Your Custom Text Here
Liz Lawrence: Peanuts
New album: A classy, clever fourth LP for the British indie singer-songwriter, now signed to Chrysalis, with a tight, stripped back, thrumming sound, experimental at times, and packed also with excellent hybrid tracks spanning funk, pop, indie, folk and rock
Read more
New album: A brilliantly bold, experimental, original third LP by the now south London indie-post-punk trio of Clottie Cream (Lottie Pendlebury), Rosy Bones and Holly Mullineaux, one that bubbles with unusual musical dynamics and lyrics
Read more
Arooj Aftab: Night Reign
New album: An exquisitely dark, lingering fourth LP from the Grammy-winning Pakistani-American singer and composer with a mix of songs in Urdu and English, her resonant, pure voice accompanied by rippling piano, harp, guitar and more in a dark landscape of folk, jazz and traditional music
Read more
Bat For Lashes: The Dream of Delphi
New album: Natasha Khan returns with her sixth studio LP and first for five years, a quirky, swirling experimental release capturing up the early days of her motherhood to daughter Delphi, born in 2020 during the pandemic, and using folkloric, electronica keyboard improvisational approach sometimes with vocals of semi-formed words
Read more
Beak: >>>
New album: A surprise sudden fourth LP by the Bristol trio of drummer Geoff Barrow (Portishead), bassist Billy Fuller, and Will Young (Moon Gangs) with that familiar chevron title and distinctly dark, strange but mesmeric post-rock-krautrock thrum
Read more
rEDOLENT: dinny greet
New album: A striking, engaging alt-pop indie debut by the Edinburgh five-piece with songs dealing with dark subjects from heartbreak to alcoholism, dead-end job to mental health issues, but with a running theme of seeking the brighter side with a title that means “don’t cry” in Scottish slang
Read more
of Montreal: Lady On The Cusp
New album: A new LP of extraordinary experiment and scattershot psychedelic pop kaleidoscopes and lyrical tricks from the eclectic and unpredictably inventive mind of the prolific Kevin Barnes and band from Athens, Georgia
Read more
Big Special: Postindustrial Hometown Blues
New album: A witty, punchy, restless post-punk debut LP by the heavily accented Midlands duo of Joe Hicklin and Callum Maloney, with echoes of Sleaford Mods who they’ve supported on tour, packed with sharp jokes, wordplay and sweary anger about toxic masculinity and the absurdities of modern life
Read more
Barry Adamson: Cut To Black
New album: The Manchester legendary singer and composer, bass player of Magazine, The Bad Seeds and other bands, returns with a stylish, swaggering, 60s-influenced 10th studio solo LP, including timeless Motown, seductive blues, and vividly noir cinematic hues
Read more
Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown
New album: The Portishead singer’s first solo LP, 10 years in the making, is an exquisite release of genre-spanning folk, sometimes with eastern inflections, her haunting voice touching on mutability, motherhood, menopause, bereavement, health and heartbreak
Read more
Jordan Rakei: The Loop
New album: Silky, soulful new work by the falsetto-smooth London-based New Zealand-Australian musician, singer-songwriter and producer with a sophisticated cocktail or perky pop, jazz, and R&B
Read more
Keeley Forsyth: The Hollow
New album: Following 2022’s Limbs, another extraordinary, experimental release by the rich-voiced British singer and actress from Oldham of atmospheric, beautiful, evocative, at times vocalisations
Read more
Arab Strap: I'm Totally Fine With It I Don't Give A Fuck Anymore
New album: Menacingly poetic, darkly humorous, searingly sordid and the sweetly sarcastic? It can only be the return of Scotland’s Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton with another fabulously articulate assault on the self and society’s sadness and strangeness
Read more
Stevie Toddler’s sophomore album, Last Time Forever
New album: So good it garnered two Songs of the Day this year before release, a sophomore LP packed with sublime bass lines, infusions of brass, a unique experimental blend of voice and instruments mixing pop, jazz and classical by the Bristol artist
Read more
Fat White Family: Forgiveness Is Yours
New album: Lias Saoudi and co return with their first since 2019’s Serfs Up, one with that despite the troubled departure of founding member Saul Adamczewski during its creation, is an entertainingly sharp, ironic, aesthetic, literary release packed with stylish reference points, soundscapes and tunes
Read more
All aflame: St. Vincent - All Born Screaming
New album: Annie Clark’s follow-up to 2021’s 70s-inspired Daddy’s Home is a striking, stylish self-produced LP, with a rawer, starker edge, fierce guitars, a theme of characters pushed between their true selves and how they’re perceived, an includes guests Dave Grohl and Cate Le Bon
Read more
Leyla McCalla: Sun Without The Heat
New album: A deliciously uplifting fifth solo LP by the American singer-songwriter and mult-instrumentalist, fusing folk, country, Americana, Afrobeat to Brazilian tropicalismo
Read more
Lynks’ debut LP: Abomination
New album: After a series of entertaining singles, the flamboyant, often masked south London artist Elliot Brett’s debut LP is full of bounce and thrust – a humorous, witty, catchy collection of stylish synth-electro-pop mainly about gay sexual adventures in the city
Read more
Shabaka: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace
New album: After 2022’s mini-album solo, Afrikan Culture, the acclaimed and prolific British jazz saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, known best for Sons of Kemet and the Comet Is Coming returns with a reset – swapping reeds for flutes, with an LP of delicate, experimental beauty, and featuring guests including Moses Sumney, André 3000, and Saul Williams
Read more
Melts: Field Theory
New album: Following 2022’s Maelstrom, a fabulous second studio LP from the Dublin quartet of electronic psych-rock with dirty fuzzy synth lines and layered guitars, searing vocals of frontman Eoin Kenny and percussion pushing it all along like unstoppable krautrock train of wizzing, fizzing new wave energy
Read more