THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2025

Manchester-based poet, writer and producer Antony Szmierek has announced the release of his debut album, Service Station At The End Of The Universe. The past few years have been a wild ride for the artist. Cutting his teeth on the Manchester spoken word scene and gaining notoriety for his seamless flow skewering everything from the hardships of contemporary British life to finding the unexpected beauty in the everyday, it was the 2023 release of his single ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Fallacy’ that kicked off his meteoric ascent. The earworming track soon found its way onto the BBC 6 Music airwaves and led Szmierek to be named an Artist of the Year 2023 by the station. There followed appearances on Later… with Jools Holland, a BBC Radio 1 Maida Vale session, multiple triumphant Glastonbury sets and a flurry of comparisons: to the pavement prose of The Streets, the poetry of John Cooper Clarke if he found himself at the Haçienda, or like Jarvis Cocker for the UK Garage generation.

Yet, with the release of his 2023 indie-influenced EP Poems To Dance To and now his banger-filled, dancefloor-focused debut album, Service Station at the End of the Universe, Szmierek cements his sound as one that is distinctly his own. While the album provides a culmination of the deep dancefloor poetry that began with ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Fallacy’, it also showcases a new side to Szmierek’s writing, producing moments of downbeat, dark poignance. The album produces a cohesive and infectious journey through pop melodic hooks and thumping dancefloor orchestrations.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: If you didn’t love him already ‘Service Station…’ lets us so intimately into Szmierek’s life that I find myself strangely, almost adoring him like a friend or brother! Such is the genuine sentiment coursing through the album.
A confident but gentle beta-male with the same insecurities and foibles as the rest of us. The polar opposite of the faux bravado of Old Manchester whilst still, somehow, possessing that patented swagger and our inability to take anything toooo seriously. Thoughtful, and with an acute awareness of the times in which we live. What I love about this particular album is, you feel Antony’s lived every single one of these tales. When he finishes “Yoga Teacher” with its deeply self-critical prose, you know it’s a real, honest assessment of himself. His heart never leaves his sleeve throughout and his beautiful sensitivity is articulated perfectly as he discusses love, life and The Great Pyramid Of Stockport. There’s goosebump after goosebump inducing moment and lyrically, there’s few male singers that can have me so close to tears. I fuckin’ love you Antony!

Laura says: Manchester and its surroundings have a long history of producing great wordsmiths. Be it the literary genius of Antony Burgess and Shelagh Delaney, the songwriting chops of Morrissey, Ian Curtis and Shaun Ryder or the punk poetry of John Cooper Clarke, there seems to be a knack in these parts for documenting the grit and reality of city life with wit and charm. It should be no surprise then that our favourite album this year comes from an artist following in this storytelling lineage. Set to a backdrop of serotonin boosting beats that nod to the Manc dancefloor through the decades, be it baggy grooves, full on dancefloor euphoria or slo-mo late-night-early-morning pulses, Antony’s stories are steeped in real life with all its joys, anxieties, ups and (come) downs, swirled together with a stream of consciousness meanderings and a heavy dose of surrealism. It’s an album with its heart in the city, and its feet on the dancefloor.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Service Station At The End Of The Universe
2. Rafters
3. The Great Pyramid Of Stockport
4. Big Light
5. Yoga Teacher
6. Crumb

Side 2:
7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Fallacy
8. Passingthru
9. Take Me There
10. Restless Leg Syndrome
11. Crashing Up
12. Angie’s Wedding

Hailing from our back-yard, Manchester's very own Rude Films are one of our big tips of 2025. Massive tracks, lots of noise and plenty of reverb, Rude Films' mix of post-punk shoegazey post-rock is absolutely mega and we couldn't wait to get our hands on it. Now it's here and it's class - check it!!

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Well we might not all care to openly admit, one of the greatest buzzes of working at Piccadilly is putting an LP on the shop speakers and have one of you asking what is playing. And for 2025, or indeed recent memory, we can't think of a record that this has happened to as often and frequently as it has for Rude Films' debut.

And who can blame them? From the opening brooding moments of "Where Have You Been Lately?", the Manchester quartet explode into a cacophony of shoegaze infused noise-rock on "Mort Subite". From there, things don't even begin to slightly let up as Rude Films then slam into the monster that is "Death Hex". Pummelling walls of sound that act as the perfect statement of what this band is capable of. A statement of which carries on with the fuzzed out and driving "Religion" and the sprawling and frenetic "Serenity". Elsewhere, tracks like "Blood On The Tracks", "Wide-Eyed Boy" and "A Lonely Moon" take a more atmospheric and textually rich route, whilst the jangly and anthemic "You're The Image I Can't Forget" sets its sights on your heart. Closing up on "Black Snow", the entirety of the record comes to a cataclysmic crescendo with frontman Aaron Hill-Southern spitting his guts out over the Deafheaven-esque finale.

Immediate, massive and with plenty of noise to back them up, we've not been this excited about a new band from Manchester in a while. And we're sure you'll think the same too.

TRACK LISTING

1. Where Have You Been Lately?
2. Mort Subite
3. Death Hex
4. Serenity
5. Blood On The Tracks
6. Religion
7. Wide-Eyed Boy
8. You're The Image I Can't Forget
9. A Lonely Moon
10. Black Snow

Double Infinity is the follow-up to 2022’s Grammy-nominated album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, recorded last winter at the Power Station, New York City. For three solid weeks, the trio would ride bicycles on frozen streets between Brooklyn and Manhattan, meeting in Power Station’s warm wood-panelled room. Together with a community of musicians (Alena Spanger, Caleb Michel, Hannah Cohen, Jon Nellen, Joshua Crumbly, June McDoom, Laraaji, Mikel Patrick Avery, Mikey Buishas) they would play for nine hours a day, tracking together – simultaneously – improvising arrangements and making collective discoveries. Double Infinity was produced, engineered and mixed by longtime Big Thief collaborator Dom Monks.

“How can beauty that is living be anything but true?” Adrianne asks as she drives nose against the future with childhood mementos on ‘Incomprehensible’. She understands, “everything I see from now on will be something new.” The silver hairs on her shoulders are new as well. Yet fear of aging is cracked by proof. If a life is shaped by living, “Let gravity be my sculptor, let the wind do my hair.” Being born, then staying a while, remains the greatest mystery. Adrianne claims her place and time. “Incomprehensible, let me be.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Since the release of their 2020 opus 'Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You', a lot has happened to Big Thief. They've toured the globe non-stop, released various side-projects between them (with Lenker's incredible 'Bright Future' being one of our albums of 2024), but also had their long-serving bassist Max Oleartchik depart the band. But rather than let this affect them, Big Thief strived forward and invited a host of close collaborators and friends to create 'Double Infinity'.
Whilst 'Dragon New Warm Mountain...' acted as a best of as sorts - it saw Big Thief exploring every avenue of their repertoire with the utmost precision - 'Double Infinity' thrives within its looseness and collaborative energy. No more so than on the sweeping "Grandmother", which features New-Age legend Laraaji. Elsewhere, tracks like "All Day All Day", "Words" and "Happy With You" burst instrumentally with cosmic life, whilst the likes of "Incomprehensible", "Los Angeles" and "How Could I Have Known" are classic Big Thief - with the latter being one of their best tracks to date. Lenker also once again proves lyrically she's one of the finest songwriters of our generation. The way she creates these vivid vignettes with such ease and relatable intimacy is remarkable.
'Double Infinity' feels like the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Big Thief. A life-affirming record that examines love and, even though we might not always understand its various forms, the idea that it is the one constant we should all embrace in these ever challenging times.

TRACK LISTING

Incomprehensible
Words
Los Angeles
All Night All Day
Double Infinity
No Fear
Grandmother [ft. Laraaji]
Happy With You
How Could I Have Known

Geese’s 'Getting Killed' lands like a seismic shock. Tracked in a whirlwind ten days in Los Angeles with producer Kenneth Blume (Kenny Beats), the band’s third album is a chaotic comedy, shambolic in structure but laser-focused in vision. It trades classic rock mythology for something stranger and more self-destructive, balancing big riffs and choir samples with lyrics about war, anxiety, and emotional ruin. The result is a jagged, joyfully unhinged triumph that was immediately heralded as the best rock album of the year.

The reaction has been explosive.

Thousands of tickets have vanished in minutes, streams and sales are surging, and co-signs are flooding in from Cillian Murphy to The Dare. Geese have even slipped into meme culture without lifting a finger, becoming that rare band that’s both dead serious and untouchable.

From New York’s dive bars to Times Square billboards, Geese have somehow spun pure chaos into unstoppable global momentum.

STAFF COMMENTS

Willow says: There’s very little ground not covered by this manic, sprawling masterpiece. A challenging and unique effort by a prolific collective of artists, ‘Getting Killed’s devilish genius is in the minutest of its many subtle details. Bombastic and cathartic at some points, subdued and hypnotic at others, the common threads through this album are the off-piste but considered instrumentation that elevate simple ideas to unexpected heights and, of course, Cameron Winter’s distinctive Walker-cum-Cave croon, at once comforting and unsettling.

In a year of both newer faces and veterans honing in on their areas of expertise and producing fantastic work, Geese have emerged as one of the biggest winners by deciding to have a go at one of everything - the biggest surprise not being that it works, but that it fits together so cohesively - typified by the lead single from the album “Taxes”, that in its short run time embarks on an ethereal journey through the various moods and styles that this project boasts. My personal favourite moments from the album are of course psychotic Doors-esque opener “Trinidad”, the Stones-y one-two punch of “Islands Of Men” and “100 Horses”, and the gorgeous closing track “Long Island City Here I Come”. Careful not to overstay my welcome in gushing about the grip this album has had on the Saturday squad since its relatively late entry into the year’s canon, suffice to say that this is a gem that will not lose its lustre with the passage of time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Trinidad
2. Cobra
3. Husbands
4. Getting Killed
5. Islands Of Men
6. 100 Horses
7. Half Real
8. Au Pays Du Cocaine
9. Bow Down
10. Taxes
11. Long Island City Here I Come

WORDS FROM JARVIS ON “MORE”

“This is the first Pulp album since “We Love Life” in 2001. Yes: the first Pulp album for almost 24 years.

