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Sparks: MAD!
New album: LA’s beloved veteran brothers and international treasures Ron and Russell Mael return with their 28th studio LP , filled with various styles of their pioneering pop, new wave, art-rock, chamber, operatic – various amusing, mischievous, satirical, trivial and declamatory, dipping into subjects such as branded backpacks, tattoos, and performative devotion
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Stereolab: Instant Holograms On Metal Film
New album: Expansive, eclectic, catchy, clever futurist-retro experimental electro-pop? Yes it’s the first studio LP for 15 years by the now veteran band formed by Laetitia Sadier and Tim, Gane, here with significant instrumental skills by Joe Watson and production by Cooper Crain
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Matt Maltese: Hers
New album: A dreamy, languid, beautiful and darkly humorous sixth LP release by the British-Canadian singer-songwriter with songs drenched in yearning, pain and self-deprecation, heavily influenced by Leonard Cohen, and a voice that at times echoes the resonant sighs of Chet Baker
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Tune-Yards: Better Dreaming
New album: Clever, quirky, upbeat, funky experimental pop by the Oakland, California married duo of Merrill Garbus and her bassist husband Nate Brenner with an LP borne out of lockdown, one filled with joy, serious insights, musical oddness, but also designed to loosen up the joints and get the whole body wiggling
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Billy Nomates’ third LP, Metalhorse
New album: British artist Tor Maries returns with her third indie-postpunk LP, and perhaps her best yet – as ever strong of voice and sharp of lyric, but this time with powerful, new, dynamic pop-rock sound – her first using a live band – and with running theme of churning love-song emotions on a metaphorical broken fairground
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Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon
New album: The Public Enemy frontman remains as important a voice as ever in a corrupt and troubled world, and this latest release is a tour de force of dynamic, dial-shifting hip-hop delivery, packed with brilliant breaks ‘n’ beats, his commanding, articulate voice, on race, politics, social media and culture, and a wealth of great newer guest rappers
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Ezra Furman: Goodbye Small Head
New album: The acclaimed punk, indie-rock and other genre-spanning Chicago-born artist returns with a 10th LP, one of her very best to date – sharply poetic in lyric and melody, delivered with visceral power, themed on different forms of losing control, with emotions variously wild, exciting, and frightening, joined by their wonderful longtime band and here a small string ensemble
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The Real Tuesday Weld: Late Flowering Reveries
New album: A charming, wistful, beautifully serene, gentle, poignant and possibly farewell album by the cult lo-fi cult London-based vintage-style pop-art band fronted by singer-songwriter Stephen Coates in a release themed around late night and early morning, hope, regret, memory and longing
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DjRUM: Under Tangled Silence
New album: An enthralling, vivid instrumental LP by the London DJ and multi-instrumentalist Felix Manuel who combines electronica with piano, harp, mbira, and percussion with added cello, evolving from the mellow into the frenetic in a musical journey created over several years.
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Lucius
New album: Strong, inspiring, back-to-roots, catchy original, dynamic, lush, shimmering indie pop by the Los Angeles quartet of Jess Wolfe, Holly Laessig, Dan Molad and Peter Lalish who with this new release return to their original, fresh method of writing and recording together bringing beautiful melody and nuanced, candid lyrics
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McLusky: The World Is Still Here And So Are We – their first LP for over two decades
New album: A very welcome smash-and-grab return of rapier wit and voluminous, muscular, sinewy sound by the legendary cult post-hardcore Cardiff/Newcastle/Bristol trio of Andrew ‘Falco’ Falcous and co, their first studio LP since 2004’s The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire
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Deradoorian: Ready For Heaven
New album: Quirky, creative, clever, eclectic, lo-fi experimental pop by the American singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist and former Dirty Projectors member Angel Deradoorian, with a new LP about the erosion of humanity, and mental struggles in the ongoing degrading age of destructive capitalism
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Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke - Tall Tales
New album: The Radiohead frontman’s latest side project is a collaborative album borne of lockdown with the veteran English electronic musician soundtracked by a 65-minute film of videos created by Jonathan Zawada, with various modern-life and historical social dystopian themes
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Arcade Fire: Pink Elephant
New album: A musically strong seventh studio LP by the acclaimed Montreal band, perhaps in part because it is more sensitive and subdued than the 2022’s full-on We, with lyrics that appear ambiguous, cautious and cathartic in the shadow and aftermath of frontman Win Butler’s sexual misconduct allegations scandal
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Maria Somerville
New album: This wonderfully absorbing, otherworldly second album from the Irish musician from Connemara in Galway, is a fusion awash with slow, gentle, misty shoegaze and folk, and rewards multiple listens with its many sonic textures and atmospheric layers in what feels like expansive celebration of solitude
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Car Seat Headrest: The Scholars
New album: This first album in five years by the band fronted by Virginia singer and songwriter Will Toledo is a flamboyant, grandiose concept piece, a galloping, epic, theatrical, dynamic, multifarious rock opera inspired by the likes of The Who’s Tommy, but set in a fictional Parnassus University campus, each song representing a character and perspective in the story
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Sextile: Yes, Please.
New album: A fun, full-throttle amphetamine-inducing and enhancing LP of pumping, electrifying energy by the post-punk-electronica-dance-rock Los Angeles duo of Brady Keehn and Melissa Scadutom, described as “a vulnerable record that bares its soul as much as it revels in excess”
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Model/Actriz: Pirouette
New album: Following 2023’s Dogsbody, a second LP of strikingly innovative experimental, staccato, percussive post-punk by one of the most exciting bands around – the Brookyn-based quartet of vocalist Cole Haden, guitarist Jack Wetmore, bassist Aaron Shapiro, and drummer Ruben Radlauer
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Jenny Hval: Iris Silver Mist
New album: Named after a perfume created in 1995 - not merely expressing that of the flower but a milky fog, it also describes a LP of ghostly, fragile, fragrant beauty by the Norwegian musician and novelist work scattered with field recordings and tricks of memory
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Femi Kuti: Journey Through Life
New album: The son of the the legend Fela Kuti continues is own legacy, now aged 62, with another vibrant release, and his first self-produced, of stirring, superbly performed afrobeat, positive life philosophy, social justice campaigns, and critiques of Nigerian politics and corruption.
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