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Ichiko Aoba: Luminescent Creatures
New album: A magical, transportive, gorgeously meditational evocative release by the Japanese singer and multi-instrumentalist with a celestial musical landscape LP inspired by the Ryukyu islands that stretch southwest of Japan towards Taiwan
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DARKSIDE: Nothing
New album: Filled with infectious, mystifying oddball but at times brilliant grooves across a range of styles – krautrock, funk, Latin, indie, psyche, prog rock, warped pop, contemporary classical and jazz among others, this third LP by New York’s Nicolás Jaar and Dave Harrington sees an expansion of their eclectic experimentation now joined by drummer and instrument designer Tlacael Esparza
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Holding all the cards … Everything Is Recorded: Richard Russell Is Temporary
New album: A tender, gentle, minimalistic and rather beautifully eccentric release about mutability and death? It’s the third collaborative LP by producer Richard Russell, joined by a stellar cast of singers and musicians including Sampha, Bill Callahan, Noah Cyrus, Florence Welch, Maddy Prior, Kamasi Washington, Berwyn, Alabaster Deplume and Jah Wobble
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Antony Szmierek: Service Station At The End Of The Universe
New album: Named after Douglas Adams’ satirical sci-fi Restaurant novel, the likeable Manchester spoken word poet’s debut LP is an entertaining, playful, richly observational mix of Streetsy stream-of-consciousness stories inspired by his home city through the classic sounds of 90s dance music and indie
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Panda Bear: Sinister Grift
New album: The ever eclectic Animal Collective, Lisbon-based frontman Noah Lennox’s first solo album for five years is an oddly reflective but rather beautiful heartbreak album, one coming out of his divorce, but rich in many styles, from Beach Boys vocal harmonies to reggae, Latin to disco, jaunty 70s pop to psychedelia
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Marie Davidson: City Of Clowns
New album: The stylish Canadian from Montreal returns with a sixth LP of clever, catchy, droll-delivery dance music and electro-synth-pop, joined by Belgian electronic legends Soulwax aka David and Stephen Dewaele, and Pierre Guerineau
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Doves: Constellations For The Lonely
New album: A glorious sixth LP by the Manchester indie band, weathering many ups and downs, including ongoing mental health issues for lead vocalist and bass player Jimi Goodwin who is unable to tour, but despite that, summoning a powerful, dynamic, passionate work of darkness and light, and one of the best in the 25 years since their debut, Lost Souls
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IDER: Late To The World
New album: Sharp, smart, candid and sometimes lyrically caustic synth pop by the London duo Megan Markwick and Lily Somerville in this third LP that highlights many challenges of life and femininity from eating disorder to abortion rights, dodgy relationships to personal insecurity and leaving the past behind
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Albertine Sarges: Girl Missing
New album: Joy, vulnerability, wistful longing, cutting melancholy, sisterhood, resilience, and healing from grief all burst forth in this uplifting new LP by the ever inventive, eccentric, eclectic Berlin-based singer-songwriter with a distinctive experimental indie-pop here includes organs, flutes, strings and layered vocals
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Youth Lagoon: Rarely Do I Dream
New album: The idiosyncratic Idaho songwriter and producer Trevor Powers’s latest LP is a vividly cinematic, darkly humorous, dream-like release inspired by a 2023 discovery of VHS home movies documenting his childhood, and lying boxed in the basement of his parents’ house
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Sam Fender: People Watching
New album: The likeable, powerful tenor-voiced, 30-year-old singer-songwriter from North Shields has hit mainstream success, especially with his last LP, Seventeen Going Under (2021), and while this continues with a sometimes Springsteen-like style, there’s a lyrical melancholy colouring this third LP, on trappings of fame, music industry, and tales of tragedy within his northern working-class roots
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Saya Gray: SAYA
New album: Ingeniously original, eclectic debut alternative folk-pop debut by the Toronto singer-songwriter and producer, following their QWERTY and QWERTY II EPs, weaving a mix of skilfully played guitar sounds, including country pedal steel and acoustic with electronica into a beautiful vocal landscape of offbeat heartbreak love songs
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The Murder Capital: Blindness
New album: A stormy, passionate, viscerally powerful and intense by the indie-rock Dublin band of James McGovern, Damien Tuit, Cathal Roper, Gabriel Paschal Blake, Diarmuid Brennan fired up by personal and political issues, created with renewed focus, and produced by John Congleton
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Bartees Strange: Horror
New album: A diversely eclectic, genre-hopping, powerfully emotional LP of soul, funk, hip-hop, rock, indie, country, house and pop by the Washington DC-based artist, produced by Jack Antonoff, with songs facing fears as a young young, queer, black person in rural America, and inspired by the likes of Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac, Teddy Pendergrass, and Neil Young
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The Velveteers: A Million Knives
New album: Blistering second album of glamorous rock by the trio from Boulder, Colorado, fronted by singer-songwriter Demi Demitro, and produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, with powerful numbers about heartbreak, but also the volatile truth of being an artist in the music industry while still clinging to the teenage joy of instruments
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Manic Street Preachers: Critical Thinking
New album: The veteran Welsh rockers’ 15th studio album delivers everything you’d expect - direct lyrics on big social and political themes, huge, surging melodies and powerful choruses, variously wistful, playful, angry, sincere, and even includes a slanted dedication to the Smiths with one of their strongest for years
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John Glacier: Like A Ribbon
New album: The Hackney, east London producer-vocalist and model, who presents a persona as evasive, oddball, deliberately obfuscating “20,000-year old” “alien”, releases an esoteric, at times beguiling debut of offbeat trip-hop, filled with talking, stream-of-consciousness vocals mixed variously with guitar, assorted samples and electronica, also co-produced by Kwes Darko and Flume
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Hifi Sean and David McAlmont: TWILIGHT
New album: Twinned with last summer’s LP DAYLIGHT, the duo of Scottish musician and the English soul singer return with the darkside – an absorbing adventure from dusk to dawn, with evocative, cinematic, experimental, old-school synths and electronica and McAlmont’s extraordinary, wide-ranging voice
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Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On
New album: Minimalistic, pithy, nostalgically twangy, wistful, undersyated indie-folk-pop by the Chicago/New York trio of Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece in this second LP with a refreshing sound produced by Cate Le Bon
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Richard Dawson: End of the Middle
New album: Extraordinary songs about ordinary lives by the wonderful Newcastle alternative folk singer-songwriter – poetic, strikingly detailed, touching, warm, gently humorous, melancholy, original and gorgeously profound, bringing beauty to banality, private tragedies and small joys
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