New album: Beautiful alternative folk-pop by Marianne Parrish, formerly of alt-folk band Low Chimes, with an arresting range of textures and sounds and her dynamic voice inspired by the natural world
Read moreMaja Lena: Pluto
Maja Lena: Pluto
Stick In The Wheel: Endurance Soundly Caged
Stick In The Wheel: Endurance Soundly Caged
New album: The east London punk-folk band’s latest, more of an EP, brings fresh new arrangements of past releases with a vibrant live take, recorded at the renowned Eastcote Studios
Read moreLeftfield: This Is What We Do
Leftfield’s fourth LP - This is What We Do
New album: A clever banger of a mesmeric LP, just the fourth in three decades return from the highly influential dance electronica maestro Neil Barnes including guest appearances by Grian Chatten from Fontaines DC and poet Lemn Sissay
Read moreGaye Su Akyol: Anadolu Ejderi
Gaye Su Akyol’s fourth album Anadolu Ejderi
New album: The Istanbul singer’s fourth album is an alluring fusion of Turkish folk and pop rhythms and instruments with psych-rock riffing with a spicier flavour, her seductive voice delivering heartbreak love stories and dark anthems of dissidence
Read moreLous and the Yakuza: Iota
From the cover art of Iota by Lous and the Yakuza
New album: After her hard-hitting 2020 trap, pop and Congolese beats debut, Gore, the Belgian-Congolese rapper, singer, model and artist Marie-Pierra Kakoma returns with a dreamy, smooth eclectic mix of rap, pop, and electronica
Read moreStormzy: This Is What I Mean
Stomzy returns with his most mellow and candid album yet
New album: Smooth, mellow, self-healing, candid, with many nods to his faith, the third album by the south London rapper is far from his edgier grime origins, and particularly mixes soul, R&B and spoken word alongside gospel choir and keyboards
Read moreAcid Klaus - Step On My Travelator: The Imagined Career Trajectory of Superstar DJ and Dance Pop Producer, Melvin Harris
Acid Klaus - the latest project by Sheffield’s Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer
New album: Acieeed! Packed with cleverly crafted bangers and a mischievously daft long title, wonderfully retro, yet fresh and chemically inspiring dance electronica in this project by Sheffield’s Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer, known also for International Teachers Of Pop, Moonlandingz and Eccentronic Research Council
Read moreCaitlin Rose: CAZIMI
Caitlin Rose: CAZIMI
New album: Beautiful melancholy, emotive Americana-folk-country-indie-pop crossover by the Nashville-based singer a new set of songs about self-destruction, documenting proclivity and impulse control, bad habits in life and in romantic pursuits
Read moreRichard Dawson: The Ruby Cord
Richard Dawson’s The Ruby Cord
New album: Poetic, vivid, and original, the third in an great trilogy after the medieval-themed Peasant (2017), and 2019’s state-of-nation first-person narrative 2020, the remarkable Newcastle experimental folk artist’s newest LP is set in the post-human future
Read moreDJ Yoda: Prom Nite
DJ Yoda: Prom Nite
New album: A clever, inventive fusion of modern and retro , London DJ and producer Duncan Beiny’s new project captures heartbreak 50s American doo-wop song samples with live performers through soul, hip hop, harp, strings, and guest vocals from House Gospel Choir, Lily James, Homeboy Sandman, Jamie Cullum and Beardyman
Read moreWeyes Blood: And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow
Weyes Blood, aka Natalie Mering’s fifth album
New album: A sublime, 70s California-style, Karen Carpenter-evoking, melancholy new work by Natalie Mering, her fifth LP overall, and first since the acclaimed Titanic Rising of 2019, one that’s “feeling around in the dark for meaning in a time of instability and irrevocable change”
Read moreSault: Aiir, Earth, Today & Tomorrow, Untitled (God), 11
Five more fabulous albums by Sault
New albums: An unprecedented five albums landing simultaneously without warning, and with a temporary free download period on the mysterious London collective’s website, producer Inflo (Dean Josiah Cover) and co have again brought untold riches in soul, funk, gospel, jazz, RnB, hip-hop, experimental and contemporary classical
Read moreGold Panda: The Work
Gold Panda: The Work
New album: A first album for six years by the London electronic artist Derwin Dicker, and it’s a welcome return with a distinctively lovely palette of twinkling sounds, loops and textures, with Japanese and other influences
Read moreSylvie: Sylvie
Sylvie, the self-titled new album that channels the sounds of 70s Laurel Canyon
New album: Beautiful retro 70s-style Laurel Canyon folk and Americana by the band formed by South California’s Ben Schwab of Drugdealer and Golden Daze, inspired by finding lost tapes of his father John’s 1970s group Mad Anthony
Read moreFenella / Jane Weaver: The Metallic Index
The Metallic Index, the story of the ‘electric girl’
New album: The acclaimed Liverpool-born experimental electronic artist joins forces again with Peter Philipson and Raz Ullah with an enthralling range of shimmering vintage equipment sounds and spectral vocalisations telling the story of Stella Cranshaw, the so-called paranormal ‘electric girl’ in 1920s London
Read morePlaid - Feorm Falorx
Plaid - Feorm Falorx
New album: A joyously nostalgic, beautiful and uplifting 11th album by the London cult electronica and dance duo of Andy Turner and Ed Handley based on a theme of a fictitious festival, Feorm, “an intergalactic shindig held on the planet Falorx”
Read moreThe Cool Greenhouse: Sod's Toastie
Vivid, droll absurdity: The Cool Greenhouse second album, Sod’s Toastie
New album: An excellent second LP by the wittily droll wordsmith Tom Greenhouse and band, bringing oodles of hilarious, oddball short stories and killer lines about the absurdity of life, backed by strangely wonderful post-punk and electronica
Read moreChristine and the Queens: Redcar Les Adorables Étoiles (prologue)
Christine and the Queens: Redcar Les Adorables Étoiles (prologue)
New album: Grand and theatrical, with oodles of 80s synth sounds and a big dash of Grace Jones and David Bowie-sytyle glamour, Héloïse Letissier returns with his (recently confirmed as a trans man) flamboyant, poetic third LP
Read moreEzra Collective: Where I'm Meant To Be
And the band plays on … Ezra Collective: Where I'm Meant To Be
New album: Energetic, infectiously positive new album by the outstanding five London jazz musicians, infusing also funk and African influences, and including guests rappers Kojey Radical and Sampa the Great, and singers Emeli Sandé and Nao
Read morePhoenix: Alpha Zulu
Phoenix’s seventh album Alpha Zulu
New album: A return to form in their 20-year career for the quirky, groovy French pop quartet of singer Thomas Mars guitarist brothers Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz and bassist Deck D’Arcy, in this seventh album, this time recorded in the Louvre no less
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