New album: Andy Butler and friends return with a dark, powerful new LP that in comparison to previously is less dance music, more contemplation of serious issues, featuring again the distinctive countertenor of Anohni, but also percussion by Budgie of Siouxsie & The Banshees
Read moreWhatever The Weather: Whatever The Weather (Loraine James album)
New album: With the global climate increasingly unstable, this release by the London electronica artist and producer, originally out in April feels apposite, each piece title a different temperature, freezing, thawing, and heating, colouring moods and states with intricate synths and vocal improvisations
Read moreAnna Phoebe: Sea Souls (live)
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
Read moreShearwater: The Great Awakening
New album: A welcome return by the band from Austin, Texas, their first studio LP since 2015’s Jet Plane and Oxbo, sees Jonathan Meiburg and others reconvening in a powerful, beautiful work, tackling the apparent global hopelessness of the past few years
Read moreForgiveness: Next Time Could Be Your Last Time
New album: A mesmeric, magical and strangely beautiful debut fusing electronica, acoustic, jazz, and ambient in these instrumentals that conjure bucolic landscapes, twittering flutey birds and the natural world by Jack Wyllie of Portico Quartet, JQ and Richard Pike
Read moreSinead O'Brien: Time Bend and Break The Bower
Debut album: After a string of singles such as Limbo and A Thing You Call Joy, the Irish indie poet’s debut album emboldens her style of strikingly esoteric lines and images backed a mix of guitar, drums and electronica, with a distinctively lingering talking/semi-sung delivery
Read moreHAAi: Baby, We're Ascending
New album: After a series of acclaimed mixes and other releases, the London-based Australian electronica-techno artist Teneil Throssell’s full debut album is restlessly inventive, oddly alluring, hypnotic adventure tapping into the ecstasy of slow-build and joy in repetition
Read moreJust Mustard: Heart Under
New album: Striking, experimental, atmospheric noise music in this second LP by the five-piece band from Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland, who use traditional rock instruments to create juddery, industrial, and surreal sounds
Read moreShabaka: Afrikan Culture
New album: An exquisite debut solo album by the acclaimed British saxophonist, known for Sons of Kemet, the Comet Is Coming and Shabaka & the Ancestors, here with soft, shimmering, intertwining sounds including the kora, shakuhachi Japanese flute, and delicate percussion
Read moreGentle 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
Read moreObongjayar: Some Nights I Dream of Doors
The Smile: A Light For Attracting Attention
New album: Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner join forces in album of vivid, eerie, ghostly beauty, packed with fabulous guitar and bass riffs and rhythms, reminiscent of cinematic work as well as In Rainbows
Read moreWarpaint: Radiate Like This
New album: An alluring, quietly intricate but also beautiful fourth LP by the Los Angeles quartet, whose last was in September 2016, and while the world has churned upside down since, their return is wonderfully welcome
Read moreIbeyi: Spell 31
New album: The third album from Afro-Cuban French twins Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz is a sensual, eclectic mix of R&B, hip hop and more, drawing on their rich heritage, and inspired by a passage the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
Read moreDana Gavanski: When It Comes
New album: Gorgeous second folk-pop LP by the London-based Canadian-Serbian singer-songwriter, decorated with perfectly weighted hooks and measured arrangements, pure of voice and with pace that’s both intricate but minimal, like a ticking clock
Read moreRöyksopp: Profound Mysteries
New album: Not presented as an album, but an art piece sequence with visuals, these 10 numbers, variously ambient to dance electronica, are still very much in the LP form, half with guest singers Alison Goldfrapp, Beki Mari, Pixx, Susanne Sundfør and Alison S
Read moreMelody's Echo Chamber: Emotional Eternal
New album: A beautiful, uplifting third album of life-affirming tranquility by French psych-pop artist Melody Prochet, reflecting her move from Paris to the Alps, and the birth of her daughter, with a host of shimmering, dreamlike sounds
Read moreKathryn Joseph: For You Who Are Wronged
New album: Stark, minimal, ghostly, and extraordinarily powerful, this third album by the Scottish singer-songwriter concentrates unflinchingly on the ripples that emanate around abusive relationships, particularly giving voice to the voiceless
Read moreSault: 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
Read moreSpiritualized: Everything Was Beautiful
New album: Just the ticket – a terrific album of gentle psychedelic beauty by Jason Spaceman aka Pierce, with just seven songs but of inspiring, expansive space krautrock with a swirling orchestra of many instruments combined with an easy, but emotional vocal delivery
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