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Viji: So Vanilla
New album: Fresh, vibrant, clever, punchy indie rock and and breathily seductive shoegaze by the London-based Austrian-Brazilian artist Vanilla Jenner in this strong debut, another from talent via brilliant producer Dan Carey and on the Speedy Wunderground label
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Black Pumas: Chronicles of a Diamond
New album: A sparkling, superb retro soul-gospel follow-up to their 2019 debut by Texan guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada and singer-songwriter Eric Burton whose soaring, high voice sizzles with these excellent numbers
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Sofia Kourtesis: Madres
New album: A joyous, life-affirming new LP of richly layered alternative dancefloor with twinkling synths, voices and beats by the Berlin-based Peruvian artist, in an LP dedicated to her mother and neurosurgeon Peter Vajkoczy who saved her life
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Pip Blom: Bobbie
New album: This third album by Amsterdam sister-and-brother-based band brings more catchy and engaging indie, but with move from guitar-written songs towards synth pop, using producer Dave McCracken in a co-writer role
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Six years after his Mercury prize-winning debut, Process, Sampha returns with his second LP, Lahai
New album: The London-born, gentle-and-high-voiced singer-musician and acclaimed Mercury winner for his 2017 debut, Process, finally returns, after many other projects, with an intricate, sensitive, ethereal follow-up
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Balming Tiger: January Never Dies
New album: Hugely enjoyable debut LP by the South Korean K-pop and hip-hop collective, who bring a heady mix of slick delivery and experiment with funk, pop, indie rock and playfully inventive changes of pace
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Bombay Bicycle Club: My Big Day
New album: The London indie band fronted by Jack Steadman return with an expansive, playful, humorous. experimental new album across a catchy range of styles, folky pop but also into psychedelia that at times echoes The Flaming Lips
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Nitin Sawhney: Identity
New album: The acclaimed British-Asian musician returns with a powerful LP themed very much as titled, and spurred by burning issues over how immigrants are portrayed, presents 17 tracks on different sides of heritage, sense of self, belonging and multiculturalism, with an impressive set of guest singers and rappers
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Rolling Stones rock of ages: the diamond geezers return with polished retrospective of their career
New album: A rock dinosaurs’ indulgent dirge? Far from it. This first LP of new material by the veterans for 18 years, and perhaps their final one, goes with a bang – echoing some of their 70s rock, blues, and country infused pomp
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Reflective: Jamila Woods’s new LP Water Made Us
New album: The Chicago singer and poet moves from 2019’s socio-historical Legacy! Legacy! LP, to a more experimental, soulful album of self-analysis, examining the life cycles of relationships across 17 tracks, in which love evolves and develops like a living cell
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Gotts Street Park: On The Inside
New album: A classic style, very gentle retro-soul debut by the Leeds-based trio of Josh Crocker, Tom Henry, and Joe Harris with outstanding guest vocalists following the all-in-one room recording method of Sun and Stax in Memphis or Muscle Shoals in Alabama
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Flamingods: Head of Pomegranate
New album: The eclectic London band of abundant upbringings and influences from Bahrain to Dubai, Albania, Italy and Saudi Arabia return with a heady, upbeat mix of Afro-electro synth pop, krautrock, funk, disco and alt-rock psychedelia
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Ren Gill
New album: An outstanding new LP by the remarkably talented Welsh, Brighton singer-songwriter rapper and guitarist Ren Gill, influenced by years of bed-ridden mental and physical illness, expressing caustic, self-torn schizophrenia, his songs are packed with wordplay, wit, catchy tunes, gut-wrenching emotion and invention
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No hiding places: CMAT re-enters with her second album
New album: Following her acclaimed 2022 debut, Dublin’s Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson returns with luxuriant, catchy country-pop decorated with her biting, candid, self-deprecatory wit on relationship fragility, packed with highly specific pop culture or British references
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The Streets: The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light
New album: After 12 years since the last LP, British rapper Mike Skinner returns with familiar style of his debut Original Pirate Material (2002), of interweaving stories of candid spoken word, this time with a self-funded accompanying film based on the life of a DJ
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Goat: Medicine
New album: Another wonderfully indulgent dosage of meaty psychedelic folk rock from the mysterious, masked Swedish collective from Norrbotten County, with nods to Black Sabbath and other forbears, and certain fungal mitochondria
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Creation Rebel: Hostile Environment
New album: After recent late-career records by Horace Andy and African Head Charge, another great release on the On-U Sound label, a first by the reggae collective for 40 years, responding to the ongoing unjust Tory UK immigration policy, first introduced by former home secretary and then PM Theresa May
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Hania Rani: Ghosts
New album: The Berlin-based Polish singer, pianist and composer returns with her bewitching voice, elevating, ethereal, minimalistic, ambient electronica and classical, with guests Patrick Watson, Ólafur Arnalds and Duncan Bellamy of Portico Quartet
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Vanishing Twin: Afternoon X
New album: Mesmeric, meditative, mercurial – an experimental, dream-like release by the London trio of singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti and bassist Susumu Mukai with folky electronica, minimalism, cosmic post-punk and psychedelic pop
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Unschooling: New World Artifacts
New album: A striking post-punk debut of lo-fi, spiky guitar sounds and abstract, strangely alluring disharmony by the French, Rouen-based quintet fronted by guitarist and vocalist Vincent Fevrier
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