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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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Carson McHone’s Still Life
New album: Tremendously high-quality writing and performance by the singer-songwriter from Houston, Texas in this dynamic third album which mixes folk-country and Americana-rock, acoustic with electric, poignant lyrics and excellent vocals
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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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OKI: Tonkori In The Moonlight
New album: Evocative, eccentric, strange and inventive album by the veteran Japanese musician of Ainu ancestry, Oki Kano 加納 沖, brings together the traditional stringed five-stringed harp, the tonkori, into a fusion with other instruments and styles, from folk to electronica and reggae
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Capturing challenging times: Sea Power’s eighth album Everything Was Forever
New album: Superbly defiant and telling eighth LP, the first in in five years, by the alt-rock band who last year dropped the British part from their name, not to disrespect their own nation, but to disassociate themselves from any form of upsurging Brexit-related nationalism
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Once Twice Melody is the eighth Beach House album
New album: A fabulous double LP 18-track return by the Baltimore duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally of dreamy, serene electro-pop, with a suddenly broadened scope of psychedelia and folk rock, gradually and now fully released across four chapters
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Alynda Segarra
New album: Wonderfully engaging eighth LP by New Orleans’ Alynda Segarra of “nature punk” electronica and lo-fi indie, with songs variously intimate, grand, sensual, and emotionally powerful, taking a hands-on, eco-aware vivid walk through our planet
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Metronomy’s seventh LP, Small World
New album: Crisp, breezy, sharply written pop accompanies the welcome return of Joe Mount and co with a seventh studio album that has bittersweet post-lockdown flavour, but ultimately is positively uplifting
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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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The Lore of the Land
New album: A magical, mystical, gently mesmerising new LP of psych-folk by the band from Lewes in Sussex, interweaving tales of heartbreak, paganism and nature, in the traditions of Shirley Collins, Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention, Trees or Mellow Candle
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Perfectly paced: The Delines’ new album
New album: Wonderfully minimal, emotionally strong, yet also becalming third album of Southern soul by the Portland, Oregon band that includes guitarist and songwriter Willy Vlautin and the perfectly paced delivery of singer Amy Boone
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Shamir’s ironically titled new album, Heterosexuality
New album: The latest from Las Vegas-born artist 27-year-old Shamir Bailey is perhaps his most powerful LP to date – tumultuous emotions, huge production range from synth pop to metal, and explorations of queer gender issues via uncompromising lyrics and his expressive, rangy countertenor voice
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Spoon’s 10th
New album: A solid 10/10 for the band from Austin, Texas, who, with this 10th studio album of 10 songs in 25 years and their familiar alt-blues rock sound remains consistently strong and unmistakably them, even when opening with a Smog cover
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The Dream: alt-J’s fourth studio album, and the first since 2917’s Relaxer
New album: After a five-year break, the British trio return with a more free-flowing, experimental, but musically relaxed album than their previous three, but still brimming with oddness and some dark, stark, deathly references
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Big Thief’s campfire of inspiration
New album: Brooklyn’s Adrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia return with a fifth and landmark double album of gorgeous, intelligent, free-flowing songwriting, mixing folk, pop, rock and country
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Harpist Rachel Newton and violinist Lauren MacColl come together as Heal & Harrow
New album: Hauntingly stark, evocative, and chillingly beautiful folk as harpist Rachel Newton and violinist Lauren MacColl, with added spoken word commentaries in English and Gaelic, release an album of songs telling the tale of women wrongfully persecuted during Scottish witch trials in the 16th-18th centuries
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It’s definitely in the bag, but where next for Black Country, New Road after Ants From Up There?
New album: Second LP by the London young experimental, baroque-pop theatrical troupe, and many ways far stronger than their much applauded, arguably over-hyped 2021 debut, ironically now having greater intensity as frontman and singer Isaac Wood quits on release date
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Animal Collective’s 11th album Time Skiffs
New album: Two decades after their first, the 11th album by the American alt-pop experimentalists has a running theme of time passing, with a quieter, slower more lo-fi accessible approach, gentle intricate sounds, even those echoing wind, water and bamboo
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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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A Place To Bury Strangers - See Through You
New album: Electro noise rock, progressive gothic post-punk? Whatever the genre label, a striking blast of a new LP by the New York band fronted by Oliver Ackermann now with newer members frenetic drummer Sandra Fedowitz and thrumming bass from John Fedowitz
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