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WOW - by Russian experimentalist Kate NV
New album: A wonderfully oddball, playful and original LP by the Russian electronica artists Kate Shilonosova, whose palette of sounds include 90s video game bleeps, blips, pings, cat meows and snippets of other disembodied vocals
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Steve Mason: Brothers & Sisters
New album: The former Beta Band main man returns with one of his finest solo albums yet, a groovy protest record (“a big fuck off to Brexit”) drawing in different cultures and throwing a party for Britain’s rich heritage from an immigrant population
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As in the tattoo: slowthai’s third LP UGLY
New album: The abrasive but exciting Northampton rapper Tyrone Frampton’s third LP is a powerful, heady concoction, containing this time less grime and politics, more punk and post-punk, rock guitars, and focusing on personal issues, with a paradoxical facial tattooed title acronym meaning U Gotta Love Yourself
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Yazmin Lacey: Voice Notes
Debut album: A magically smooth, beautiful fusion of jazz, soul, funk and reggae in this debut by the superb London-born, Nottingham-based singer, whose fluid, dreamy voice captures the emotions in the intonations and nuances in her eloquent delivery
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Danish quintet Lowly
New album: On a smaller, more intimate scale than previous album Hifalutin, as previewed on Song of the Day, Seasons, the Danish experimental quintet’s new album is filled sensitive, vulnerable, textured, beautifully building electro-folk-pop
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David Brewis - The Soft Struggles
New album: A beautifully arranged release by one brother half of Field Music, with his falsetto voice, gentle piano, woodwind, acoustic guitar and some brass decorating a folk-pop-jazz fusion that also has the magic of early 70s Van Morrison and Nick Drake
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Shame’s third album, Food For Worms
New album: With a title phrase that will apply to all living beings eventually, this third LP by the south London post-punk band tempers the punk anger with more light and shade, genre experimentation, and philosophical lyrics
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Miss Grit: Follow The Cyborg
Debut album: Sensual, strong, intelligent, highly original indie-electro-pop debut by the Brooklyn-based Korean-American artist Margaret Sohn with songs that explore the idea of identity and what it is to be alive
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Tombouctou: Tricky Floors
New album: Clever, sharp post-punk debut by the French trio from Lyon/Toulouse packed with dynamic, thunderous drumming and razor-sharp guitar work, energised stop-start sections, and the powerful, high voice of Cocrelle who has echoes of Siouxsie Sioux
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Gorillaz’s 8th album: Cracker Island
New album: The eighth studio album by the cartoon personas of Damon Albarn is one of the shortest and most musically coherent, catchy, clever and poignant, with guests including Thundercat, De La Soul, Stevie Nicks, Beck and Tame Impala
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Maps: Counter Melodies
New album: A mesmeric fifth electronica LP by the English musician and producer James Chapman filled with clever, catchy melodies, interweaving, shifting textures and classic sounds from the clubby to echoes of Kraftwerk
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Rachel Unthank and Paul Smith
New album: A beautiful, evocative north-east England folk collaboration between Rachel Unthank and Paul Smith, frontman of Maxïmo Park, and produced by Field Music’s David Brewis in a mix of the traditional and new
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dEUS: How To Replace It
New album: The Belgian rock band who formed in 1991 return with their first for 10 years, an LP feels refreshed and re-energised, frontman Tom Barman and co’s songs with a spring in their step
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Elemental: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs’ Land of Sleeper
New album: Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s heavy rock heroes roll on with their fourth album, another blast furnace of rich, all-engulfing sound, existential philosophy, psychedelia and the thunderous presence of early Black Sabbath
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Orbital: Optical Delusion
New album: Electronica dance veterans Phil and Paul Hartnoll’s 10th studio album is musically varied and dynamic, and powerfully examines the self-deceiving chaos of the last few years with a variety of guest vocalists
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Caroline Polachek: Desire, I Want To Turn Into You
New album: Following 2019’s Pang, this cleverly constructed fusion of art-pop and other genres by the dynamic, intelligent, soaring-voiced American ticks all the boxes to be an enormous mainstream hit
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Anna B Savage’s second album
New album: Following 2021’s superb debut LP, A Common Turn, the London-based singer-songwriter returns with an exquisitely beautiful, bittersweet, intimate, candid personal set of songs about the difficulties of love
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Black Belt Eagle Scout: The Land, The Water, The Sky
New album: A heartfelt, visceral, both powerful and gentle LP by the Swinomish/Iñupiaq singer-songwriter Katherine Paul inspired by her 2020 journey to her ancestral lands from Portland to the Skagit River on Puget Sound in Washington State
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Andy Shauf: Norm
New album: Following 2020’s The Neon Skyline, the Canadian singer-songwriter returns with beautiful, crisp, meticulous folk-pop, filled with narrative, clever philosophy and his delicate, engaging, falsetto voice
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Emily Breeze’s Rapture
New album: Wonderfully engaging, darkly humorous, catchy, clever noir pop by the self-deprecatory but talented Bristol artist presenting “a collection of coming-of (middle) age stories which celebrate flamboyant failure, excess and acceptance.”
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