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Jon Hopkins: Ritual
New album: Originally commissioned for a multi-sensory Dreamachine installation, the British electronic producer’s latest is a continuous 8-part immersive experience, slow to build, and at times challenging, but in an appropriately dark, recumbent setting, rewarding. In world of distraction, this is all about being present in the moment
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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Wild God
New album: The 18th studio LP by the messianic Australian and band, first since 2019’s Ghosteen, is perhaps the best for some time – grandiose, passionate, powerful, using deity, religion, myth and narrative, and despite all the tragedy and loss in Cave’s family, somehow flows with rapturous hope
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Illuminati Hotties: Power
New album: Filled with thoughtful, tuneful, breezy, and cleverly crafted numbers, this is the third LP of indie pop project of LA producer Sarah Tudzin (known for boygenius and Weyes Blood) and is also co-produced with John Congleton
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Melt-Banana: 3+5
New album: Totally bananas, but enormous fun and oddly brilliant, this pithy, high-pitched and squeakily energised new release by the experimental, eccentric, eclectic Japanese noise rock band is their first over a decade, since 2013’s Fetch
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Susanna: Meditations on Love
New album: The experimental Norwegian singer and composer Susanna Wallumrød’s LP is a releases a striking, eccentric, beautifully bewitching collection about relationships, concentrating not on the giddy joy of falling in love, nor breakups, but the oddness in between
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Magdalena Bay: Imaginal Disk
New album: Flamboyant, dynamic, cinematic, this sparkling sophomore LP is summons up striking 70s and spacey effervescent pop and disco from the Los Angeles-based electro-pop duo of Mica Tenenbaum and multi-instrumentalist and producer Matthew Lewin
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Gillian Welch and David Rawlings: Woodland
New album: Exquisite, folk and country about turbulence and resilience by the singer-songwriter couple, with an album named after their Nashville studio wrecked by a tornado in March 2020, and their first release together for 13 years
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Malice K: AVANTI
New album: Angsty but beautiful, reminiscent of the whispery, intimate style of the late, great Elliott Smith, but also the occasional punk scream eruption, this darkly mesmeric, candid, introspective indie-folk-grunge-punk LP by New York-based visual artist and songwriter Alex Konschuh is a vivid, ghostly, and deeply emotional
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Fontaines D.C.: Romance
New album: With a new look, the popular Dublin post-punk band return with their fourth LP, one with a much broadened scope of sounds, poetic but also at times cinematic in musical image and in lyric, with big-time producer James Ford at the controls
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Quivers: Oyster Cuts
New album: After 2021’s Golden Doubt, the shared-singing, indie-guitar jangly-pop quartet from Melbourne’s LP is a sensitive but cynical, beautiful but painful finding-love-after-grief LP displaying musical influences such as Galaxie 500 and The Pretenders
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Hifi Sean and David McAlmont: Daylight
New album: After last year’s Happy Ending album, the seasoned British duo return with a sparkling selection of electro-pop, disco and rave bangers, often with tender lyrics, all decorated with the silky beauty of McAlmont’s high resplendently soaring voice
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Brigitte Calls Me Baby: The Future Is Our Way Out
New album: Summoning musical echoes and powerful, soaring vocals reminiscent of The Smiths and Vauxhall-era Morrissey and dash of rockabilly, Richard Hawley, Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison, an impressive debut from the Chicago-based rock band fronted by vocalist – the be-quiffed Wes Leavins
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Pom Poko: Champion
New album: Vibrant, joyful, frenzied musicianship simply flies out of this third LP by of Norwegian indie quartet whose style has some parallels with the prog-postpunk of Deerhoof, but with their own eccentric twists
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Rosie Lowe: Lover, Other
New album: A gorgeously original fourth LP by the English singer-songwriter whose voice has power, presence and intimacy and whose unique sound blends soul, pop, jazz, electronica, clever samples, and a dash of bossa nova
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Dark and revealing: Hamish Hawk's A Firmer Hand
New album: The dapper Edinburgh indie-pop troubadour returns with his ready wit, polished lyrics and soaring, strong melodies of finely detailed, candid, revealing reference-rich narrative, but also oozing with darkness, irony, empathy and double-edged melancholy
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King Gizzard’s latest to take off is Flight b741
New album: We’re already into August, but surprisingly it’s only the first LP of the year, (after at least 26th in 12) by the prolific Australian band this time explore a 70s bluesy-country rock and glam style with a inexhaustible live-feel
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beabadoobee: This Is How Tomorrow Moves
New album: Delicately voiced, thoughtful, perceptive indie pop by the Filipino-born English singer-songwriter aka Beatrice Laus, in a third album also co-produced by Rick Rubin, it grows as it progresses, showing depth and quality of balladeer 90s-influenced songwriting
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Milton Nascimento and Esperanza Spalding: Milton + Esperanza
New album: An inspired collaboration between the veteran 81-year-old Brazilian singer and the American jazz bassist, singer and arranger, 39, their low and high voices blending beautifully and bringing new life to the former’s old catalogue, plus covers and guests including Paul Simon and Lianne La Havas.
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Wand: Vertigo
New album: Magic is waved indeed in this experimental psychedelic rock by the now Los Angeles quartet of Cory Hanson, Evan Burrows, Robert Cody and Evan Backer with great ghostly echoes of a British flavour, particularly Radiohead and Verve
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Personal Trainer: Still Willing
New album: The Amsterdam collective fronted by Willem Smit return with a lyrical witty, word-playful, inventive LP of DIY indie pop of of multiple instruments, styles and moods, and retain that sense of mischief seen in 2022’s debut Big Love Blanket
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