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Big release: Janelle Monáe’s fourth LP, The Age of Pleasure
New album: The American artist returns after 2018’s dystopian Dirty Computer a series of acting roles with a celebratory LP of her full sexual liberation and confirmed non-binary status in a release that feels like a hedonistic non-stop party of the LGBTQ Black culture scene
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Christine and the Queens: Paranoïa, Angels, True Love
New album: French artist Héloïse Letissier aka Chris, now using the he/his pronoun, returns with a passionate, epic, sensual, existential synth-pop triple LP odyssey, fuelled by the grief over mother’s death, and expressed through concepts of inner angel voices, including a guest appearance by Madonna
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Hak Baker: Worlds End FM
New album: Vibrant, witty, energetic debut by the east London rapper and musician, presented like a pirate radio station the mixes hip hop and storytelling with echoes of The Streets’ Mike Skinner and Ian Dury, as well more conventional, yet pointed indie about troubled Britain
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This Is The Kit: Careful Of Your Keepers
New album: Another peach of an LP from Kate Stables and band, whose voice especially with her acoustic alternative folk, effortlessly caresses the microphone with clarity, beauty, profundity and minimalism, and is produced by Gruff Rhys
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Extranauts: The Alchemist
New album: Wonderfully stylish, catchy, uplifting indie pop and retro 70s disco with a dash of 60s psychedelia and krautrock by the Irish sextet fronted by singer and songwriter Keith O’Neill and produced with added sheen by Jagz Kooner.
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Baxter Dury: I Thought I Was Better Than You
New album: Droll, dark, crisply phrased, downbeat, self-deprecating, sleazy and funky? It can only be the West London artist, in a candid, unflinching sixth solo album that draws on his strange childhood as son of famous Ian, echoing his brilliantly funny and painful 2022 memoir Chaise Longue
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WITCH are back with Zango, their first album since 1984
New album: After a whopping 38 years’ absence, Zambia’s pioneers of zamrock (their name an acronym We Intend To Cause Havoc) return with their heady and wonderful mix of psychedelic rock, reggae, Afrobeat and funk
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Protomartyr: Formal Growth In The Desert
New album: Stormy, dark, passionate, punchy, with biting lyrics, this powerful sixth album by the Detroit-formed post-punk quartet is inspired by the metaphorical desolation of the titular landscape and getting on with life even when it feels impossibly hard
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Lanterns on the Lake: Versions of Us
New album: Sumptuous sounds, passionate lyrics and dynamic musicianship by guitarist Paul Gregory and co in the indie Newcastle-upon-Tyne band fronted by superb singer-songwriter Hazel Wilde with an album about self-definition, identity and “existential meditations examining life’s possibilities” in a troubled world
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Foo Fighters; now in tribute to Taylor Hawkins
New album: With blank white cover art, the mainstream US heavy rockers return with a strong, moving, passionate album mourning the loss of drummer and Dave Grohl’s best friend Taylor Hawkins who died in 2022, as well as tributes to his late mother, Virginia
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McKinley Dixon: Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?
New album: A short but poetically vivid and emotionally stirring fourth album by the articulate, flowing Richmond, Virginia rapper and musician, a title inspired by Toni Morrison’s book trilogy, and filled with city-inspired jazz soundscapes and great guest vocalists
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Lola Young - My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves Completely
Debut album: The first LP by the 22-year-old Brit School graduate who found fame with a John Lewis advert song is commercial pop fusing the Adele ballad and Lily Allen moulds, but has a emotional edge fuelled by candidly addressing of her schizoaffective disorder.
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Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan
New album: The Grammy-nominated vocal harmonising duo of Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan from Eagle Rock, California, release a new collection of beautiful, bittersweet acoustic American folk of moving and vivid narratives
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Water From Your Eyes: Everyone's Crushed
New album: Uncategorisably ear-catching, experimental indie-pop by the Brooklyn duo Rachel Brown and Nate Amos, in a fifth LP filled with oddball, interweaving sounds, textures and landscapes, electronica to distorted guitar rock, absurdist clever lyrics and melodies
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Clark - Sus Dog
New album: Themed around ideas of trust, enthralling, intelligent experimental electronica alt-pop by the British artist Christopher Clark in a work that has occasional echoes Radiohead, flavoured by guest vocalist Thom Yorke who is also executive producer
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Arlo Parks’ second album My Soft Machine
New album: After the acclaimed Mercury Prize-winning 2021 debut Collapsed in Sunbeams, the much anticipated follow-up by the now LA-based British artist is filled with poetic self-reflection, intimate, intelligent, gentle pop-soul, but at times falls short of that debut’s initial impact, edge and melodic power
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Sparks’ 27th studio album: The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte
New album: Sparky, humorous electro-art-pop joy throughout as the pioneering veteran Mael brothers Ron and Russell return with a classic 27th studio album, packed with catchy droll, silly, zeitgeisty wit and cinematographic scenes and characters
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Hannah Jadagu: Aperture
Debut album: A hugely promising and mature debut LP by the 20-year-old Texas-born, New York-based singer-songwriter, mixing intimate soul and R&B with dream-pop, low-key indie and gentle touches of psychedelia
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Sufjan Stevens: Reflections
New album: An entrancing, rippling, nimble-fingered classical score newly recorded by the multi-talented New York singer-songwriter, written for two pianists, notably here Timo Andres and Conor Hanick, and originally commissioned for a 2019 ballet in collaboration with choreographer Justin Peck
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Kesha: Gag Order
New album: Filled with rage, simmering visceral self-hatred and raw emotional examination, but also many beautiful harmonies and dynamics, the fifth album by Kesha Rose Sebert (formerly Ke$ha), is fuelled by the fallout of a music industry lawsuit, but also her restless creativity
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