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Olivia Dean: The Art of Loving
New album: Mainstream but perfectly composed and polished pop and soul with a 70s retro style by the London singer-songwriter, this new LP is an unquestionably classy affair with her smooth, golden voice, gliding effortlessly through a series of songs about love, friendship, change and heartbreak
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Divorce: Drive To Goldenhammer
New album: With a warm, engaging sound, and beautifully crafted, intelligent songs, this excellent debut by the Nottingham indie quartet transcends genres from pop to country, Americana folk to rock with enduring passion and quality
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Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal
Mixtape review: Originally released in August, and more recently as a sample-rich, funk-jazz-sourced Flipout label edit version, this third Mixtape by the American rapper Jaylah Ji'mya Hickmon is fabulously feisty, filthy and packed with clever, witty wordplay
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Nine more albums to help complete further selections reflecting on 2020
Album reviews roundup: From the former Beatle to a country/pop mainstream artist, 2020’s running theme seems inspire isolation, survival, DIY and experimentation. But as this selection shows, there are also many new, innovative artists out there
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Fiona Apple. Her new album is finally cut free after eight years since the last
This week’s roundup includes an extraordinary, viscerally non-digital return by Fiona Apple, Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Cinnamon, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, and Japanese pop star Rina Sawayama
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Halsey
A mixture of dark and light, hope and hopelessness decorate this week’s huge roundup of releases across many genres, including oddities and eccentricities, passions and playfulness from Emimen to Ivor Cutler, Halsey to Keeley Forsyth
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Aldous Harding wins the prize for most unusual moves for her song, The Barrel
The first part of our selection of the pick of albums from 2019 by Song Bar readers and the Landlord editor, in alphabetical order by title, not a ‘best of’ or countdown. The second part is here.
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Beck to the future?
This week’s roundup includes a cosmic return for Beck, a wonderfully droll posthumous release from Leonard Cohen, deeply powerful tragedy from Allison Moorer, and some quirkily catchy work from Japan’s WaqWaq Kingdom
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