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Lizzo’s back with her album, Special
New album: Back with a bang (there’s no other way), the wonderfully charismatic American star Melissa Jefferson returns with a mixture of disco, funk, pop, soul and R&B, with bags of attitude, fun, female empowerment, and music to make you dance
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Stealing Sheep: Wow Machine
New album: The Liverpool trio of Emily Lansley, Rebecca Hawley, Luciana Mercer’s wonderfully experimental 10-song album springs from a specially commissioned project with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, taking inspiration from the female pioneers of electronic music
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Moonchild Sanelly
New album: Stylish, charismatic, sexy, with a unique mix of South African dance music – gqom, amapiano, hip-hop, jazz and electronica, with a persona somewhere between Eartha Kitt, Nicki Minaj or Doja Cat, the starry, blue-haired Port Elizabeth-born rapper, model and designer’s fabulous second and double LP is all about ‘baddies’ and personal empowerment
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Sinead O Brien: Time Bend and Break The Bower
Debut album: After a string of singles such as Limbo and A Thing You Call Joy, the Irish indie poet’s debut album emboldens her style of strikingly esoteric lines and images backed a mix of guitar, drums and electronica, with a distinctively lingering talking/semi-sung delivery
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HAAi’s first full debut LP
New album: After a series of acclaimed mixes and other releases, the London-based Australian electronica-techno artist Teneil Throssell’s full debut album is restlessly inventive, oddly alluring, hypnotic adventure tapping into the ecstasy of slow-build and joy in repetition
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Florence: medieval purging
New album: Dance yourself to death? Beyond the huge machinery of mainstream hype and her voluminously voiced self-reflection, Florence Welch’s fifth album about purging her demons does also contain some strong tunes
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Lucius: Second Nature
New album: A sparkling mix of retro disco and 80s dance-pop with echoes of Abba by the American quartet, but also a dash of tragic country by front duo vocalists and co-songwriters Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig who capture many emotions from some recent experiences – motherhood and divorce
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Electrifying: Ibibio Sound Machine’s latest LP
New album: Superbly energised fourth LP by the afro-funk London band fronted by vocalist Eno Williams, who utilises her Nigerian heritage and the Ibibio language, fused with guitars, electronica, Brazilian rhythms and influences from Fela Kuti to Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder
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Melt Yourself Down: Pray For Me I Don't Fit In
New album: This fourth LP by saxophonist Pete Wareham, Mauritian vocalist Kushal Gaya and co is perhaps their best yet mix of fabulously stompy, staccato, dance-punk, Afrobeat, jazz, with Egyptian and another influences, buzzing with frenetic fervour
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Raveena; smooth, cross-cultural blending
New album: Eclectic, striking mainstream label debut LP for the 27-year-old American pop artist Raveena Aurora who mixes rhythms and more from her Sikh Indian heritage with traits of R&B, soul, funk, 00s trip-hop and ambient electronica
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Los Bitchos are ready to party ….
Debut album: Break out the pisco and tequila! Produced by Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, a joyously fun debut album by the international all-female London band who play foot-tapping instrumentals fusing surf guitar, Turkish psych, Argentine cumbia and Peruvian chicha, sporting a chic 60s look
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The multiplicity of Aurora
New album: An impressive range of pop stylings and vocals that cascade like a fresh, breathy mountain stream mark this third LP by the dynamic Norwegian pop artist and TikTok star, who follows up previous more political material with songs more more focused on relationships
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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
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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
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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.
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Sympathy For Life by Parquet Courts
New album: After 2018’s acclaimed LP Wide Awake!, the Brooklyn band return with a sharp collection of post-punk intermingled with dance music that mixes funk, electronica, psychedelia and krautrock with improvisational energy
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Elevated sound. Agustin White and Mike Stroud
New album: As groovy-funk-psych-pop as it gets. The single Frosty was previously a Song of the Day, and now this cosmos-themed album by by producers and multi-instrumentalists Mike Stroud (from Ratatat) and Agustin White (White Flight), follows keeps the fun, and the standard high
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K Bay is Matthew E. White’s third album under his own name
New album: Dynamic, diverse and undefinable, this first solo album for six years by the witty Virginia songwriter, producer, and founder of Spacebomb Records founder spans genres from funk, electronica, piano pop and disco to the playful and experimentally cinematic
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New album: An upbeat, wonderfully catchy and evocative new LP release by the Blur guitarist of pop-indie-disco-funk-prog numbers as soundtrack to a book of 15 graphic novel sci-fi stories, in a dystopian setting stemmed from his passion for the genre
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Jungle: Loving In Stereo
New album: West London’s Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland return with undeniably, strong, catchy selection of falsetto soul and disco pop that has strings, horns, hip hop and gospel elements that hit perfect, broad appeal notes
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