Your Custom Text Here
Ben McElroy: How I Learnt to Disengage from the Pack
New album: Sparse, haunting, lo-fi and truly beautiful and transcendent new LP by the Wirral-born Nottingham-based folk musician, featuring bright beautiful guitars, strange drones, field recordings and gorgeous fiddle playing
Read more
FKA twigs’ CAPRISONGS
New album: Cheltenham’s innovative Tahliah Debrett Barnett returns with a fourth LP that’s more a mixtape of sensual, sexual musical sketches, her distinctive voice and style also very much reaching out to a more R&B mainstream
Read more
Hop Up by Orlando Weeks
New album: Mellow, ethereal, and with Talk Talk as an musical influence, the former Maccabees frontman’s solo follow-up to A Quickening emanates carefree, floating joy with light funk-pop electronica and his high, soft vocal delivery
Read more
Grace Cummings
New album: A truly outstanding voice and second album to match on this second LP by the Australian singer-songwriter and actress, her primal growl and guttural power combined with ethereal purity in this gorgeous folk release
Read more
Elvis Costello’s classic sound on The Boy Named If
New album: Classic Costello, with a vigorous new LP that rolls back the years, recalling all the the sharp, fast, clever punk-pop of the late-70s, 80s and 90s albums with the Attractions, including old friends Steve Nieve on keyboards and Pete Thomas on drums
Read more
Bonobo: Fragments
New album: The moniker of Simon Green returns with an eclectic mix of electronica, dance, ambient and clever sampling, with guest appearances from Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Kadhja Bonet, Joji, O’Flynn, Jamila Woods and Jordan Rakei
Read more
Niffit’s debut album Fuse
Debut album: Fabulous crash-bang post-punk from the Japanese underground scene in this debut LP by the quartet from Nagoya with stop-start rhythms, sharp, gunslinging guitar riffs and witty, shouty vocals that unleash a ball of electric energy
Read more
Spector’s Now or Whenever
New album: The third LP and first since 2015 for the London indie band presents a more thoughtful, melancholy, and often slower set of songs than their more youthfully exuberant previous releases, but includes reflective, strong material
Read more
Dawn FM
New album: Canada’s hugely successful R&B and darkwave artist Abel Makkonen Tesfaye’s new LP is a form of concept - light-themed afterlife through the prism of a fictional radio station that generates inventive smooth and clever 80s-style synth pop and disco
Read more
The prolific Deerhoof’s latest as ever original LP: Actually, You Can
New album: Released late in 2021, San Francisco indie-prog experimental quartet’s 18th studio LP is a frenetic, pace-changing, daredevil record, challenging social and political norms, laced with interwoven and blistering guitar, bass, and drums alongside Satomi Matsuzaki’s distinctive vocals
Read more
Decorated with one of his own paintings, Michael Hurley’s The Time of the Foxgloves
New album: Gorgeous new LP by the veteran 80-year-old American folk singer-songwriter, cartoonist and painter, whose first album was released in 1964, and this latest still employs his trusty, hissy four-track recorder, as well as duets with guest singers
Read more
Starkly beautiful: The Crooked Carty Sings … with artwork by
New album: The Miraculous Mule frontman’s December solo album is a beautiful, tender, haunting, intimate, country and blues infused collection of “bastardised folk songs, murder ballads, traveller tunes and sea songs” variously with new lyrics and arrangements
Read more
Agnes
Album: Released in October, a fabulously stylish LP of retro pop by the Swedish Agnes Emilia Carlsson, her fifth, but first since Veritas (2012), rich in orchestration and with echoes of ABBA, but with a result far superior to her forbears’ own 2021 return
Read more
Favourite selection part 2.
Favourite albums of 2021 – Part 2: Welcome the second instalment, following Part 1, which can be found here. A huge number of excellent releases, of which again this is just a selection many of which were written during, and about lockdown, but also saw many outstanding voices emerge as well as innovative sounds developed
Read more
Take your pick. Are your favourites here? Also check out Part 2 coming soon.
Favourite albums of 2021, part 1: Another difficult year for everyone, but from soul and jazz, electro-pop the experimental and avant-garde, an outstanding one for music releases, perhaps in part because out of diversity comes great art. Also feel free to explore Part 2, which is now available to view here.
Read more
Mario Batkovic: taking the accordion to new places on Introspectio
New album: A mesmeric, magical fusion of boundary-pushing electronica, saxophone and organ by the Swiss virtuoso solo accordion player born in Bosnia now based in Bristol, with guests including saxophonist Colin Stetson
Read more
Laura Cannell & Kate Ellis
Multiple release: Less an album more a uniquely special project of 12 monthly EP releases of beautiful, ghostly folk and experimental instrumentals, vocals and spoken stories by the violinist and cellist, with guests, capturing the changing seasons
Read more
Neal Francis’s In Plain Sight
New album: Stirringly upfront new rock-pop album by the Chicago singer-songwriter and pianist about honesty, resilience and sobriety following a big relationship breakup following his 2019 album, Changes
Read more
From the cover of Parcels’ new album Day/Night
New album: Released in last month by the Australia-Berlin electrofunk/disco quintet, a superbly catchy package of sounds, styles and danceability based on a 24-hour concept across a truly diverse 19 tracks
Read more
Lunar Vacation’s debut album
Debut album: Joyously fresh, freewheeling indie pop with a dash of shoegaze and psychedelia in this debut LP by the four-piece from Atlanta, Georgia, with influences from Rilo Kiley to Tame Impala, Alvvays and Slow Pulp
Read more