New album: The mysterious masked Swedish collective return with their third LP in as many years with a heady new dose of primal prog, funk, folk and psychedelic rock sitrred in a pot of guitar pedals, flutes, drums and ritualistic-style vocals
Read morePublic Service Broadcasting: The Last Flight
New album: Inspired by the same subject as Laurie Anderson’s Amelia album earlier this year, a the experimental news archive-digging British rock group formed by J Willgoose Esq return by paying tribute to the pioneering female American aviator Amelia Earhart
Read moreThe Hard Quartet: The Hard Quartet
New album: This seasoned pro supergroup of Stephen Malkmus (Pavement and Jicks), Matt Sweeney (Chavez), Emmett Kelly and Jim White create a marvellously muscular debut collection of indie, rock, blues punk, but also beautiful Byrds-like numbers
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 moreBeing Dead: EELS
New album: As a title not to be confused with the indie band of Mark Oliver Everett, this new LP by the Austin, Texas band of Falcon Bitch & Shmoofy (fka Gumball), is a different sort of fresh sounding, catchy quirkiness - a throwback 60s garage rock and produced with the mark of quality by John Congleton
Read moreLeon Bridges: Leon
New album: Silky smooth soul-pop with a richly orchestral 70s style and country hues by the high-voiced Fort Worth Texan singer-songwriter in this summery, honey-flavoured, highly polished fourth LP
Read moreOneDa: Formula OneDa
New album: The debut LP by the Mancunian rapper and poet with a Nigerian heritage is a punchy, powerful release fuelled by female empowerment, mixing hip-hop, drum’n’bass, afro-trap, and afrobeats, heralding one of the most charismatic British hip-hop artists since Little Simz
Read moreGodspeed You! Black Emperor: No Title As of 13 February 2024, 28,340 Dead
New album: Explosive but also expressive innovation by the returning veteran Canadian post-rockers, with a title that explicitly references the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but on a larger scale expresses an apocalyptic vision through some extraordinary, prog-rock experimental instrumentals
Read moreGeordie Greep: The New Sound
New album: The former Black Midi frontman’s debut LP is a brilliant swirl of guitar rock, jazz, prog, funk, pop and a big dash of Latin, channelling Frank Zappa, a dramatic Scott Walker delivery, Broadway musicals, cello, a punchy horn section, his distinctive voice, clever, humorous, soliloquy-style lyrics
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 moreNaima Bock: Below A Massive Dark Land
New album: Wonderfully delicate, deliciously paced, lo-fi indie folk by the British artist of Greek-Brazilian heritage and former member of Goat Girl, with her second album, following 2022’s Giant Palm
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 moreEzra Collective: Dance, No One's Watching
New album: The 2022 Mercury Prize-winning London Afrobeat-jazz ensemble fronted by Femi Koleoso return with a wonderfully infectious, warm and engaging LP inspired the idea of unself-conscious movement and a themed around narrative set across a night in the city
Read moreAnna Erhard: Botanical Garden
New album: Following several great singles, brilliantly amusing, quirky and marvellously melodic debut by the Berlin indie-pop artist, whose talent for wry, ironic humour and talk-sing delivery really tickles on variety of unusual and highly specific subjects
Read moreHoneyglaze: Real Deal
New album: A wonderfully innovative, sharp, agile, pace-changing, dynamic postpunk and indie rock debut LP by the London trio of singer-songwriter, and guitarist Anouska Sokolow, bassist Tim Curtis and drummer Yuri Shibuichi
Read moreThe WAEVE: City Lights
New album: This second, very strong and striking LP by the couple duo of Blur guitarist Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall strikingly embraces a variety of indie rock, synth pop and psyche-folk styles, again produced by James, and, as well as guitar, featured Coxon’s reborn love for the saxophone
Read moreNubya Garcia: Odyssey
New album: The acclaimed British tenor saxophonist, bandleader, composer and a star in the bright constellation of the London jazz scene returns with a cosmic creation of complex, beautiful blends and orchestral arrangements with added sparkles of R&B, jazz and dub with a stellar cast of players
Read moreThurston Moore: Flow Critical Lucidity
New album: The prolific Sonic Youth guitarist, singer and songwriter returns another solo album, an entrancing, meditational lo-fi experimental release of fascinating string textures and poetic lines, with guests including Laetitia Sadler, and lyrics by the London-based writer Radieux Radio
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