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The Smile trio’s first album
New album: Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner join forces in album of vivid, eerie, ghostly beauty, packed with fabulous guitar and bass riffs and rhythms, reminiscent of cinematic work as well as In Rainbows
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Warpaint’s first album since 2016
New album: An alluring, quietly intricate but also beautiful fourth LP by the Los Angeles quartet, whose last was in September 2016, and while the world has churned upside down since, their return is wonderfully welcome
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Ibeyi’s third album Spell 31
New album: The third album from Afro-Cuban French twins Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz is a sensual, eclectic mix of R&B, hip hop and more, drawing on their rich heritage, and inspired by a passage the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
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Dana Gavanski’s When It Comes has finally arrived
New album: Gorgeous second folk-pop LP by the London-based Canadian-Serbian singer-songwriter, decorated with perfectly weighted hooks and measured arrangements, pure of voice and with pace that’s both intricate but minimal, like a ticking clock
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Profound Mysteries
New album: Not presented as an album, but an art piece sequence with visuals, these 10 numbers, variously ambient to dance electronica, are still very much in the LP form, half with guest singers Alison Goldfrapp, Beki Mari, Pixx, Susanne Sundfør and Alison S
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Melody Prochet
New album: A beautiful, uplifting third album of life-affirming tranquility by French psych-pop artist Melody Prochet, reflecting her move from Paris to the Alps, and the birth of her daughter, with a host of shimmering, dreamlike sounds
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Kathryn Joseph: For You Who Are Wronged
New album: Stark, minimal, ghostly, and extraordinarily powerful, this third album by the Scottish singer-songwriter concentrates unflinchingly on the ripples that emanate around abusive relationships, particularly giving voice to the voiceless
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Sault spring another surprise with sixth album Air
New album: A sixth album in just three years by the collective run by prolific producer Inflo, aka Dean Josiah Cover, has a striking new direction - instrumental, orchestral works with brass and largely non-verbal choir parts, yet this cinematic release still has echoes of the black experience
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Everything Was Beautiful: the ninth Spiritualized album.
New album: Just the ticket – a terrific album of gentle psychedelic beauty by Jason Spaceman aka Pierce, with just seven songs but of inspiring, expansive space krautrock with a swirling orchestra of many instruments combined with an easy, but emotional vocal delivery
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Kae Tempest: The Line Is A Curve
New album: An emotionally candid, tender, vulnerable and quietly declamatory fourth album by the writer-all-rounder, mixing hip-hop and spoken word with electronica and pop, with some nicely chosen guest appearances
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Alabaster DePlume: Gold
New album: The nom de plume of London-based Mancunian jazz artist Angus Fairbairn returns with a mesmeric selection of 19 numbers, his intimate jittery saxophone embellished with a wider range of acoustic sounds, choral backing, and offbeat and inspiringly strange spoken word
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Miriam Elhajli’s The Uncertainty of Signs, her second album
New album: A remarkable release of rare beauty traversing genes with the outstanding voice, guitar, other strings and more by the New York-based folk singer, composer, and musicologist richly mixing traditions of her Venezuelan, Moroccan and North American heritage
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Hannah Peel and Paraorchestra: The Unfolding
New album: A beautiful conceptual collaboration between the Northern Irish composer and the Bristol orchestral ensemble of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians mixing analogue, digital and assistive instruments, the music evoking human links to nature and shared beginnings in the universe
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In a branch of their own: Destroyer
New album: Full of surprises and changeability, a truly alternative, at times eccentric, meta-lyrical but also powerful new album by the Canadian rock band fronted by Dan Bejar, mixing everything from ambient, techno, spoken word and rock
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Barrie’s sophomore album, Barbara
New album: Strong second album by the Brooklyn-based songwriter and producer Barrie Lindsay, filled with musical invention but also fuelled contrasting emotions – the loss of her father, but also falling in love with and marrying fellow musician Gabby Smith
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I am a rock: Pictish Trail’s Island Family
New album: Johnny Lynch returns with a beautifully eclectic release and an alternative love note to his adopted Hebridean home the Isle of Eigg – psych folk, acoustic pings and crashes mingling with dance electronica in this search for the euphoric in the bucolic wrapped in the eccentric
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Man in the corner: Bakar – Nobody’s Home
New album: This eclectic LP of hybrid hip hop, soul, pop, indie, R&B, and even a dash of folk by the North London rapper singer-songwriter Abubakar Baker Shariff-Farr is full of influences from Blur to King Krule, Tame Impala to Amy Winehouse, and his Tanzanian immigrant mother
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Acres of dreamy sky: Jenny Hval’s Classic Objects
New album: An ethereal journey of personal stories through the prism of art and philosophy by the Norwegian avant-garde pop experimentalist with music that evokes wide, sky-filled landscapes and strangely matter-of-fact lyrics
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Binker Golding and Moses Boyd’s fourth album as a duo
New album: The fourth studio album by saxophonist Binker Golding and drummer Moses Boyd are embellished by modular synths of Max Luthert in six inspiring, atmospheric freeform jazz numbers of expert flutters, breakbeats and evoked birdsong.
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Sasami’s Squeeze - appearances may deceive
New album: This second LP by the LA-based American Sasami Ashworth is one of strikingly eclectic genre contrasts of shade and light, from full blast nu-metal and rock, to gorgeous melodies of country-pop and folk, and even a coda of classical music
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