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Meg Baird’s fourth solo album, Furling, and her first for nearly eight years
New album: A exquisitely beautiful return by the San Francisco-based Americana singer-songwriter with her first solo album since 2015’s Don’t Weigh Down the Light, offering a gorgeous set of stripped back songs of stillness and sensitivity
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The Arcs’ second album is a tribute to the late singer Richard Swift
New album: Classy rockin’ psychedelic soul from the Black Keys man Dan Auerbach’s side project, returning with a stellar supergroup of musicians including co-founder Leon Michels and members of the Dap-Kings, as well as a moving tribute LP to the Arcs’ late singer Richard Swift
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Lawrence has rebranded Go-Kart Mozart into Mozart Estate with this shopping list of new numbers
New album: The legendary Lawrence of Felt, Denim, and more recently Go-Kart Mozart, rebrands the latter with a new name and trolley-load of perky, cheeky, catchy sometimes pub-style electro-pop tunes roughly themed around the joys and mini-tragedies of retail therapy
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Sweet Baboo: The Wreckage
New album: A very welcome return after five years from Wales’s Stephen Black, who having worked with Gruff Rhys, Cate Le Bon and others, releases a selection of beautiful, gentle folk rock songs of delicious melody, creativity and sensitivity
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Tune in: Dave Rowntree’s Radio Songs
New album: A thematic, intimate, clever, thoughtful debut solo LP by the amusing and affable Blur drummer, decorated with shimmering synth sounds, sampled radio sounds, gentle percussion and gentle but arresting vocals
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Biig Piig aka Jessica Smyth’s first full-length release, Bubblegum
Debut album: Slick, clever, catchy and quirky, this electro-pop mixtape by the Irish artist Jessica Smyth, who has also released songs in Spanish, brims with breathy pomp and superbly tight production
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Guided By Voices: La La Land
New album: Following 2022’s Tremblers And Goggles By Rank and compilation Scalping The Guru, another strong new LP of strident, passionate, original alternative rock by the Ohio indie band decorated by the utterly unpredictable lyricism of frontman Robert Pollard
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Rian Treanor and Ocen James: Saccades
New album: A wonderfully original, vibrant collaboration between the Rotherham electronica experimentalist/producer and the Acholi fiddle player, inspired by a residency in Kampala and building on 2020’s album File Under UK Metaplasm
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The Murder Capital’s second album Gigi's Recovery
New album: Passionate, visceral and powerful, the new Dublin band’s follow-up to 2019’s When I Have Fears builds on their promise, aswirl with stark emotion, packed with strong perspectives and carefully hewn sounds in a journey of introspection, self-analysis and defiance
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John Cale: Mercy
New album: Slow, ghostly, challenging, droning, uniquely experimental, this is the 80-year-old former Velvet Underground member’s first original album since 2012, now with guests including Weyes Blood, Sylvan Esso, Fat White Family and Animal Collective
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Ladytron’s seventh album Time's Arrow
New album: With a title inspired by a Martin Amis novel, another cleverly crafted, catchy seventh retro synth-pop LP by the Liverpool-formed quartet, rich in influences from Kraftwerk and krautrock to Gary Numan and Stereolab
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Carnival of good will: Leila Moss’s Internal Working Model
New album: Passionate, powerful, eloquent, elegant and reflective, filled with beautiful musical texture, the former Duke Spirit singer’s third solo album ponders themes over society’s potential empathy against self-seeking global economics, and includes guests Gary Newman and Jehnny Beth
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Margo Price: Strays
New album: Country, pop, rock psych, and blues all merge seamlessly in this fabulous, defiant, soaring new LP by the Nashville star who wrote these 10 songs, after a six-day magic mushroom session with husband/collaborator Jeremy Ivey
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Gaz Coombes’ fourth LP Turn The Car Around
New album: The Supergrass frontman’s fourth solo album sees him on strong, refined, thoughtful form in soulful indie-pop songs recorded in his new studio next door to his home
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Belle and Sebastian’s 12th album Late Developers
New album: Recorded during the same period as late year’s LP A Bit of Previous culminating in a batch of 30 songs, this 12th LP and follow-up brings further likeable, wistful, bittersweet indie pop by the longstanding Glasgow band
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Billy Nomates’s second album Cacti
New album: A very strong second album by Bristol’s Tor Maries moves from her alt-punk debut to a darker, ironic, caustic anti-love set of songs bringing in more rock and pop styles
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Rozi Plain: Prize
New album: Beautifully textured, gentle, sensitive, understated, mysterious, stripped-back alternative folk by the English singer-songwriter, also joined by colleagues from This Is The Kit, saxophonist Alabaster DePlume and harpist Serafina Steer
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Iggy Pop’s explosive Every Loser
New album: Growing old gracefully? Not this 75-year-old, who after mult-genre collaborations including spoken word poetry (2019’s Free), explodes back with a full-on heavy rock and punk LP - lewd, loud, crude, satirical, sweary and angry
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Another selection of favourite LPs for 2022. See the lists below to go from top row, left to right
Further favourite albums of 2022: Welcome to the second part of a selection for this year, many of which continue to come to terms with pandemic, climate change and other current issues but also show how music can continue to innovate, surprise and entertain
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A selection of favourite LPs for 2022. See the lists below to go from top row left to right onwards
Favourite albums of 2022: Welcome to the first part of a selection for this year, many of which continue to come to terms with pandemic, climate change and other current issues but also show how music can continue to innovate, surprise and entertain
Read more