How did that happen?

Well: when we started touring again in 2023, we practiced a new song called 'Hymn of the North' during soundchecks & eventually played it at the end of our second night at Sheffield Arena. This seemed to open the floodgates: we came up with the rest of the songs on this album during the first half of 2024. A couple are revivals of ideas from last century. The music for one song was written by Richard Hawley. The music for another was written by Jason Buckle. The Eno family sing backing vocals on a song. There are string arrangements written by Richard Jones & played by the Elysian Collective.

The album was recorded over 3 weeks by James Ford in Walthamstow, London, starting on November 18th, 2024. This is the shortest amount of time a Pulp album has ever taken to record. It was obviously ready to happen.

These are the facts.

We hope you enjoy the music. It was written & performed by four human beings from the North of England, aided & abetted by five other human beings from various locations in the British Isles. No A.I. was involved during the process.

This album is dedicated to Steve Mackey.

This is the best that we can do.

Thanks for listening.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Imagine a band returning to the fray twenty three years after their last album and then actually making a record that’s right up there with the very best of their material, a record as melodic and pertinent as anything they’d ever done before? Well that band is Pulp!

Music is of course about people, and when I think of Pulp I immediately think of my dear friend and their biggest fan Joseph, from the wondrous book shop and cafe Novel in (appropriately enough) Sheffield; what would he say about Pulp’s comeback? Perhaps he would mention something about them sounding more mature with less bedroom voyeurism whilst retaining the playful edge with which they made their name? Joey would probably find that a tad cheesy but then I’d have to remind him of the famous Elvis Costello quote which was something along the lines of “writing about music is like dancing about architecture”.

Emboldened, I am pretty sure that Joe would continue by saying that it basically reminded him of their album ‘We Love Life’ and that it feels like the next stage of “growing up”. Where that album was about acceptance of themselves after ‘This Is Hardcore’, this one is all about accepting love. He would probably say that Jarvis is now singing about love in a way that sounds more like birds in your garden but without the climbing into bedroom windows of old; it’s more reflective and has moved away from the immediate moments of intimacy and instead focuses on reflections on intimacy in solitude. Is there still room for the classic “song to a mystery woman” that harks back to “Sylvia”? In “Tina”, Joe would say there certainly was! I would then thank Joe and probably end with my trademark; it’s a classic! That’s if any of the above actually happened at all.

TRACK LISTING

1. Spike Island
2. Tina
3. Grown Ups
4. Slow Jam
5. Farmers Market
6. My Sex
7. Got To Have Love
8. Background Noise
9. Partial Eclipse
10. The Hymn Of The North
11. A Sunset

Like so many coming-of-age stories that leave a long-lasting impact, Brooklyn-based Momma’s new album Welcome to My Blue Sky takes place during a charmed and turbulent summer—a transformative moment in time that co-founders Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten sum up as a period of “parallel chaos”.

Mainly recorded live with the full band at Studio G in Brooklyn and produced by their bandmate Aron Kobayashi Ritch, Welcome to My Blue Sky marks the follow-up to Household Name—a critically acclaimed release that manifested their ascent. With the help of drummer Preston Fulks, Momma arrived at the album’s 12 immaculately composed yet immediately potent songs by matching the raw urgency of rock with the sticky melodies and taut arrangements of pop—a dynamic born from their deepened commitment to finding the most direct vessel for their emotional expression. “With this album we were less concerned with sounding cool and heavy and rock & roll and much more focused on good, clean songwriting that hopefully inspires people to sing along and mean every word,” Weingarten reveals.

Equal parts shared memoir, communal outpouring, and riveting emotional travelogue, each track is infused with both unsparing self-awareness and immense sensitivity, and the result is a bold leap forward for one of the most creatively uncompromising and singular voices in indie-rock.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Welcome to the world of young love, heartbreak & infidelity; sun scorched road trips; high school jealously; and riffs bigger than the 90s jeans you’re currently rocking.

I shouldn’t like Momma; it’s like the aural equivalent of watching The OC or Dawson’s Creek whilst slamming back tequila shots. But it’s so unavoidably infectious. Though the band are now based in Brooklyn, Etta & Allegra’s ultra Californian vocal harmonies soar over the songs like the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset, with lyrics that instantaneously knock years off your actual age. I think the Japanese call it natsukashii - rose-tinted nostalgia that fills your heart with joy. There’s a touch of classic skater punk aesthetics, a bit of Weezer’s (who they’ve supported on tour) preppy innocence and demeanour; all whilst being more than capable of sizzling your nose hairs with their stupendously large guitar hooks and kicking drum work.

At first I’d have thought music this sweet and immediate would have burned out quickly, but no – the album’s been on constant rotation in my life throughout the year. From afternoons here in the shop, to driving through the Welsh countryside, to miserable mornings where you need an instant pick-me-up. In interviews they say they wanted to write an album in which you’ll learn every lyric – I have! Word on the street is they’re amazing live too; and let’s get it straight – this band are still firmly in their infancy and ascendency – there’s gonna be more to come, and I for one can’t wait.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sincerely
2. I Want You (Fever)
3. Rodeo
4. Stay All Summer
5. New Friend
6. How To Breathe
7. Last Kiss
8. Bottle Blonde
9. Ohio All The Time
10. Welcome To My Blue Sky
11. Take Me With You
12. My Old Street

Lael Neale’s minimalist drone pop draws inspiration from the Transcendentalists, the alienation of modern life, and a rich array of musical influences—ranging from Dionne Warwick and John Lennon to primitive American gospel and Spacemen 3. Her expansive new record, 'Altogether Stranger' was written and recorded in the early morning quiet of Los Angeles. Clocking in at just 32 minutes, the 9-song LP covers an unexpected breadth of musical and lyrical terrain—from garage rock nursery rhymes and creation myths to Motorik dance dirges and solitary Omnichord meditations.

A brilliant lyricist, Neale has a unique ability to uncover the extraordinary within the mundane, tackling themes of polarity that recur throughout her work—country vs. city, humanity vs. technology, isolation vs. society. This album is her third collaboration with producer Guy Blakeslee who helps expand the tonal palette while staying true to Neale’s commitment to the raw immediacy and hand-made intimacy of home recording. 'Altogether Stranger' - a stunning album filled with dreamlike reverie, Neale’s crystalline voice, and echoes of the Velvet Underground - was conceived after four years of oscillating between rural solitude and urban chaos. It finds Neale perched at the piano in a hilltop bungalow, looking down on a rare curve of Sunset Blvd. Here, in this daily ritual of writing, singing, and painting—what David Lynch referred to as “the Art Life”—she creates the space for her most adventurous work to date.

Born and raised in Virginia’s idyllic countryside, Neale brought the high-lonesome sound of her home state with her when she moved to California to pursue music. After years of writing songs on guitar and playing small venues in Los Angeles, she discovered the Omnichord in 2019, which sparked a new creative direction. This led to her 2021 Sub Pop debut album, 'Acquainted With Night'. That album’s 2023 follow-up, 'Star Eaters Delight', deepened the collaboration with Blakeslee, infusing minimalist soundscapes with a heightened electric energy. The album found a devoted audience, and Neale’s subsequent tour included sold-out shows in Los Angeles, New York City, London, and Paris, multiple trips across Europe, and a West Coast run supporting kindred spirit Weyes Blood. This marked yet another return to Los Angeles. Indeed, Los Angeles is not just the backdrop of 'Altogether Stranger' but a lead character. The album’s accompanying film - created with Neale's faithful Sony Handycam - builds on her ongoing series of videos, telling the story of Neale as an alien in a suit of mirrors stranded on Earth. Wandering through modern-day LA, she finds both absurdity and beauty in our fragile, untenable way of life. Over the long year it took to write Altogether Stranger, Neale vacillated between childlike optimism and existential melancholy. While she may not have been able to reconcile these opposing states, Altogether Stranger represents an ambitious breakthrough for this singular, self-sufficient artist.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Four albums in and Sub Pop recording artist Lael Neale finally breaks into the Piccadilly End Of Year chart! Clocking in at just 32 minutes it’s a wonderfully crafted album, its brevity in keeping with Neale’s minimalist drone-pop sensibility; less is most certainly more on ‘Altogether Stranger’.

Lael Neale grew up on a farm in rural Virginia before feeling the pull of Los Angeles’ bright lights in 2011, then the pandemic hit and she retreated back to Virginia. It was there in her rural isolation that she wrote and recorded her 2023 album ‘Star Eaters’. ‘Altogether Stranger' captures her return to Los Angeles and the tension between its magnetic artistic energy and its overwhelming chaos. Neale reflects on the city’s dual nature - the inspiration and madness of a sprawling metropolis, the allure of creation alongside the hollow consumerism and deep melancholy that often pervade urban life.

Throughout the otherworldly ‘Altogether Stranger’, the ghosts of The Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3, and the wistful unease of Syd Barrett’s solo years drift in and out of focus. Standout moments include opener “Wild Waters,” with its synthetic handclaps, motorik pulse, and sugar-sweet vocals; the urgent mechanical thrum and majestic dreamscape of “Down On The Freeway”; the slow-burning ascent of “Tell Me How to Be Here,” that recalls the VU’s “Ocean”; and the mesmerising spiritualness of the hypnotic “New Age”.

