Dreamachine installation, the British electronic producer’s latest is a continuous 8-part immersive experience, slow to build, and at times challenging, but in an appropriately dark, recumbent setting, rewarding. In world of distraction, this is all about being present in the moment
Read moreMelt-Banana: 3+5
New album: Totally bananas, but enormous fun and oddly brilliant, this pithy, high-pitched and squeakily energised new release by the experimental, eccentric, eclectic Japanese noise rock band is their first over a decade, since 2013’s Fetch
Read moreSusanna: Meditations on Love
New album: The experimental Norwegian singer and composer Susanna Wallumrød’s LP is a releases a striking, eccentric, beautifully bewitching collection about relationships, concentrating not on the giddy joy of falling in love, nor breakups, but the oddness in between
Read moreMagdalena Bay: Imaginal Disk
New album: Flamboyant, dynamic, cinematic, this sparkling sophomore LP is summons up striking 70s and spacey effervescent pop and disco from the Los Angeles-based electro-pop duo of Mica Tenenbaum and multi-instrumentalist and producer Matthew Lewin
Read moreHifi 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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