Your Custom Text Here
Shabazz Palaces: Exotic Birds of Prey
New album: Uniquely striking, experimental space-trip hip-hop, jazz, funk, electronica and Afrofuturism by the Seattle combo of Ishmael Butler, aka Palaceer Lazaro (formerly Butterfly in the 90s trio Digable Planets) and multi-instrumentalist Tendai "Baba" Maraire
Read more
Kelly Moran: Moves In The Field
New album: A beautiful, graceful and in some ways surreal seventh LP by the New York pianist, experimental composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, here adorned with an unusual self-duet - playing alongside a programmable Yamaha Disklavier programmable piano
Read more
Holiday Ghosts: Coat of Arms
New album: Following last year’s Absolute Reality LP, a further fabulously catchy garage and surf rock selection by the Falmouth band with polished, clean, guitar and bass sounds, wistful, witty, drily humorous lyrics, and marvellous pop melodies across 10 snappy numbers
Read more
Blue Whale: Last Immediate Images
New album: A brilliantly angular, experimental, partly instrumental prog-post-punk and jazz sophomore release by the Belfast quartet of riveting cross-rhythms, innovative guitar and bass work creating an oddball but ornate aural tapestry
Read more
Empress Of: For Your Consideration
New album: This fourth LP by the Honduran-American producer and singer-songwriter Lorely Rodriguez displays sparkling elasticity of sensual voice, playing with crisp, innovative electronica, R&B and rhythms across songs in English and Spanish
Read more
Beyoncé: Cowboy Carter
New album: A big, bold rhinestone-studded musical statement from the US megastar, delving deep into country & western territory and cross-pollinating with pop, soul, rock and R&B, with added Beatles, and guests including Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Miley Cyrus on this whopping 27-track LP
Read more
Waxahatchee: Tigers Blood
New album: Following 2020’s acclaimed album Saint Cloud, Alabama-raised, Kansas City-based singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield returns with a strong, solid, steady release that sits comfortably in the middle ground of Americana, pop and country
Read more
Elbow: Audio Vertigo
New album: The Bury-formed band of Guy Garvey, Craig Potter and co return with their 10th LP, one particularly marked by experimental styles, thunderous rhythms and adventurous sounds, sometimes reminiscent of Peter Gabriel
Read more
Gossip - Real Power
New album: After 12 years away, the American pop trio of the irrepressible singer Beth Ditto, multi-instrumentalist Nathan "Brace Paine" Howdeshell and drummer Hannah Blilie return with set of punchy, candid, personal disco-punk-pop bangers, and produced by Rick Rubin
Read more
Adrianne Lenker: Bright Future
New album: The Big Thief singer-songwriter returns with another solo folk album – minimally exquisite, delicate, at times heartbreakingly, with a title that is ambiguous - a future that could be beautiful and dazzling, but also blinding and burning
Read more
The Dandy Warhols - Rockmaker
New album: Flamboyant yet droll, swaggering, fuzzy, sizzling, meaty, dark’n’ dirty rock in this 12th studio LP from the veteran Portland band fronted by Courtney Taylor-Taylor, here joined by guests including Pixies’ Frank Black, Slash and Debbie Harry
Read more
Hannah Frances: Keeper of the Shepherd
New album: A beautiful, brilliantly experimental folk fifth album by the Chicago singer-songwriter, with seven songs of alternative structures, guitar tunings, grief, loss and dizzying displacement, intimacy and energy, lyrical images of caves, shepherds, sheep, ribs and rivers
Read more
Tierra Whack: different ways of seeing
New album: After many singles and 2018’s Whack World EP of 15 one-minute numbers, the Philadelphia rapper’s debut LP is an oddball, collection of eccentric vocals, an inventive, colourful, lucky dip of hip hop, soul and R&B
Read more
Dan Boeckner’s debut solo LP, Boekner!
New album: The Canadian indie-rock veteran of Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits, Operators, Atlas Strategic and more releases his first solo LP, a scintillating synth-sheen, autobiographical sci-fi cityscape of alt-pop with shades of early 80s Bowie
Read more
The Black Crowes: Happiness Bastards
New album: A first album for 15 years by the Atlanta rock band fronted by the charismatic Chris Robinson with guitarist brother Rich, with feisty, pacey, blues-rock return packed with banging new tunes reminiscent of the Stones to AC/DC to ZZ Top
Read more
Sam Lee: Songdreaming
New album: The British folk singer-songwriter, best known for The Detectorists theme song, returns with a gorgeous, bucolically beautiful fourth LP, swelled by orchestral strings, with songs of love, loss, Albion-tinged melancholy, with ecological disaster looming
Read more
Half a century: Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Open Me, a Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit
New album: Celebrating 50 years of recording, the veteran Chicago jazz percussionist and vocalist returns in his trio of sax and trumpet, and here also with strings, brings his rich vocal tones and infectious with a selection of classics and originals
Read more
Africatown, AL: Ancestor Sounds
New album: A beautifully evocative, documentary compilation of anonymous spontaneous performances and field recordings from descendants of slaves in a northern section of the city of Mobile, Alabama, one of the last places in the US to receive slave ships
Read more
Moor Mother: The Great Bailout
New album: The American poet and musician Camae Ayewa returns with with a pointed, powerful release aimed at Britain’s murky, slavery-profiting colonial past, with a vivid, profound, visceral, declamatory narrative and soundscape that charts many injustices about wealth and compensation
Read more
New album: After 2022’s acclaimed Topical Dancer with Charlotte Adigéry, the Belgian musician returns with a charming, quirky electronica LP dedicated to his Hong Kong-born Chinese mother, Yu Wei Wun, and a celebration of that territory’s culture
Read more