Full of brittle lyrical honesty and meditative instrumentation, ‘Altogether Stranger’ is a maximinimal masterpiece.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wild Waters
2. All Good Things Will Come To Pass
3. Down On The Freeway
4. Sleep Through The Long Night
5. Come On
6. Tell Me How To Be Here
7. New Ages
8. All Is Never Lost
9. There From Here

Flickering in ultraviolet, there is an elusive place where blue pill meets red, ups become downs, and day merges with night. Those liminal spaces where anything is possible is where you’ll find Nightbus and their hypnotic debut album Passenger. Doom, uncertainty, and opportunity lurk in the shadowy corners of their murky existence with stops at disassociation, co-dependency, and addiction before reaching its final destination - a glimmer of hope.

The in-between of Nightbus’ own Gotham lies where Manchester’s city pulse meets Stockport’s outer realm. An audio-visual entity formed among a musical family of friends, freaks, and foes in messy mills and after hours on dancefloors alike, their sound bleeds from tension where collective creative forces are bound together and collide with the fallout of being torn apart. Before even playing a show, their So Young released single ‘Mirrors’ – a knowing nod of respect to some well-known gloomy Northerners - may have made old school indie heads shimmy at shows in Salford’s The White Hotel but also signalled the duo’s knack for offering listeners a Bandersnatch approach to hitchhiking their own personal Nightbus in whatever direction they choose to take. “Everyone can have their moment with our songs; the music is our response to who we are as young people, living in the city full of this energy right now,” they say.

Whilst reverb hefty melodies and dread-filled loops embody isolation from writing at each of their home studio set-ups, magic happens in the ether across 90s trip-hop, indie sleaze and electronica; Jake’s production layers Olive’s pop sentimentality with drums and samples whilst tales of a cast of faceless characters place Olive as puppet master; her severed self’s perspective manipulating their stringed limbs at arm’s length to see how their stories play out when scenes reflecting her own lie close to the bone. “It’s a bit fucked; like having this out of body experience with a made-up movie running through my head,” she says. “As I write I can see they’re all from a similar world, but they allow me to explore different feelings without giving away part of myself.”

Recorded at The Nave in Leeds with producer-engineer Alex Greaves (Heavy Lungs, Working Men’s Club), surprise and danger lies in every crevice. Brooding whispers turn to chants on 6-minute opus ‘Host.’ Improvised when performed live, its immersive shift in tempo leads to hefty dub courtesy of Jake’s pedals. Even then, you won’t know shit’s hit the fan until its mid-point reveal when ominous bass blasts a thunderous soundtrack as its protagonist defiantly walks away after committing the perfect crime. “It makes you wait, and more songs should have sirens,”Olive grins.

Leaning deeper into alter-egos via the video game-psychological horror of a Silent Hill dystopia, the band’s Fight Club moment ‘Angles Mortz’ turns its literal translation of death angles on its head as it reflects upon kink and internalised shame reincarnated as pride. Elsewhere the ice cool ‘Landslide’ is a Requiem for a Dream about the addiction of being in a band; ‘The Void’ explores co-dependency and estranged relationships; and carefully selected samples revive house track ‘Just A Kid’ from the band’s early incarnation. Passenger’s every direction is to face challenges head on. “That is what’s so great about horror; you can see through predictable patterns so when the unexpected occurs it's more realistic and uncomfortable... I want to own the dark stuff!” As for Passenger’s first single, the pulsating ‘Ascension’ is a spiralling deep dive into death, suicide, and legacy around who or what we leave behind. A noughties club banger by way of NYC beats - ergonomically designed for those who like to stay out a little too often and too late - it throbs like a house party’s partition wall as the literal levelling up undergoes a neon transformation; blue glitching to pink, diffusing the white construct of the Nightbus Matrix. “It really does feel like the end of something and was purposely written that way,” they say, “the ascension is like a firework going off!”

With wheels in motion, Nightbus has become a movement surpassing sonic realms. Between shows from Porto to Brighton taking in The Great Escape, Rotterdam’s Left Of The Dial and Paris’ Supersonic; DJing; remixing; guesting (BDRMM’s Microtonic album); and even enlisting talented like-minds to craft a 3-part queer coming-of-age music video series which ties in with a new ‘hyperpop’ phase in the evolution of their popular Nightbus Soundsystem club night, heads are now being turned from sports brands to high-end fashion designers. “There are things we can’t reveal just yet,” tells Olive, “but we’re excited about the direction this beast we’ve created is heading.” As the album philosophises and asks one ultimate question; what does it truly mean to be ‘Passenger’? Nightbus may not claim to offer a definitive answer, but it might make you feel a bit better about those demons.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Nightbus are the Manchester / Stockport duo Jake Cottier and Olive Rees. They burst onto the scene a few years back with a 7 inch single which could only be described as a synth-pop take on Joy Division. It flew off our shelves! Now having enlisted the skills of producer Alex Greaves (Working Men’s Club) they have matured into a sleek and classy update, for me at least, of those electro-pop maestros Ladytron.

‘Passenger’ is a shadowy voyage into the neon wilderness with propulsive beats and plenty of cinematic scope. It’s a moody immersive experience specifically for late nights or early mornings: It’s comforting whilst at the same time having more than a small dose of melancholia. The production is hypnotic with low slung grooves and 90s dance elements competing with post-punk guitars and spectral electronics. This is a dream-like world and one previously inhabited by the likes of The Cure, The XX or even Portishead.

In album standout ”Host“ Nightbus use a dub drenched soundscape with trip-hop beats to create a whole world in itself, whilst the glacial “Ascension” (featured on our Piccadilly Records 2025 compilation), simply glides and glistens in a weightless blissed out space, moving along like prime time New Order yet somehow floating, detached, above it all and beautiful. It’s a track that’s typical of the whole record really; spectral, immersive, glowing (blue, like that artwork !) and dreamlike. Welcome aboard the Nightbus.

TRACK LISTING

Side A (21.03)
1. Somewhere, Nowhere
2. Angles Mortz
3. False Prophet
4. Fluoride Stare
5. The Void
6. Ascension

Side B (21:20)
7. Just A Kid
8. Host
9. Landslide
10. Renaissance
11. 7am
12. Blue In Grey

Recorded between Los Angeles and their homes in Baltimore, 'NEVER ENOUGH' is produced by TURNSTILE’s Brendan Yates. The expansive collection is a restless and exhilarating evolution of the band’s genre-defying sound. A transformative journey, both fearless and alive, by one of the most forward-thinking and influential bands of their generation. 'NEVER ENOUGH' follows TURNSTILE’s widely celebrated album 'GLOW ON', which earned the band four GRAMMY nominations.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ethan says: With ‘NEVER ENOUGH’, Turnstile have strayed so far from any hardcore-punk formula that the world’s biggest hardcore band suddenly have their street-cred in question. But while punk fans debate semantics and decide how wide the scene’s gate should be, Turnstile are busy embracing their new-found place on the world stage.

Continuing the experimentation from 2021’s ‘Glow On’, the album that catapulted the band into the mainstream, this record adds extra flourishes to their established sound, keeping the listener thoroughly engaged. Scattered across 45 minutes are lovely Moog synths, triumphant horns, dream-pop guitars, funk-laden basslines, and even a beautiful flute solo on track “Sunshower” from Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet). Indie darlings Hayley Williams (Paramore), Dev Hynes (Blood Orange) and Faye Webster have guest vocal appearances as well, and yet the whole record is produced by the band’s very own frontman, Brendan Yates.

The punk core that defines Turnstile is still present throughout. “SOLE” features the appropriate amount of builds and breakdowns, with a brilliant fake-out ending. Likewise, “SEEIN’ STARS” and “BIRDS” form a great one-two punch on the B side, the latter being maybe the track most reminiscent of earlier Turnstile soundscapes. Across all tracks, Daniel Fang’s drumming is a constant highlight, varied yet always lively and intense.

Whether Turnstile still fits the hardcore mold is irrelevant. Becoming popular is no longer synonymous with “selling out”, and the band stay true to their values on community and social consciousness while projecting to a wider audience. Above all, Yates, Fang, McCrory, Lyons and Mills have shown the world that their band is ostensibly hardcore in the ways that matter most - their ethos, energy, and connection.

TRACK LISTING

1. Never Enough
2. Sole
3. I Care
4. Dreaming
5. Light Design
6. Dull
7. Sunshower
8. Look Out For Me
9. Ceiling
10. Seein’ Stars
11. Birds
12. Slowdive
13. Time Is Happening
14. Magic Man

Emma-Jean Thackray, the visionary producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, releases her highly anticipated second album, 'Weirdo' on April 25th via Gilles Peterson’s celebrated label, Brownswood Recordings / Parlophone Records. Known for defying musical boundaries, Thackray's latest work is a deeply personal and utterly original exploration of selfhood, grief, and gratitude.

Drawing on an eclectic mix of influences—grunge, pop, soul, p-funk, and jazz -  'Weirdo' is a triumphant celebration of survival and individuality. Written, performed, recorded, mixed, produced and arranged entirely by Thackray in her South London flat, the album stands as a testament to her extraordinary musicianship and fearless self-expression.

STAFF COMMENTS

Paul says: Emma-Jean Thackray returned in 2025 with an album that refused to be ignored. Her debut album, 'Yellow', firmly established her on the UK jazz scene, but when ‘Weirdo’ hit back in April via Gilles Peterson's label, Brownswood Recordings, the 35-year-old West Yorkshire-born bandleader revealed herself as a musical polymath and ace producer able to use “jazz language” as a basis for her eclectic multiverse of broken beat, P-funk, spiritual jazz, hip-hop, and beyond.

'Weirdo' reportedly began life in 2022, but its themes took a devastating turn after the sudden passing of her partner in January 2023. After a six-month hiatus spent playing the computer game Zelda or staring at the wall, Thackray found her way back to the music and crafted 19 songs (or just under an hour of music) that sit together as a true modern-day masterpiece. You only need to read the liner notes to find a dizzying index of the instruments played by her: trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, euphonium – along with vocals, guitar, drums, keys, production, mixing, and art direction. Her name appears in the credits 123 times!

