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LIFE: North East Coastal Town
New album: A celebration of their home city of Hull by the quick-witted, passionate indie post-punk band in a set of songs filled with humour, anguish and anger, but also a love letter to the area, and even all instruments played were locally bought
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Hot Chip return to reach out with Freakout/Release
New album: This eighth LP by the London synth-pop band of Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard and co is filled packed with Prince-inspired funk, and catchy melodies, and though not as wild as the title suggests, is still a slick, liquidly fun release that ticks the Hot Chip boxes
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Chopper by Kiwi Jr
New album: Third LP in three years after Cooler Returns and Football Money by the four-piece indie band from Toronto, with wistful, melancholy, carefully observed flighted numbers packed with images from tales of corrupt mayors, Kennedy curses, sex tapes, and deer rifles
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AHudson Mohawke: Cry Sugar
New album: A vibrantly energised otherworld, an innovative concoction of experimental electronica, trash-pop to classical, gospel, 70s soul, house and more by the prolific LA-based Glaswegian DJ and producer Ross Birchard in his fourth LP and first for seven years
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Panda Bear and Sonic Boom: Reset
New album: An ingeniously fun collaboration Animal Collective founder Noah Benjamin Lennox, English producer Peter Kember in a project that takes the intros from 1950s pop songs to create new ones with added vocals and electronica
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Cheat Codes by Danger Mouse and Black Thought
New album: A superb collaboration between two hugely influential innovators – producer Brian Burton and rapper and co-founder of The Roots, Tarik Luqmaan Trotter – packed with fabulously sharp hip hop, soul and funk samples and guests, including a lost verse from the much missed MF DOOM
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Kokoroko: Could We Be More
New album: Variously mesmeric, chilled, smooth, staccato, slow then pacy, after many gigs and smaller releases the eight-piece London jazz and Afrobeat band finally have an LP of stirring (mostly) instrumentals that mix a variety of influences from Lagos to London
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Fable’s debut album, Shame
Debut album: An outstanding debut of powerful, intimate songs by the English singer-songwriter Holly Cosgrove from Paignton, Devon, who, with co-writer Jonas Persson, brings an aura of innovative, tender menace with echoes of Portishead, Billie Eilish and Fiona Apple
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Maggie Rogers’ second album, Surrender
New album: This second album by the strong-voiced American artist, after the success of folk-R&B fused 2019’s Heard It In A Past, moves headstrong into further mainstream alt-rock echoes of Shania Twain, Sheryl Crow, Florence ATM and Haim, and an emancipated burst of freedom
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Jennifer Vanilla’s Castle In The Sky
New album: Wonderfully inventive, eccentric new LP of talky electronica, dance, funk, jazz and pop by gender fluid persona of Becca Kauffman, the performance artist, vocalist, and voice over artist based in New York City
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Mingus
New album: This vibrantly uplifting and energised concert album is a centenary birth celebration of the great upright bassist and composer by a nine-piece band performing his work at Berlin’s Philharmonie hall
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Tuck in to Pan Amsterdam’s tasty new salad of words, trumpet and beats
New album: Wonderfully entertaining, droll, humorous and articulate new LP by the persona played by Leron Thomas, the Texan New York-based rapper and jazz trumpeter who clever, food thematic hip hop with his chief instrument and beats by friend Damu The Fudgemunk
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Max Pope: Counting Sheep
Debut album: Smooth, finely crafted, lyrically thoughtful fusions of funk, pop, bossa nova, blues, jazz and rock with a cleverly summer, lazy understated feel by the 27-year-old singer-songwriter from south London and Brighton
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Amanda Shires: taking no prisoners
New album: Stirring, potent folk-country-power-pop by the Texan singer-songwriter and violinist and Highwomen founder, who on this 10th solo album extends her stylistic repertoire with orchestral and almost Radiohead-like guitar atmospherics alongside her expressive, emotive voice
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Tender and low key: Florist by Florist
New album: After 2019’s Emily Alone when Brooklyn singer songwriter Emily Sprague recorded the LP on her own, the band four-piece reunite for a beautiful lo-fi indie folk 16-track album of tenderness, rough edges, woozy sounds and rainy porch acoustic
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Horse power: Beyoncé bestrides her latest release
New album: The American superstar’s first full solo album since 2016’s Lemonade a ful- throttle 16-tracker filled with taut, sexy, hedonistic disco, soul, hip hop, Afrobeats, gqom, house and other club styles and even a surprisingly effective sampling of Right Said Fred
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Lil Silva: Yesterday Is Heavy
Debut album: Strikingly innovative electronic and funk full debut by Bedford’s Tyrone Jermaine "TJ" Carter, who has been releasing singles and EPs for over a decade, but here includes guests including Sampha, Little Dragon, Ghetts, Serpentwithfeet, BADBADNOTGOOD, and Charlotte Day Wilson
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Steve Lacy’s second album Gemini Rights
New album: Effortlessly cool, sometimes oddball and infectiously laid-back funk, soul and 70s-style pop in this second LP by the guitarist, singer and producer from Compton, California, with some distinct echoes of Stevie Wonder and Prince
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Riderless Horse, Nina’s first studio album for 12 years and her seventh overall
New album: Devastatingly stark and powerful first album for 12 years by the American folk singer-songwriter that focuses on her abusive, intense, dysfunctional 25-year relationship with her former manager and collaborator Kennan Gudjonsson
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Jack White’s latest solo record – Entering Heaven Alive – his second of 2022
New album: Only three months since his fierce, high-octane LP Fear of The Dawn, the now Nashville-based artist’s second of the year is more of an folk songwriting record, with guitar, piano, some additional strings, with the feel of evening porch rendition, and even harks back to the more acoustic White Stripes numbers
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