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Shungudzo
New album: An impassioned, political debut album by the Zimbabwean-American artist, activist former gymnast and soul singer touching on climate change to race issues to women’s rights, typified in first singe It’s a Good Day (To Fight The System)
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Fryars: God Melodies
New album: Mischievously wry and marvellously inventive twinkling electro-pop in the third full album by the multi-instrumentalist and producer Benjamin Garrett who has also released multiple EPs and mixtapes
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Clairo’s new album - Sling
New album: Willow-the-wisp delicately soft and profoundly beautiful, this second LP by Massachusetts singer-songwriter Claire Cottrill, 22, has refined her bedroom indie pop of 2019’s acclaimed debut album Immunity for something more akin to Elliott Smith or Sufjan Stevens
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Half Waif: Mythopoetics
New album: This fifth solo LP by American Nandi Rose Plunkett strips her music back to a piano ballad pop format but with added electronica, and her subject matter is again infused with intense emotions and dark humour, even to fear of total identify loss
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Charlotte Day Wilson: ALPHA
New album: This serenely soulful debut by the Toronto singer-songwriter and producer is a slow, sensual, and mature, drawing on elements of gospel, folk, jazz and R&B, but is beautifully minimal and restrained
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Bobby Gillespie and Jehnny Beth: Utopian Ashes
New album: The Primal Scream frontman and former Savages singer collaborate in an unusually mellow set of heartbreak numbers that recall the country rock duos between Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris
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The Go! TeamGet Up Sequences Part One
New album: The Brighton sextet return with their sixth LP and their distinctive brand of joyous sound clash, syncopated big drums, female singing and rapping, flutes, glockenspiels, steel drums and the full kitchen sink
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Snapped Ankles in the urban forest with their third LP
New album: An excellent third LP by the east London be-leafed electro-krautrock-dance-pop band bursts with vigour and ideas, themed and fuelled by a troubled world coming out of lockdown in this folllow-up to their last, Stunning Luxury
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John Grant: Boy From Michigan
New album: The American’s newest LP is his most autobiographical to date, filled with trademark electronica sounds, but an overall mellower sound than previous, smoothly produced by Cate Le Bon, coloured by childhood recollections
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LoneLady - standard bearer for brilliant electro-pop
New album: A wonderful new LP by Manchester electro-pop artist Julie Campbell, created in the 18th-century Somerset House shooting range studios, with sparkling numbers that perfectly combine influences from Cabaret Voltaire to Neneh Cherry
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Garbage are back with their first album for five years
New album: Shirley Manson and co return with their seventh, a double LP filled with banging cyber-punk anger, dark, seething, atmosphere, politics and personal battles. It’s one of their best since the 90s and stylistically includes echoes of Roxy Music, Depeche Mode, New Order and The Human League
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Dean Blunt
New album: This follow-up to the 2014 album by the East Londoner frontman of the mischievous alt-pop duo Hype Williams (named after the video director) is a bizarre, offbeat collection of 10 short songs mixing droll, deep-voiced delivery with a range of almost cinematic instrumentation
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Dynamic debut: Cola Boyy’s Prosthetic Boombox
New album: Uplifting and also poignant 70s style disco-funk-soul debut by the Californian artist who is disabled by spina bifida and scoliosis since birth, but shakes his tail feathers with style, panache, very much like “a time-travelling Delorean with Prince in the passenger seat”
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Francis Lung’s Miracle
New album: A splendid new LP by the Manchester singer-songwriter packed with strong pop, variously with echoes of Elliott Smith in vocal delivery and the Beatles or Jeff Tweedy in classic melody and structure, and wry, humorous lyrics
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Consequences is Joan Armatrading’s 20th studio album
New album: Now 70, her voice is as strong as ever, and this 20th studio album in a five-decade career is filled with strong songwriting, more in the style of her 80s pop than 70s folk, but with impressive moments of emotional power
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Peace or Love is KoC’s first album for 12 years
New album: The Norwegian duo of Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye return with their first LP since 2009, and fourth in 20 years with a collection of beautiful indie acoustic guitar-based folk, perfectly blended voices and barely drumbeat to be heard
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Sleater-Kinney’s surviving members Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein
Album review: This fine 10th studio album by Tucker and Brownstein was recored in Portland the summer of 2020 and rails against a backdrop of social unrest, devastating wildfires, and pandemic with a sound that has echoes of Steely Dan to Talking Heads and B-52s
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Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
Album review: Grasping mainstream pop and rock with cleverly constructed styles and influences, a shrewd, highly polished new LP from the London indie band 2018 Mercury prize winners, jumps from soft, whispery piano ballads to big guitar bangers
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Japanese Breakfast’s Jubilee
Song of the Day: This third album by the American alt-pop singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner is full of tasty textures and ethereal melodies, inspired by the likes of Bjork, with songs, as she says “about recalling the optimism of youth and applying it to adulthood”
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Jorja Smith’s new release Be Right Back
Album review: It’s about the voice. A classy, silky smooth minimalist new mini-album of eight songs heralds the return of the 23-year-old soul and R&B singer-songwriter from Walsall, following up from her acclaimed 2018 album Lost & Found
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