Love and loss, death and rebirth, from reclusiveness to sociability are all covered here, but that's not to say it's a depressing journey. "Maybe Nowhere" would get any crowd swaying and dancing, and closing track "Thank You for the Day" has a classy gospel-soul bop and sublime vocal workout that channels a tangible sense of optimism.

The art work might suggest that with glamour can come disaster. But this album proves she got out of that bath, and moved onwards like a warrior.

TRACK LISTING

1. Something Wrong With Your Mind
2. Weirdo
3. Stay
4. Let Me Sleep
5. Please Leave Me Alone
6. Save Me
7. Maybe Nowhere
8. What Is The Point
9. Black Hole (feat. Reggie Watts)
10. In Your Mind
11. Tofu
12. Fried Rice
13. Where’d You Go
14. Wanna Die
15. Starting At The Wall
16. I Don’t Recognise My Hands
17. It’s Okay (feat. Kassa Overall)
18. Remedy
19. Thank You For The Day

'Lunga' is the sound of a door opening onto a pasture, fog rolling over grass as the sun rises in the distance; it is the sound of renewal, and a sense of optimism. These are glistering melodic songs, an antidote to the chaos and abrasive atmosphere of touring, and a beautiful side-step from the music that Sydney Minsky Sargeant has been recording as Working Men’s Club for the past seven years. The 12 songs that mark Lunga were written over a period of years, beginning when Minsky Sargeant was a teenager growing up in Todmorden and following a chronology to the present day. It’s a deeply personal insight and Lunga feels like a haven, a world we can all step into.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: While I've dipped in and out of Sargeant’s work in Working Men’s Club and found much to enjoy, for me the languid folk-adjacent melodies and smoothly plucked acoustic guitar of ‘Lunga’ is a much more accurate barometer of his superbly evocative writing style and inventive melodic leanings. There are echoes of the thoughtful, downtrodden alt-folk of Alexander Tucker or Nick Drake, but it’s in the slower moments that Sergeant’s songwriting talents shine through, with brittle high-passed guitars and shimmering echo atop double-tracked vocals bringing incredibly welcome comparisons to ‘Madcap’-era Barrett. It's not all woozy drifting though, the more defined moments of melodic clarity shine as brightly as anything he's ever written. It’s a wonderfully rich, inventive sound that’s completely at odds with the industrial thump of WMC, and all the better for it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. For Your Hand
3. I Don’t Wanna
4. Lisboa
5. Long Roads
6. Summer Song
7. Chicken Wire
8. Hazel Eyes
9. Lunga (Interlude)
10. A Million Flowers
11. How It Once Was
12. New Day

Everyone's favourite blackgazers Deafheaven are back with their new album 'Lonely People With Power' via their new label home, Roadrunner Records.

Recorded with producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen [St. Vincent, M83], 'Lonely People With Power' follows Deafheaven’s 2021 studio album, 'Infinite Granite', which saw the GRAMMY-nominated band charting new ground and expanding stylistic boundaries. 'On Lonely People With Power', Deafheaven again confound expectations, piling element on element, and towering towards the sky with their most ambitious release yet. Tracked at EastWest Studios, 'Lonely People With Power' includes additional vocal contributions from Jae Matthews of Boy Harsher and Paul Banks of Interpol.

The band return to the UK in June to play Manchester’s acclaimed Outbreak Fest.

STAFF COMMENTS

Fred says: ‘Lonely People With Power’ is a timely return for Deafheaven, bringing back the Blackgaze sound that let them outshine their peers and in my opinion eclipsing their modern classic ‘Sunbather’.

Over its hour-long runtime, the album mixes manic drumming and guitars that bleed noise with moments of respite created by the "Incidentals" that feature guest vocals from the likes of Paul Banks and Jae Matthews.

The final track, "The Marvelous Orange Tree" is a standout, calling back to the final track of their seminal album, ‘The Pecan Tree’, as it bounces around between the almost melodic sound of the intros of previous tracks on the album and the wall of sound that the rest of the album accompanies resulting in a satisfying finale. I do think, with this obsession they seem to have with trees, however they could have been arborists in another life.

TRACK LISTING

1. Incidental I
2. Doberman
3. Magnolia
4. The Garden Route
5. Heathen
6. Amethyst
7. Incidental II (feat. Jae Matthews)
8. Revelator
9. Body Behavior
10. Incidental III (feat. Paul Banks)
11. Winona
12. The Marvelous Orange Tree

Superior Viaduct and our new artist label, W.25TH, are proud to continue to be the home for Cindy Lee with the physical release of the celebrated album Diamond Jubilee. Universally praised, shortlisted for the 2024 Polaris Music Prize, and already hailed by Pitchfork as the 3rd best album of the 2020s, anticipation and conversation around the record has been high.

Cindy Lee is the performance and songwriting vehicle of Patrick Flegel (who previously fronted influential indie group Women). Over several albums, Flegel has combined delicate melodies and sheer beauty with moments of experimentation. With Diamond Jubilee, Flegel’s undeniable songcraft comes to the foreground, embracing a more instant connection and accessibility. Timeless tales of love and longing, surrounded by sticky hooks, take the listener on an unforgettable journey.

Diamond Jubilee was written and recorded over several years by Patrick Flegel in Toronto, Durham, Calgary and Montreal at Realis- tik Studios. The album was mixed by Steven Lind, who also contributes to several tracks and co-wrote “Baby Blue,” and was mastered by Joshua Stevenson.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Diamond Jubilee was digitally self released last year and garnered rave reviews from fans and media alike. It now finally gets a physical release through Superior Viaduct's new artist label, W.25TH. It's an absolutely sublime collection of vintage sounding pop songs, drawing on sounds and styles from the 1950's onwards: there's hint's of do-wop and soul, 60's girl groups, Velvetsy art-rock, folk and country. The pop waters are muddied with psychedelic waves at times, but for the most part it's laid back dream-pop, delivered in a sort of shimmering, otherworldy haze. You can imagine it perfectly soundtracking a David Lynch film.

It's pricey, but at 32 track and over two hours long, it's worth it. An absolute gem of a record!

Andy says: I first heard this Cindy Lee album with zero context playing on the office computer whilst I opened boxes of records. After about half an hour I began to wonder; what is this classic music and why haven’t I heard it before? Is it a compilation of great bands that for some reason didn’t make it?

It sounds like a beautifully curated hazy mixtape moving through doo-wop, sixties pop, girl groups, psych rock, indie pop, synth pop and even dislocated disco! I started to imagine it was the haunted soundtrack to some long lost David Lynch film, playing on a lonely old medium wave radio in a deserted house on a quiet and still street. This wistful sound felt warped, fractured, brokenly lo-fi yet sophisticatedly arranged, sweet yet macabre and with a deep sense of longing laced throughout. It was the best thing I’d heard in a long time!

Welcome to the mysterious world of Cindy Lee; the alter ego of Canadian maestro Patrick Flegel. Six years in the making and featuring 32 tracks spanning two hours of music, this could be your most exciting (and exotic!) musical discovery of 2025. It certainly was mine!

TRACK LISTING

1. Diamond Jubilee
2. Glitz
3. Baby Blue
4. Dreams Of You
5. All I Want Is You
6. Dallas
7. Olive Drab
8. Always Dreaming
9. Wild One
10. Flesh And Blood
11. Le Machiniste Fantome
12. Kingdom Come
13. Demon Bitch 3
14. I Have My Doubts
15. Til Polarity’s End
16. Realistik Heaven
17. Stone Faces
18. GAYBLEVISION
19. Dracula
20. Lockstepp
21. Government Cheque
22. Deepest Blue
23. To Heal The Wounded Heart
24. Golden Microphone
25. If You Hear Me Crying
26. Darling Of The Diskoteque
27. Don’t Tell Me I’m Wrong
28. What’s It Going To Take
29. Wild Rose
30. Durham City Limit
31. Crime Of Passion
32. 24/7 Heaven

Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell’s third solo album pinball wanderer is an otherworldly collection of intergalactic wizardry that mixes psychedelic melodies, Can-via-The Stone Roses grooves and Arthur Russell-style experimental textures.

With guest appearances from Dot Allison and Neu! legend Michael Rother on a cover of The Passions’ peerless post-punk classic ‘I’m In Love With A German Film Star’, it is perfect for both deep-listening headphones moments and cutting across the coolest, most understated dancefloors.

The loose-limbed rhythm tracks were the starting point and were laid down with the help of Andy’s old Oasis bandmate Gem Archer. The rest followed after an intense all-night session last summer, with the completed album being delivered the following morning. It’s Andy’s finest work to date; a quintessential nighttime record where you can slip through the gaps in the notes and revel in the moment.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: We’re big fans of all things Bell in the shop, Ride (obviously) and Oasis are common on the shop stereo so of course we’re always going to be super excited about a new one from the great Andy Bell. Turns out as well that not only does Manchester love Andy Bell, Andy Bell loves Manchester too with the swaggering Rosesy sound of “Apple Green UFO” more than a little reminiscent of the baggy groove we all know so well.

It doesn’t stop there either, we get soaring synthy bliss and stabs of saturated arpeggios swirling beneath echoic vocals and deep bass throbs, resulting in an album that’s as uniquely danceable and warmly comforting as anything he’s ever done. A perfectly engineered, impeccably curated selection of grooves from one of the most chameleonic and talented musicians in the game.

TRACK LISTING

Panic Attack
I’m In Love…
Madder Lake Deep
Apple Green Ufo
Pinball Wanderer
Music Concrete
The Notes You Never Hear
Space Station Mantra
I’m In Love… (Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s Remix) – CD Only
I’m In Love… (GLOK Remix) - CD Only
I’m In Love… (Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s Dub) - CD Only

Dev Hynes AKA Blood Orange releases his first album in 6 years- 'Essex Honey'.

