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MRCY: Volume 2
New album: Wonderfully uplifting, stirring, classic, soaring soul and dynamic jazz by the UK-based duo of singer Kojo Degraft-Johnson and producer Barney Lister, in this follow-up to 2024’s Volume 1, adding some more contemporary music elements but still with a positive energy to address our troubled times
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Kathryn Joseph: WE WERE MADE PREY.
New album: Stark, menacing, visceral also hauntingly beautiful, the Glasgow singer-songwriter’s fourth LP reprises her creative partnership with fellow Scottish artist Lomond Campbell first explored on 2022’s For You Who Are The Wronged, with striking experimental soundscapes coloured by electronica as well as her piano and other instruments
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Caroline 2
New album: The London eight-piece experimental group return three years after their self-titled debut, with a stop-start, meandering, sometimes challenging but also magical album of interweaving vocals and analogue instruments – guitars, trombone, violins and more, but also electronica – and a guest appearance from Caroline Polachek
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Goddess: the eponymous debut by Fay Milton
New album: Striking in many ways, this excellent eponymous debut LP by the Savages drummer Fay Milton brings together an array of female and non-binary collaborators, not only celebrating a sisterhood, but also one that has musical echoes of Massive Attack, with powerful songs addressing themes in uncertain and dangerous world
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Léa Sen: LEVELS
New album: A classy, cool, effortlessly stylish, soulful, experimental electro-pop, R'n'B, and trip-hop debut LP by the south London-based French singer, songwriter and producer, whose vocal delivery has a warm, woozy, mellifluous style, with a smudged, muted and soft guitar sound, scattered, subtle electronics, jittering percussion and nuanced, philosophical lyrics
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Foxwarren: 2
New album: This new studio LP from the band project of Canadian singer-songwriter and solo artist Andy Shauf from Regina, Saskatchewan, is a charming, warm, experimental indie-rock and chamber-pop release that collages snippets of dialogue and music from old movies, between and within songs
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Alan Sparhawk: With Trampled By Turtles
New album: Suffused with a warmth, tenderness and powerful, grieving melancholy, this second solo album by the Low co-founder since the death in 2022 of his wife and lifelong creative Mimi Parker joins him with the fabulous fellow Duluth, Minnesota bluegrass and folk band Trampled By Turtles
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Jacob Alon: In Limerence
New album: A sublime contemporary folk debut by the high-voiced Scottish singer-songwriter from Dunfermline, Fife, who exudes a fragile vulnerability, has warm musical echoes of Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley, finger-picking acoustic guitar, the gentle brush of drums and subtle, emotionally nuanced, poetic lyrics
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Garbage: Let All That We Imagine Be The Light
New album: Written in a painful period when Shirley Manson had shattered her hip and was in recovery, this is a powerful, defiant, feisty, punchy eighth LP, but also with some vulnerability, by the Scottish/American rockers
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Sports Team: Boys These Days
New album: A clever, satirically witty, catchily entertaining mish-mash of styles from pop to country by the Cambridge-formed London band in this third LP, heralding a change of label and a nod to reaching the end of their twenties, an a sense of wondering what the future holds
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Skunk Anansie: The Painful Truth
New album: A first LP for nearly a decade by the acclaimed London rock band, back after two members have undergone cancer treatment, and with a bold, stylish, more experimental sound inspired by producer David Sitek of TV on the Radio, but still packing plenty of articulate, passionate, defiant, candid punch, especially with singer Skin at their forefront
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These New Puritans: Crooked Wing
New album: Southend-on-Sea twin brothers George and Jack Barnett return with their fifth album and first in six years - with a striking, otherworldly experimental fusion of rock, classical and electronica, with guests including Caroline Polachek and veteran jazz bassist Chris Laurence
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Sparks: MAD!
New album: LA’s beloved veteran brothers and international treasures Ron and Russell Mael return with their 28th studio LP , filled with various styles of their pioneering pop, new wave, art-rock, chamber, operatic – various amusing, mischievous, satirical, trivial and declamatory, dipping into subjects such as branded backpacks, tattoos, and performative devotion
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Stereolab: Instant Holograms On Metal Film
New album: Expansive, eclectic, catchy, clever futurist-retro experimental electro-pop? Yes it’s the first studio LP for 15 years by the now veteran band formed by Laetitia Sadier and Tim, Gane, here with significant instrumental skills by Joe Watson and production by Cooper Crain
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Matt Maltese: Hers
New album: A dreamy, languid, beautiful and darkly humorous sixth LP release by the British-Canadian singer-songwriter with songs drenched in yearning, pain and self-deprecation, heavily influenced by Leonard Cohen, and a voice that at times echoes the resonant sighs of Chet Baker
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Tune-Yards: Better Dreaming
New album: Clever, quirky, upbeat, funky experimental pop by the Oakland, California married duo of Merrill Garbus and her bassist husband Nate Brenner with an LP borne out of lockdown, one filled with joy, serious insights, musical oddness, but also designed to loosen up the joints and get the whole body wiggling
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Billy Nomates’ third LP, Metalhorse
New album: British artist Tor Maries returns with her third indie-postpunk LP, and perhaps her best yet – as ever strong of voice and sharp of lyric, but this time with powerful, new, dynamic pop-rock sound – her first using a live band – and with running theme of churning love-song emotions on a metaphorical broken fairground
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Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon
New album: The Public Enemy frontman remains as important a voice as ever in a corrupt and troubled world, and this latest release is a tour de force of dynamic, dial-shifting hip-hop delivery, packed with brilliant breaks ‘n’ beats, his commanding, articulate voice, on race, politics, social media and culture, and a wealth of great newer guest rappers
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Ezra Furman: Goodbye Small Head
New album: The acclaimed punk, indie-rock and other genre-spanning Chicago-born artist returns with a 10th LP, one of her very best to date – sharply poetic in lyric and melody, delivered with visceral power, themed on different forms of losing control, with emotions variously wild, exciting, and frightening, joined by their wonderful longtime band and here a small string ensemble
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The Real Tuesday Weld: Late Flowering Reveries
New album: A charming, wistful, beautifully serene, gentle, poignant and possibly farewell album by the cult lo-fi cult London-based vintage-style pop-art band fronted by singer-songwriter Stephen Coates in a release themed around late night and early morning, hope, regret, memory and longing
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