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Beirut: A Study of Losses
New album: Gentle, ambient, acoustic, meditative, often very beautiful and filled with inventive surprises, this unusual 18-track album by the American experimental band fronted by Zach Condon was commissioned by and comes in conjunction with a tour by idiosyncratic Stockholm-based contemporary circus group Kompani Giraffe
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Mamalarky: Hex Key
New album: Defying definition other than the label of experimental psych-rock four-piece – the Los Angeles band’s album is an eccentric, quirky set of songs that can’t easily be unlocked with this tool or any other, but still pull you into their enjoyably agile mystery
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Tunde Adebimpe: Thee Black Boltz
New album: The likeable TV On The Radio frontman, visual artists and LA-based actor releases his first solo LP, an impressively punchy, tender, angry, sharp, intelligent fusion of synth-pop, postpunk and funk, working with multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Wilder Zoby – energised in sound, but tinged with thematic grief and loss
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Julien Baker & TORRES: Send A Prayer My Way
New album: The American singer-songwriter, guitarist and, one-third of Boygenius joins withTorres, aka indie singer-songwriter Mackenzie Scott in a long-planned collaboration in musically straight pedal-steel country narrative love songs, but threaded with queer narratives
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UMMA, the fourth album by Ecuador’s Don Bolo
New album: Striking, otherworldly, ghostly, evocatively cinematic and powerful experimental instrumentals by the band from Quito, Ecuador, this fourth LP is inspired by the work of Dune author George Herbert as well as the dark, dystopian events of modern times
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Salif Keita: So Kono
New album: A first album in seven years by the veteran Malian singer, now 75, with a pared-back, acoustic release, but one in which his distinctive, wonderfully ‘golden’ voice still shines, accompanied by guitar, ngoni, calabash, tama and cello
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Valerie June: Owls, Omens, and Oracles
New album: Stylish, catchy, charismatic, effervescent, uplifting, retro, Memphis soul, Americana and country by the singer-songwriter from Jackson, Tennessee whose distinctive, bright resonant voice has some echoes of Eartha Kitt and Macy Gray
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Alison Krauss and Union Station: Arcadia
New album: Classy, seasoned, crisply performed country, folk and bluegrass by the acclaimed Champaign, Illinois singer-songwriter and fiddle player, joined again by her perennial band, their first together since 2011’s Paper Airplane, and her first since the 2021’s album Raise The Roof with Robert Plant
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Destroyer: Dan's Boogie
New album: Eccentric, eclectic, frequently flamboyant experimental rock and pop by the the Vancouver multi-instrumentalist Dan Bejar, following 2022’s Labyrinthitis with nine new songs in his inimitable talk-singing style with stream-of-consciousness lyrics and personnas from hustlers to lounge singers
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Bon Iver: SABLE, fABLE
New album: Wisconsin’s Justin Vernon returns with his fifth album, a sparse, tender, sometimes world-weary, but also often beautiful, distinctive fusion of folk, indie, R&B, soul, country, and a dash of soft rock, all wrapped in celebration of the salmon pink - “the colour of life”
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Florist: Jellywish
New album: Beautiful, entrancing, wide-eyed, deceptive simplicity pervades this poetic fifth LP by the indie folk New York/ Catskill Mountains quartet fronted by singer-songwriter Emily Sprague, here themed around the natural world’s perceived miracles and mysteries
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Index For Working Musik: Which Direction Goes The Beam
New album: Fantastically inventive, stylishly strange, experimental post-punk by the London band on this latest release, with angular guitars, thrumming guffawing brass, jittery, ghostly orchestral strings, and semi-spoken, sometimes whispered, arresting, often menacing vocals
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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs: Death Hilarious
New album: Thunderous Black Sabbathian doom by the wonderfully entertaining, if deafening, Newcastle Upon Tyne heavy rockers with their fifth album, one which captures dark, uncertain times shaped by neoliberism, an exorcism of anxiety by frontman and lyricist Mark Baty, and a guest appearance by Run The Jewels rapper EL-P
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The Waterboys: Life, Death And Dennis Hopper
New album: A sprawling, lengthy, pseudo-beatnik rock-country release by the British band fronted by Mike Scott, here celebrating the life of the charismatic, often misunderstand hell-raising Hollywood icon, spanning multiple genres, particularly Americana, with a spread of guests including Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle and Fiona Apple
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The Nightingales: The Awful Truth
New album: With sharp turns of phrase and pace, the legendary Birmingham post-punk band fronted by Robert Lloyd return with meatily rich riffs and rhythms, and a collection of wittily ironic songs on social injustice and current affairs like a musical news broadcast
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Black Country, New Road: Forever Howlong
New album: With a musical reset after the sudden departure of frontman Isaac Wood just at the release of their previous studio album, the Cambridge-formed sextet return with a rich, clever mix of whimsical folk, prog, baroque pop and musical theatre with lead vocals now shared between the three female band members
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Bria Salmena: Big Dog
New album: A striking, stylish debut by the Toronto artist, also co-written and co-produced with Duncan Hay Jennings, the frontwoman of Canadian post-punk outfit FRIGS delivers a mix of dark, deep, smoky-voiced pop, crafted krautrock, shimmery shoegaze, and goth-electronica
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Sacred Paws: Jump Into Life
New album: Breezy, buoyant, musically breathless upbeat but also wistful indie with notes of folk, country and highlife, Bhundu Boys-esque guitars and fast-fill drumming by the Glasgow band formed by Ray Aggs and Eilidh Rodgers
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Hannah Cohen: Earthstar Mountain
New album: A warm, simmering, insightfully beautiful, bittersweet, gently paced, folk-country-pop album by the New Yorker Catskills Mountains-based singer-songwriter, made in collaboration with partner Sam Owens (aka Sam Evian) and including guest appearances from Sufjan Stevens and Clairo
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New album: The London electronica post-punk, tree-camouflage-dressed quartet return with their vigorously inventive, infectiously dance-inspiring, krautrock-ish defiant work holding up a mirror to the absurdities and injustices of modern life
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