Written, produced, and recorded by Hynes, 'Essex Honey' is a soundtrack created from a dreamscape of his journey working through grief. It is also an album about growing up in Essex and the way music has inspired, healed, and interwoven itself through Hynes’ life.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: It’s been six long years but Blood Orange has dropped something worth holding out for, ‘Essex Honey’ fixes that gaping absence of new music from the incredibly talented, Dev Hynes. The album holds those trademark feelings, iconic piano arrangements, but mostly there is hauntingly beautiful vocals which leaves an emotional rippling effect throughout.

The track “Mind Loaded” set part of the internet alight, the collaboration between Lorde, Caroline Polachek & Mustafa has been fulfilled and it’s magnificent. The vocals reach an ethereal level, and not to mention the Elliott Smith reference.

Exploring themes of grief and growing up in England, Hynes’ introspective song writing will always be emotive and soulful. It feels as though Dev Hynes can almost tap into a nostalgia or feeling you didn’t know you had, that’s the Blood Orange effect.

TRACK LISTING

TBA

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Little Simz returns with Lotus which she describes as her ‘most personal album to date’. It’s a heart on its sleeve collection of songs, at times angry, at others reflective. The raw emotion kicks straight in on opening track ‘Thief’, which may or may not address the breakdown of her friendship with producer Inflo. A subject which has obviously impacted the album massively, not just emotionally and lyrically but production wise too. Themes of loss, anger, paranoia and grief are all covered and she’s diverted her rage into creating yet another absolute killer album. Where her previous two albums were all lush cinematic production and sweeping strings, this time around there’s a more contained sound: a darker, brooding intensity that’s powerful and provides the perfect space for Simbi’s smart, witty and incisive flow. With the help of a whole host of guest collaborators, she’s really spread her musical wings this time around too. The previously mentioned ‘Thief’ is a direct, pounding rocker (yes really!), while collaborations with Obongjayar are infused with afrobeat, There’s a 70s soul-funk vibe to ‘Free’ and ‘Enough’ reminds me of late periods Specials: a playful funky groover with snappy drums. Both Michael Kiwanuka and Sampha’s soulful vocals prove the perfect foil for her rage on ‘Lotus’ and stunning album closer ‘Blue’ respectively. Other standout tracks include ‘Blood’, a conversation between siblings that is an amazingly perceptive look at family dynamics and ‘Hollow’ which again (possibly) addresses the breakdown of her relationship with Inflo and perhaps deliberately is the most like the feel of her previous albums full of lush strings and cherubic backing vocals. It’s an absolutely stunning album and Simbi once again proves that she is one of the greatest artists of her generation.

The Pool represents Apta's most focused and compelling release to date. Based on the transformative plunge of a psychedelic experience, it maps both tentative footsteps into the unknown and euphoric, melodic bliss. Recorded using a combination of modular synthesis, Arp Odyssey, bass, guitar, Elektron grooveboxes and (for the first time in Apta's recorded history) a hint of vocals. There are wisps of melody from the outset, woven through skittering modular synths and saturated bass guitar. But it's on the post-rock indebted 'Shiver' and follower 'Awash' that Apta's distinctive mix of ambient music and flourishing melody take the fore. We also get some more off-piste excursions, widening the boundaries of Apta's already diverse sound and resulting in an album that falls somewhere in the middle ground between post-rock, pop ambient and kosmische. Though there are definitely echoes of that pristine production aesthetic that has defined Apta's sound to date, there are a lot more layers involved, with both gritty percussion and analogue distortion playing a much more significant role, echoing the waves of emotion involved in the tryptamine plunge, and resulting in a stylistically varied, but familiar experience. 'The Pool' is both surprising and intriguing, richly layered but undeniably melodic, and has found it's perfect home on Castles In Space.

Barry Smethurst expands: "The Pool' to me feels like the sort of album that epitomises what I'm trying to do with my music, influenced by melody-laiden electronica and guitar-led post rock while sounding like neither. I've always felt that it would be nice to have another layer to my compositions (a minor key here or there) and some less upbeat pieces, and I think the theme of the LP works perfectly as a parallel, with both moments of sublime joy and flickers of the intimidating unknown coming together. The album was 'Finished' just before I got the Arp Odyssey, so was originally a lot less Arp heavy, but because the noise oscillator mix of the synth works perfectly with the saturated haze of the LP as a whole, I went back and recorded a load of tracks to add it in."

Castles in Space are delighted to be releasing this beautiful and euphoric album as their first release of 2025. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Apta’s latest libation has been a long time brewing. He released his first E.P. back in 2011 - for context, David Cameron was prime minister, the UK was still happily part of the E.U. and pandemics were the stuff of history lessons and disaster movies. So much has changed since, not least in Apta’s sonic world, although in this case those developments have not been jarring, each new iteration building on the fertile ground of the former; this being the most complete realisation of his creative vision to date.

“The Pool” is a sympathetic expression of psychedelic experience through music, with accents of post-rock, kosmische, Icelandic glitch popsters Múm and even folk inflexions adding texture to a modular electronic core. For the first time in his recorded history there are even vocals (hushed mind you, and only on the one song, the gorgeous drift of “Emerge”).

Yes, it’s taken 14 years to get to this point, but it’s definitely been worth the wait - and infinitely more welcome than some things I could think of.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sink
2. Shivers
3. Awash
4. One Foot
5. MLT
6. Meniscus
7. Dive
8. The Depths
9. Emerge
10. Breathe

After nearly 20 years making music, there are few bands who’ve created a canon as determinedly innovative and consistently critically-acclaimed as The Horrors. Emerging as zeitgeist-shaking garage-goths on their 2007 debut ‘Strange House’, before taking a sharp left turn for their Mercury-nominated follow up ‘Primary Colours’, since the beginning they’ve roamed freely between genres. 2011’s ‘Skying’ won the NME Award for Best Album; ‘V’ was heralded as “a triumph” in a five-star Guardian review, while 2021’s pair of EPs - ‘Lout’ and ‘Against The Blade’ - marked a new chapter with their most industrial, uncompromising output yet.

Whilst the end results have changed, however, at their core has always been the same unbending commitment and bloody-minded allegiance to the cause. The Horrors are not and will never be a band that approach the job lightly. They’re musicians who’ll funnel everything they are into the process, at the expense of health, wealth and sometimes sanity. And so, whilst sixth album ‘Night Life’ sees the band once more shapeshift into a new form, with a new sonic outlook and - this time - a new line up, in some ways The Horrors are still as they ever were.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: There aren't many other bands that have been as consistently present in my life over the last 20 years as The Horrors. I vividly remember the big hair and the raucous live shows that accompanied their debut in 2007; but with every release they changed (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) and with every release they matured (and so did I!) And while I didn't love every new album immediately, those I initially disliked are now among my all-time favourites. In a way, it feels like The Horrors, like a big brother who has seen the world, ready to pass on their wisdom, were showing me the way during my arguably most formative years. The haunting ‘Night Life', more industrial and electronic than its predecessor, has also been a grower, but it wouldn't be The Horrors if they didn't manage to convince me that it was time for them to move on - and that it was worth it! Here's to the next 20 years.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Ariel
2. Silent Sister
3. The Silence That Remains
4. Trial By Fire
5. The Feeling Is Gone

SIDE B
6. Lotus Eater
7. More Than Life
8. When The Rhythm Breaks
9. L.A. Runaway 

Following on from his 2022 LP 'Mr Morale & the Big Steppers', an album of introspection that stripped back the layers of Kendrick's personal life, 2024 saw Kendrick embroiled in a very public beef with Drake. With multiple back-and-forth jabs between the two, albeit it being pretty one-sided in Lamar's favour and the now Grammy-award winning 'Not Like Us' taking the spotlight, the dust settled and Kendrick surprise-dropped 'GNX'. And, whilst there's no tracks from the feud featured on the LP, the sentiment still looms over the album.

As for the album itself, 'GNX' is Lamar's most West Coast sounding album to date. Being born and raised in Compton, Kendrick incorporates elements of G-funk throughout and includes a plethora of the West Coast's most up-and-coming MCs.

Lyrically once again Lamar shines with themes of self-worth and the role of art challenging the status quo and systemic oppression, whilst also examining and deconstructing what it means to be considered by many as the best in hip-hop right now (or possibly ever). It's all incredibly impressive stuff, just also happens that every track is a banger.

A generational talent, Kendrick is yet to make a misstep and 'GNX' further cements his trajectory of being the greatest of all time. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Ethan says: On ‘GNX’, Kendrick Lamar trades his saviour image and bold messages for an eloquent victory lap in his new black Grand National. This joyride is, of course, in the wake of one of hip-hop’s most notorious beefs - the one between Lamar and industry sweetheart Drake. This major pop culture event forms the subtext of the record, as a focal point is celebrating Lamar’s connection to his hometown and culture (something he criticised Drake’s lack of). Grounded firmly in the West Coast sound, Lamar lowers the ladder back into the scene, giving newcomers like Dody6 and YoungThreat moments in the spotlight. ‘GNX’ also sees Lamar having more obvious fun in the studio compared to past works. DJ Mustard-produced “TV Off” is a notable example, with a section where Lamar screams the producer’s name, while “Peekaboo” retains Lamar’s goofy delivery from his work with Baby Keem. “Reincarnated” also celebrates black musicians and learning from history. Bouncy, playful and passionate, Lamar sounds freer than ever behind the wheel.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wacced Out Murals
2. Squabble Up
3. Luther
4. Man At The Garden
5. Hey Now
6. Reincarnated
7. TV Off
8. Dodger Blue
9. Peekaboo
10. Heart Pt. 6
11. GNX
12. Gloria

‘Tuff Times Never Last’ is a spirited and vibrant collection of songs serving as an optimistic reminder to tightly hold and embrace the many dualities that occur in life. Over the course of the 11-song suite, the album explores togetherness, community, sensuality, childhood, loss and above all perseverance.

