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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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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
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Holding all the cards … Everything Is Recorded: Richard Russell Is Temporary
New album: A tender, gentle, minimalistic and rather beautifully eccentric release about mutability and death? It’s the third collaborative LP by producer Richard Russell, joined by a stellar cast of singers and musicians including Sampha, Bill Callahan, Noah Cyrus, Florence Welch, Maddy Prior, Kamasi Washington, Berwyn, Alabaster Deplume and Jah Wobble
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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
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The second part of our favourite albums of 2024
Favourite albums of 2024: Welcome to The Song Bar’s favourite albums of 2024 Part 2. Part 1 can be found here. There’s no such thing as ‘best of’ and everything is subjective, but please dig into this rich seam of originality and quality, and even suggest more of your own
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Warmduscher - Too Cold To Hold
New album: The mischievous mayhem post-punk band of Clams Baker Jr.), Mr. Salt Fingers Lovecraft, Quicksand, The Witherer, Three Piece aka the Worm and Bleucifer return with more songs on the seedier side of life, but also one of their most musically adventurous LPs of their five, with guest vocalists including Lianne La Havas, Janet Planet and Coucou Chlo
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Laurie Anderson: Amelia
New album: The veteran American experimental artist and musician returns with an evocative first-person narrative album charting the fateful summer 1937 six-week global flight of the pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, with orchestral strings from Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno and gorgeous vocals by Britain’s Anohni
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Meshell Ndegeocello: No More Water - The Gospel of James Baldwin
New album: A remarkable, substantial, powerful and emotional release by the US singer-songwriter, poet, and bassist, channelling the words of the influential African-American writer, and tackling race and gender issues, with guests including Jamaica-born poet Staceyann Chin and soul singer Justin Hicks
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Sam Morton: Daffodils & Dirt
New album: An experimental, dark, mysterious eclectic mix of trip hop, spoken word and electronica in this autobiographical debut LP by acclaimed actor Samantha Morton and producer and XL Recordings owner Richard Russell
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KNEECAP: Fine Art
New album: Alongside their upcoming feature film, a stylish, witty, smash’n’grab, satirical, brilliant and sometimes brashly in your-face hip-hop debut by the West Belfast trio of stage names Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, who rap mostly in the Irish language
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Africatown, AL: Ancestor Sounds
New album: A beautifully evocative, documentary compilation of anonymous spontaneous performances and field recordings from descendants of slaves in a northern section of the city of Mobile, Alabama, one of the last places in the US to receive slave ships
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Moor Mother: The Great Bailout
New album: The American poet and musician Camae Ayewa returns with with a pointed, powerful release aimed at Britain’s murky, slavery-profiting colonial past, with a vivid, profound, visceral, declamatory narrative and soundscape that charts many injustices about wealth and compensation
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Kim Gordon: The Collective
New album: Dark, crashing, whispering, abstract, deadpan internal monologues, dreamlike off-beat poetry, trip beats, crunchy electronica and industrial grunge-guitar noise, the ex-Sonic Youth frontwoman, bassist and visual artist’s new LP is a challenging, truly innovative release
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Favourite LPs of 2023, Part 2.
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 2, and Part 1 was yesterday. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order …
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H31R: HeadSpace
New album: Pronounced ‘Air’, the duo of Brooklyn rapper Maassai and New Jersey producer JWords serve up a stylish mix of bleeps, beats, industrial sounds, with clubby to woozy, inventive, minimal, alternative electronica marked by free-flowing hip-hop/spoken word
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Bas Jan: Back To The Swamp
New album: This third album by the quartet fronted by singer and harpist Serafina Steer, is another wittily droll, darkly humorous collection about love and modern life’s absurdities and mundanities, with influences from The Pet Shop Boys, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Kate Bush, Heaven 17 and even a referential shake of Salt N Pepa
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