Your Custom Text Here
Baxter Dury - Allbarone
New album: Alongside his usual droll, witty wordsmithery and distinctive dark, deep-voiced spoken delivery, the Londoner and son of Ian also brings a slightly different, more boisterous style of satirical and nihilistic misery with a collection of supremely catchy, danceable numbers in this ninth LP, produced Paul Epworth
Read more
Saint Etienne: International
New album: Catchy retro, singalong electro-pop, soft, bouncy beats, simple melodies and a big dose of nostalgia? If this 13th really is the British trio’s final album across 35 years, it's a decent sign-off by Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs since that breakthrough LP Foxbase Alpha in 1991
Read more
Guedra Guedra: MUTANT
New album: A fabulous fusion of the traditional with the modern, a brilliantly infectious, mesmeric, polyrhythmic melange, created by the Moroccan producer Abdellah M. Hassak, who blends analogue synths, drum machines, and field recordings from Morocco, Tanzania, Guinea and more, exploring themes of themes of identity, Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism, and decolonisation
Read more
Deki Alem: Forget In Mass
New album: Stockholm’s Swedish-Ghanian twin duo Sammy and Johnny Boakye Bennett bring a superbly stylish blend of sharp hip-hop, punk, dark, seething industrial, electronica and dance music with just a dash of the Prodigy, Alabama 3 and 90s trip-hop
Read more
Tyler, The Creator: Don't Tap The Glass
New album: Following his acclaimed 2024 LP Chromakopia, the innovative eccentric American rapper Tyler Okonma returns with a somewhat less eclectic but still strane ninth LP – short, snappy, more cliched and braggadocio in lyric, and this time fuelled in sound by catchy, punchy, dancefloor beats and samples
Read more
Barry Can't Swim’s second album, Loner
New album: Dance music bangers with an eclectic twist by the popular Scottish electronic musician, DJ producer aka Joshua Mainnie from Edinburgh, who with this second LP after 2023’s When Will We Land?, explores themes of identity amid the beats and clever crate-digging soul samples
Read more
Jessica Winter: My First Album
New album: After a series of acclaimed singles, EPs and collaborations, the south London sweetly high-voiced singer-songwriter’s debut LP is fabulously sparkling, humorous, witty indie-dance-pop, packed with classy, clever tunes, touching moments of reflection, self-love and personal acceptance
Read more
Africa Express Presents ... Bahidorà
New album: The collective that brought Blur’s Damon Albarn together with Malian musicians 20 years ago now assembles artists from four continents, though particularly plants the roots of this superb 21-track double album in Mexico, with a feast of numbers spanning cumbia, hip-hop, kuduro, soul, salsa, pop, reggaeton and more
Read more
WITCH: SOGOLO
New album: Zambia’s zamrock pioneers with (with the acronym ‘We Intend To Cause Mischief’) and still fronted by original member Emanuel "Jagari" Chanda, return with their special fusion of infectious psychedelic, 60s garage-inspired funk rock and and afrobeat, with a meaty, melodious, selection of catchy new numbers
Read more
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
Read more
DjRUM: Under Tangled Silence
New album: An enthralling, vivid instrumental LP by the London DJ and multi-instrumentalist Felix Manuel who combines electronica with piano, harp, mbira, and percussion with added cello, evolving from the mellow into the frenetic in a musical journey created over several years.
Read more
Sextile: Yes, Please.
New album: A fun, full-throttle amphetamine-inducing and enhancing LP of pumping, electrifying energy by the post-punk-electronica-dance-rock Los Angeles duo of Brady Keehn and Melissa Scadutom, described as “a vulnerable record that bares its soul as much as it revels in excess”
Read more
The Moonlandingz: No Rocket Required
New album: Seven years since their last LP together, and many different projects in the meantime, Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi and Eccentronic Research Council’s Dean Honer and Adrian Flanagan return with their clever, witty electro-dance satire on a dystopian world, with guests including Iggy Pop, Nadine Shah, Jessica Winter and actor Ewen Bremner
Read more
Benefits: Constant Noise
New album: Super-sharp, angry and articulate, this is striking, vivid, social and political spoken word and hip-hop on a backdrop of cinematic electronica, dance and punk by the Middlesbrough duo of Kingsley Hall and Robbie Major – a scything sonic and verbal attack on western ills at home and abroad
Read more
Courting: Lust For Life …
New album: A lengthy title for a short, snappy, cleverly interwoven eclectic indie-dancefloor-postpunk experimental third LP by the Liverpool band with a theme of duality, a cyclical intro and outro, and each song paired with a balanced counterpart, sharing specific sonic elements.
Read more
Circuit des Yeux: Halo On The Inside
New album: Dark, vivid, pagan, hedonistic, carnal goth-dancefloor experimental electronica and more by the Chicago-based multi-disciplinary superbly alternative artist Haley Fohr and her otherworldly, mesmerically rich, four-octave voice
Read more
Lady Gaga: MAYHEM
New album: Something of return to form and fun for the superstar singer and actress? Certainly this revisits something of her late 2000s Poker Face- and Bad Romance-era flamboyant, bombastic pop sound where excess and outsider oddness made her name
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more