Initially drawing inspiration from a viral social media meme, co-bandleader Onome Edgeworth said of the title’s origins and meaning: “It’s true! Although we’re reflecting on joy and celebration, you realize that a lot of that beauty comes out of challenges and difficulties. It felt like a natural truth that we discovered whilst writing”.

The accompanying artwork was painted by Luci Pina, the acclaimed illustrator whose work has been sought and commissioned by the likes of The Cut, Soho House, DICE, Apple Music and It’s Nice That. Embedded within the image is Kokoroko’s ode to London in the summer. Speaking on its design, co-bandleader Sheila Maurice-Grey said: “The remit was summer in London, family and sense of everyone being in a congregation-like audience, and us being the musicians”.

The artwork’s imagery and colour was inspired by feelings of innocence and nostalgia - coming of age in London and those rare summer nights where everything felt full of hope. The cityscape also pays homage to Spike Lee’s 1994 film ‘Crookyln’ and Rick Famuyiwa’s 1999 opus ‘The Wood’. The band saw these movies as heartwarming representations of black family, community and resilience that served as a balm for them as Londoners. Speaking further on this, co-bandleader Onome Edgeworth said: “‘Crooklyn’ is very emotional, but also very uplifting. It felt like how I grew up. This album is us sharing our own feelings, hopes and dreams. We didn’t always have those stories in the UK”

Three years on from their debut album ‘Could We Be More’ which peaked at No.30 on the UK Albums Chart and received acclaim from The Guardian, The Telegraph, Financial Times, Jazzwise, CRACK Magazine and Downbeat Magazine, ‘Tuff Times Never Last’ sees the London band with careless abandon expand their wide-ranging palette and influences.

While the afrobeat jazz of their previous work is still a core part of the record’s sonic design, the new album largely pulls from British R&B from the 80s, neo-soul, West African disco, bossa nova, lovers rock and funk. Sonically taking cues from the likes of Loose Ends, Don Blackman, Common, Sly & Robbie, William Onyeabor, Patrice Rushen, Ofori Amponsah and Cymande. Throughout this instinctive evolution, the septet's seasoned musicianship preserves the essence of who Kokoroko are as masterful jazz artisans.

Speaking on the band’s progression in sound, co-bandleader Sheila Maurice-Grey said: “Innately, we’re jazz musicians but we've tried not to kind of box ourselves into one sound. So there is a level of freedom we're starting to feel. We want to continue being as creative as possible without feeling any boundaries”.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Kokoroko’s second studio album ‘Tuff Times Never Last’ is a literal message, a beautiful dose of optimism, joy and that resilience with the help of music and community, it might just all be ok in the end - if not better.

You can really get the sense that the 8-piece band have grown their sound from more Afrobeat jazz, to being influenced by soul, R&B, bossa nova and quite a range more. The progression of their style feels like an organic movement into this new chapter and I’m all for it. Vibrant, emotive, almost as though a snapshot of Summer 2025.

“Never Lost” has got to be my favourite track from the album, the harmonies they reach, the emotions it evokes, it really encapsulates the feeling of golden sunshine on your face. The album holds the sentiment that, with the people closest to you held tightly, it’s true, good times are only around the corner.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Never Lost
A2 Sweetie
A3 Closer To Me
A4 My Father In Heaven
A5 Idea 5 (Call My Name) [feat. LULU.]
A6 Three Piece Suit (feat. Azekel)
B1 Time And Time (feat. Demae)
B2 Da Du Dah
B3 Together We Are
B4 Just Can’t Wait
B5 Over / Reprise

Mogwai’s “The Bad Fire” was recorded at Chem19 studios in Scotland with American Grammy Award winning producer John Congleton (St Vincent, Angel Olsen, John Grant) joining the band in the studio for their eleventh album. A Scottish colloquialism for Hell, The Bad Fire draws inspiration from a series of tough personal moments that the band found themselves in following on from their chart-topping tenth album, As The Love Continues. All vinyl comes packaged in a gatefold sleeve, with MP3 download code and etching. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'd find it hard to say anything bad about a Mogwai album for two reasons. Firstly, I *LOVE* Mogwai, so it would feel wrong. Secondly, they're one of the greatest bands in the world and thus i'm convinced they'll never make anything less than astounding. The Bad Fire is thematically, visually and aurally impeccable. Beautiful, climactic crushing post-rock with bags of melody.

TRACK LISTING

1. God Gets You Back
2. Hi Chaos
3. What Kind Of Mix Is This?
4. Fanzine Made Of Flesh
5. Pale Vegan Hip Pain
6. If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some Of The Others
7. 18 Volcanoes
8. Hammer Room
9. Lion Rumpus
10. Fact Boy

Eusexua is a state of being. A feeling of momentary transcendence often evoked by art, music, sex, and unity. Eusexua can be followed by a state of bliss and feelings of limitless possibility. Also used to refer to: ‘The pinnacle of Human Experience’. It is united through any moment in which we are fully embodying ourselves, present in the moment, disconnected from technology, synthesized with those around us. It was moments of Eusexua that birthed 'EUSEXUA' the album, as twigs cites her late nights in the underground techno scene of Prague.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jagged, glitchy pop music and euphoric, trance flavoured minimalistic electronica, both phasing in and out beneath the sometimes haunting, often ethereal vocal passages. Perfectly crafted, constantly moving and drawing influence from all over the musical spectrum.

TRACK LISTING

Eusexua
Girl Feels Good
Perfect Stranger
Drums Of Death
Room Of Fools
Sticky
Keep It, Hold It
Childlike Things
Striptease
24hr Dog
Wanderlust

Its creation led by pure emotion, Cate Le Bon’s seventh record 'Michelangelo Dying' usurped the album she thought she was making. The product of all-consuming heartache, her feelings overrode her reluctance to write an album about love, and in the process became a kind of exorcism. What emerges is a wonderfully iridescent attempt to photograph a wound before it closes up — but which in doing so, picks at it too.

Musically, there is a continuation and expansion of a sound — a machine with a heart — that has taken shape over her last two records (2019’s 'Reward' and 2022’s 'Pompeii') as Le Bon has increasingly taken control of the playing and producing herself. As guitars and saxophones are pushed through pedals and percussion and voices are fed through filters, an iridescent, green and silky sound emerges, with flashes of the artistic singularities of David Bowie, Nico, John McGeoch and Laurie Anderson surfacing and disappearing below the waterline throughout.

What we’re left with is an ever-changing, continuous entity, a kind of song cycle. Each iteration reflects and progresses the last, “each one a shard of the same broken mirror” — shifting, glinting, concealing and revealing, depending on how it is turned in the light. There are ultimately, Cate asserts, “No revelations. No conclusions. There is no reason. There is repetition and chaos. I eventually allowed myself a vacant mind to experience it without resistance and without searching fora revelation or order to any of it.”

An exercise in the viscerality of life, of love, of humanity for both listener and artist, 'Michelangelo Dying' knows what it is to hold, to be held, and to be exquisitely, profoundly alone. “The characters are interchangeable” concludes Cate, “but at the end of it all, it’s me meeting myself.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Le Bon's 'Michelangelo Dying' takes all of the bright, angular melodicism we've come to know from albums like Reward or Crab Day, and hides it beneath a shroud of swirling chorus and deep reverb. Like listening to perfect indie-pop under the surface of the sea. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

1. Jerome
2. Love Unrehearsed
3. Mothers Of Riches
4. Is It Worth It (HappyBirthday)?
5. Pieces Of My Heart
6. About Time
7. Heaven Is No Feeling
8. Body As A River
9. Ride (featuring John Cale)
10. I Know What's Nice

Some Like It Hot is a 1959 film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon about a group of rogue musicians on the adventure path. It is funny, sexy, rambunctious and evergreen – a showcase of a triple-threat cast at full-throttle. Some Like It Hot is also the new album by London three-piece bar italia  – and certain parallels are perhaps not accidental. It pulses with romance, intrigue, self-discovery and rapture over lustful rockers, spellbinding folk pop, punch-drunk ballads and undefinable moments that sneak up on you like a burst of 5pm sunshine. The record is the culmination of the joint world of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton – three singer-songwriters who have transcended their underground roots to embrace a bold, widescreen horizon.

The synergy of this three-way blunt rotation is embedded in the trio’s DNA. Cristante brings a studied actors’ sensibility to vocals ranging from honeyed (the aforementioned ‘Marble Arch’) to hell-bent and possessed (‘rooster’). Fehmi ranges from airy, brooding baritone (‘Lioness’) to mic-chewing megaphone histrionics (‘omni shambles’). Fenton, a wispy tenor, can veer between mystical melodicism and soaring blue-eyed soul within the same 8 bars (‘Plastered’).

The cultivation of their sound, from early homespun recordings like hand drawn sketches (the band presented an exhibition of their drawings in 2023) into the ceiling-wide brush strokes of Some Like It Hot, was chiselled via a relentless writing and touring schedule. When bar italia emerged in 2023 from an underground following to release two critically acclaimed albums on Matador only several months apart – the poised Tracey Denim and the grand The Twits – they were a shy, eye-contact-avoiding band, starting sets in darkness and just as soon disappearing backstage. They spent the next two years traversing the globe, with headline performances from Istanbul to Tokyo, sold-out multi-night stints in New York and Los Angeles, and festivals including Corona Capital, Glastonbury and Coachella. With over 160 shows worldwide across 2023-2024, they dispelled any mystique by becoming an exhibitionist and muscular five-piece that gives multiple encores – equally comfortable at festival mosh-pit incitement and moments of pin-drop intimacy.

Some Like It Hot is telling of this journey: a collection of rock songs voraciously embracing the main stage. The lightning choruses of ‘omni shambles’ and ‘Eyepatch’ show a band who have mastered melding their idiosyncrasies into tightly coiled pop songs. A pining for tangibility abounds: “just show me the face that you've been trying to hide”, Fenton opines on the Balkan-tinged waltz of ‘bad reputation’. Other songs surrender to abandon wholesale: “I was lost to the world from the moment we kissed”, Fenton sings on ‘rooster’, while on the 12-string new wave majesty of ‘Lioness’, Fehmi states, “You have no idea what I can do for you when I’m in this mood”.

bar italia have married their serious and heartfelt subject matter with a joy in showmanship. These are songs that twist their quirks into huge choruses, and find elevation in tension, playing with self-identity, emotion and performance until the lines blur. That 1959 Hollywood classic from which the album takes its name ends with the immortal line: “Well, nobody’s perfect.” This, however, comes pretty close.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Wonderfully clever, dynamic rock music that grows and twists around a solid melodic core. As ever, the band's vocal interplay is key, and results in an album as interesting as it is melodic and enjoyable.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fundraiser
2. Marble Arch
3. Bad Reputation
4. Cowbella
5. I Make My Own Dust
6. Plastered
7. Rooster
8. The Lady Vanishes
9. Lioness
10. Omni Shambles
11. Eyepatch
12. Some Like It Hot

moisturizer is the bold, second album from Wet Leg, the Isle of Wight five-piece founded by Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers. Joined by Ellis Durand, Henry Holmes, and Joshua Mobaraki, Wet Leg has spent the past few years on the road, evolving into a feral, electrifying live force. This new record captures that energy, delivering a sound that’s tighter, bolder, and more self-assured, yet still brimming with the same quick wit and raw, unrefined energy.

Isolated in a remote house in the countryside, moisturizer was written in a creative frenzy, diving into themes of obsession and all-consuming love. While their 2022 debut earned Grammy wins and chart-topping success, moisturizer brings the bite: brash guitars, heavy beats, and a fearless devotion to feeling everything—all at once.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The 'difficult' second album from the meteorically popular, Obama-approved Wet Leg sees the Isle of Wight duo pushing their sound further into the territory of off-kilter jangling indie, shining with melodic streaks and soaring choruses. Their humour and understated songwriting shine through too, with moments of wry self-deprecation commonplace among the melodic maelstrom. It's brilliant, and shows a band that aren't slowing down for anyone.

TRACK LISTING

1. CPR
2. Liquidize
3. Catch These Fists
4. Davina Mccall
5. Jennifer's Body
6. Mangetout
7. Pond Song
8. Pokemon
9. Pillow Talk
10. Don’t Speak
11. 11:21
12. U And Me At Home

Earl Sweatshirt, acclaimed rapper, producer and one of hip-hop’s most uncompromising voices, has been a defining creative force for over a decade. His lyricism and singular vision have earned him critical acclaim, a devoted global following and a Grammy nomination for his contribution to Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange. Known for pushing boundaries and reshaping underground rap, Earl continues to evolve with each release.

He now returns with Live Laugh Love, his most expansive and conceptually ambitious project to date. Rooted in themes of wellness, growth and the philosophy behind its title, the album reflects Earl’s current way of life, choosing joy while staying grounded in truth. Across 11 tracks, he folds in irony, nostalgia and sharp observation, creating a body of work that embraces life’s contradictions: joy alongside darkness, levity alongside gravity.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ethan says: An optimistic outing from Earl Sweatshirt this time! Full of his trademark experimental jazz sampling, abstract beats, and loose unorthodox flows, while also being concise and straight to the point. Class!

TRACK LISTING

1. Gsw Vs Sac
2. FORGE
3. INFATUATION
4. Gamma (need The <3)
5. WELL DONE!
6. Live
7. Static
8. CRISCO
9. TOURMALINE
10. Heavy Metal Aka Ejecto Seato!
Exhaust

GoGo Penguin, the Manchester trio that has inspirationally blended jazz, classical, and electronic influences since forming in 2012, has reached a thrilling moment with their new album, 'Necessary Fictions'.

This release finds pianist Chris Illingworth, bassist Nick Blacka, and drummer Jon Scott digging deep internally to reach their integral and authentic qualities at this moment in time. This entails some of their boldest moves to date, such as incorporating modular synthesizers into their sound more than ever before. For the first time, GoGo Penguin expanded their familiar three-man formation to invite guest players, including the Manchester Collective led by creative director and violinist Rakhi Singh. Additionally, 'Forgive The Damages' features the debut appearance of a human voice on a GoGo Penguin recording, belonging to singer-songwriter Daudi Matsiko.

All told, 'Necessary Fictions' is an album of ambitious fresh developments from a band fully at ease with who they are: confident enough to open the door to collaboration, excited about where they can explore next, and keen to have fun doing so.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Formerly one of the only bands even slightly jazz-adjacent i'd consider myself a fan of, Gogo Penguin ooze non-frantic, languid and easy. All of this while retaining the sort of impeccable frenetic musicianship and effortlessly beautiful developmental songwriting we've become used to from them. It's impeccable, and it's pretty and it looks *stunning* too. Essential.

TRACK LISTING

1. Umbra
2. Fallowfield Loops
3. Forgive The Damages (feat. Daudi Matsiko)
4. What We Are And What We Are Meant To Be
5. Background Hiss Reminds Me Of Rain
6. The Turn Within
7. Living Bricks In Dead Mortar
8. Naga Ghost
9. Luminous Giants (feat. Rakhi Singh And Manchester Collective)
10. Float (Loi Krathong, 2003)
11. State Of Flux (feat. Manchester Collective)
12. Silence Speaks

Colombian producer and singer Ela Minus' 2020 debut acts of rebellion, felt intentionally small, as if pounding inside the club with late-night reverie, 'DIA' is both introspective and expansive, the wide sweep of its songs revealing more of Ela as person and producer than ever before.

'DIA' is a record about becoming, from a process that entailed self-discovery at a deliberate pace to songs that seem to collectively ask where we go from here, long after we’ve been broken but long before we intend to be broken forever. Throughout the 10 songs, mixed by Marta Salogni and mastered by Heba Kadry, the same team behind acts of rebellion, Ela seems to saddle a line between worlds of pop accessibility and experimental aplomb, her incandescent choruses always surrounded by meticulous and imaginative sonics. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Perfectly penned, cathartic synth-pop that's as beautifully produced as it is danceable, with echoes of Christine & the Queens, Georgia and Kelly Lee Owens but with a unique, main-room dancefloor drive. Unbelievably powerful, arm-waving euphoria throughout.

TRACK LISTING

1. Abrir Monte
2. Broken
3. Idols
4. IDK
5. QQQQ
6. I Want To Be Better
7. Onwards
8. And
9. Upwards
10. Combay

It’s A Beautiful Place opens with zero-gravity instrumental ‘One Small Step’ – a fitting prelude for what is one giant leap for New York duo Water From Your Eyes. The album is a gleaming megalopolis, a satellite view of eras and musical forms, a reframing of the y2k songbook that is at once awe-struck and mindful of its place in the vastness. “It ended up being about time, dinosaurs and space,” says Nate Amos. “We wanted to present a wide range of styles in a way that acknowledges everything’s just a tiny blip.”

The duo recorded the bulk of It’s A Beautiful Place last summer, just as they have every other WFYE release: in Amos’s bedroom. But this time, much of the writing and recording were shaped around the dynamics of a full-blooded live group: “When you’re playing with a band you tend to write with one in mind - this was the first time I wrote anything for WFYE imagining us playing anywhere bigger than a basement,” he observes.

Throughout the album is a clear sense of a band who have honed their curveballs into home runs. Looming and melancholy, wide-eyed and petrified, it’s Blade Runner meets WALL-E, it’s Kubrick and Asimov with a hint of Jay and Silent Bob. These are songs that look outward, conscious of our smallness and questioning our place in the universe while admiring the surrounding beauty.

“A song can feel like everything, communicating vast emotional landscapes,” says Amos, “but your favorite album is less important than any person. That person is less interesting than any mountain. That mountain is boring compared to any planet. That planet is only a part of a solar system. If music and all other human practices are meaningless on a cosmic scale why does it still feel so important?”

“One of the most exciting bands out there right now.” Rolling Stone.

“There’s a lot of beauty to be found in the scatterbrained mayhem.” Stereogum.

“Excellent” The New York Times.

“Thrilling” The Guardian.

“WFYE are one of the most interesting acts in music these days.” Under the Radar.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Water From Your Eyes forge a sort of noise that could result in me trying to describe song after song in an endless stream of genre descriptions, but it would do no good. You need to hear it. Mad avant indie, jagged math rock and arty psychedelia, and the rest.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
One Small Step
Life Sings
Nights In Armor
Born 2
You Don’t Believe In God?

Side B
Spaceship
Playing Classics
It’s A Beautiful Place
Blood On The Dollar
For Mankind

It’s almost inconceivable that it’s only five years since the arrival of CMAT, as she approaches the release of her third album, 'EURO-COUNTRY'. This BRITs / Mercury / Ivors-nominated acronymic star feels like she’s been part of the culture forever - and what has endeared fans to her heart-sore tunes and humour is CMAT's ability to combine contradictory themes and moods: wide-eye drama with self-deprecation.

Country music has always been a lynchpin for CMAT, but this is country in an augmented, reimagined way. Mixed with classic indie and affirmative soul-pop, it resists the music industry’s desire to pigeonhole artists as one genre.

Not only is there a palpable tonal shift, 'EURO-COUNTRY' also feels like a huge step-up creatively. There is a sense of determination, of urgency, of ‘gather round and listen up’. From re-evaluating where you come from (geographically, metaphorically) and the impact of economics on a small country, to the attention that comes with increased fame (not all of it good) and being a woman in the music industry.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A chameleonic jaunt through indie-pop, country and psychedelic rock with the inimitable CMAT, building on her already solid reputation as one of the most innovative musicians in the arena. If anything, Euro-Country manages to push these boundaries even further without compromising on her ability to tell a tale with humour and skill. Another future classic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Billy Byrne From Ballybrack, The Leader Of The Pigeon Convoy
2. EURO-COUNTRY
3. When A Good Man Cries
4. The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station
5. Tree Six Foive
6. Take A Sexy Picture Of Me
7. Ready
8. Iceberg
9. Coronation St.
10. Lord, Let That Tesla Crash
11. Running/Planning
12. Janis Joplining 

F.G.S.–the musical project of Los Angeles artist Flannery Silva–announces the first-ever vinyl release of her debut album ‘Tinker Bell’s Cough’, arriving May 27 via Scenic Route. Alongside the release comes a new single, ‘The Punisher (Tinker Bell’s Edit)’, and an exclusive vinyl-only live track, ‘Passions (Live at Tinker Bell’s Clubhouse)’.

Co-created with musician and producer Chase Ceglie, ‘Tinker Bell’s Cough’ is a surreal Americana record that filters the language of girlhood, heartbreak, and fantasy through a warped, theatrical lens. It’s Lana Del Rey meets David Berman in a cartoon whirlwind, with traces of Dolly Parton, Arthur Russell, and David Lynch.

Silva describes the record as “fairy tale theatre”. It’s packed with alt-universe country hits (‘Beth’s Deth’, ‘American Shield’), uncanny ballads (‘I’m Growing A Cross Around My Neck’), and leftfield pop songs rooted in character and place. ‘Passions’, the opening track, was inspired by Mary MacLane’s ‘I Await the Devil’s Coming’, while the title track imagines Tinker Bell herself singing a lullaby to God.

New single ‘The Punisher’ is an anthemic road song about loneliness and transcendence. “It’s about driving north on I-5 in California, worrying my car will overheat, bargaining with God, and falling in love with dust tornados,” Silva says.

Raised in the woods of upstate New York and formerly one half of the cult duo Odwalla88, Silva brings a visual artist’s sensibility to music. She studied art in Baltimore and continues to make sculpture and performance work that informs her songwriting. ‘Tinker Bell’s Cough’ was written on the Rhode Island coast, where she and Ceglie met weekly to write and record—drawing from old texts, visual references, and poetry.

F.G.S. has drawn praise from NTS, The FADER, Gorilla vs. Bear, The Line of Best Fit, Artforum, Sex Magazine, and more. With the reissue of ‘Tinker Bell’s Cough’ and the release of ‘The Punisher’, Silva continues to expand the strange, magnetic world of F.G.S., one that feels both deeply American and entirely her own.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The ketamine-fueled, make-believe love child of Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey debuts on taste-making imprint Scenic Route for a fairy tale of disassociation and lost American dreams.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Passions
A2. Tinker Bell’s Cough
A3. Beth’s Death
A4. Buck Blood
B1. American Shield
B2. Fairuza’s Theme
B3. I’m Growing A Cross Around My Neck
B4. The Punisher
B5. Passions (Live At Tinker Bell’s Clubhouse)

“I think this is the best thing we've ever done, it's a proper step up.” It’s immediately clear that the Hull band have broken new ground on Microtonic. “The last album was essentially like a bridge between the two albums,” the band say of 2023’s I Don’t Know. “With that one we knew what we were trying to do but with this one we've fully cracked it.”

Bdrmm’s trademark sound hasn’t disappeared by any means, the band's more guitar-heavy beginnings a blueprint and influence on many of the groups breaking through in the here and now, a time when shoegaze is enjoying its strongest revival since its inception in the 80s, but those guitars are now incorporated into a broader, more expansive and varied sonic palette.

"Microtonic", recorded with long-term band collaborator Alex Greaves, features guest appearances from Working Men's Club and Olivesque of Nightbus.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: BDRMM aren't exactly afraid of pushing boundaries, and earned a lot more fans with their last LP 'Standard Tuning'. This time, the Hull foursome smash through a series of beautifully produced pieces, packed with industrial synths and woozy floating pads, shoegaze tentativeness and electronic bombast.

TRACK LISTING

1 Goit (featuring Working Men’s Club)
2 John On The Ceiling
3 Infinity Peaking
4 Snares
5 In The Electric Field (featuring Olivesque)
6 Microtonic
7 Clarkycat
8 Sat In The Heat
9 Lake Disappointment
10 The Noose

Cutthroat is shame at their blistering best. An unapologetic new album with Grammy winning producer John Congleton at the helm; it’s souped up and supercharged. It’s exactly where you want shame to be. Still in their twenties, the five childhood friends - Charlie Steen, guitarists Sean Coyle-Smith and Eddie Green, bassist Josh Finerty and drummer Charlie Forbes - have grown Shame exponentially, with ambitious sonic ideas and the technical chops to execute them. Having proved themselves several times over with legendary live shows and three critically-acclaimed albums under their belts, Shame went into Cutthroat ready to create a new Ground Zero. “This is about who we are,” says Steen. “Our live shows aren’t performance art - they’re direct, confrontational and raw. That’s always been the root of us. We live in crazy times. But it’s not about ‘Poor me.’ It’s about ‘Fuck you’.” Crucial to this incendiary new outlook was producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen). From their initial meeting, Congleton’s no-bullshit approach became a guiding force to streamline the band’s ideas.

Stamped throughout with Shame’s trademark sense of humour, the album takes on the big issues of today and gleefully toys with them. Casting a merciless eye on themes of conflict and corruption; hunger and desire; lust, envy and the omnipresent shadow of cowardice. Musically, too, the record plays with visceral new ideas. Making electronic music on tour for fun, Coyle-Smith had previously seen the loops he was crafting as a separate entity to the things he wrote for Shame. Then, he realised, maybe they didn’t have to be. “This time, anything could go if it sounded good and you got it right,” he says. The result is an album that revels in the idiosyncrasies of life, raising an eyebrow and asking the ugly questions that so often get tactfully brushed over. “I’m not here to answer the questions, I’m a 27-year-old idiot…” Steen caveats with a self-effacing chuckle. But the one answer that Cutthroat gives with a resounding flourish is that, right now, Shame have never sounded better.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A raucous selection of riotously melodic indie stormers from Shame here, taking everything they've established on their previous three LP's and turning the volume up even more. Brighter, more carefree and with years of experience on the live circuit to bolster their energetic blast of melody. A band entirely at ease with their sound.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Cutthroat
2. Cowards Around
3. Quiet Life
4. Nothing Better
5. Plaster
6. Spartak

SIDE B
7. To And Fro
8. Lampião
9. After Party
10. Screwdriver
11. Packshot
12. Axis Of Evil

The fifth album from Newcastle’s riff wizards Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs is defined by calculated aggression and self-lacerating lyrics. Its startling bonuses include playful synth work and the appearance of a giant from hip-hop. With its title juxtaposing absurdity and seriousness, this is 'Death Hilarious'.

Whereas 2023’s 'Land Of Sleeper' was conceived as an immersive headphones experience, this time Pigs strove for something more directly hostile. “We wanted it to be a slap in the face,” grins producer and guitarist Sam Grant. That objective came, in part, from playing so many gigs over the last couple of years. The band felt well-oiled and ripe to give listeners at home the kind of pummelling their audiences receive.

'Death Hilarious' does bring in some big surprises, particularly the track ‘Glib Tongued’, which has guest bars by El-P from Run The Jewels. When bassist John-Michael Hedley unwittingly wrote what his bandmates considered their equivalent of a hip-hop number, Pigs set their sights high and secured a blistering contribution from one of the world’s greatest rappers. That’s not to say Pigs have pivoted to nu-metal. 'Death Hilarious' is a diversely punishing record which shapeshifts through Sabbathian doom, grotesquely minimalist noise rock and cyclical post-metal fortissimos. Pigs continue to push themselves, too. Incongruous synthesiser solos appear where guitar histrionics would usually fit. Piano tracks lurk in the mix, adding near-subliminal depth to the maelstrom. ‘Stitches’ is like Motörhead trying to perform glam rock with a tipsy keyboardist. Then there’s the 100mph pace of cosmic-thrash opener ‘Blockage’. Distorted licks flying from the amplifiers of Grant and lead guitarist, Adam Ian Sykes, while the rhythm section sizzle behind. With all that power running through its veins, 'Death Hilarious' is easily going to be one of the best rock albums of 2025...and that is no joke!

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Newcastle's blistering Pigs x7 (EXACTLY seven) bring us a scuzzed-out version of their groundbreaking sound from 2023's mindblowing 'Viscerals'. There are riffs aplenty and heavy hitting lyrics, walls of noise and soaring, groovy basslines but there's also a load of garagey, saturated distortion and loads of muck. Classic pigs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blockage
2. Detroit
3. Collider
4. Stitches
5. Glib Tongued (Feat. El–P)
6. The Wyrm
7. Carousel
8. Coyote Call
9. Toecurler 

The much-anticipated follow-up to LA-based singer-songwriter Natalie Bergman’s critically acclaimed 2021 solo debut album ‘Mercy’. Since then, Bergman (previously of successful brother-sister duo Wild Belle) has released the high-streaming EP ‘Keep Those Teardrops From Falling’, along with a collaboration with Beck. Her new album 'My Home Is Not In This World' channels psychedelic soul and alt-'60s pop, and is brimming with unforgettable melodies that only an artist as uniquely talented as Bergman could conjure.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Natalie Bergman returns for Third Man Records, bringing a host of bouncy melodies and flickering folky balladry, majestic 60's psychedelia and soaring gospel choruses. A beautifully evocative, warming treat.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lonely Road
2. Gunslinger
3. Dance
4. Stop, Please Don't Go
5. You Can Have Me
6. My Home Is Not In This World
7. Looking For You
8. Didn't Get To Say Goodbye
9. Changes
10. I'll Be Your Number One
11. Song For Arthur
12. California

Naarm/Melbourne trio Acopia return with "Blush Response", their highly anticipated third album, and first release on Scenic Route. Arriving September 12th, this 8-track LP captures the band at their most open and self-assured - an emotionally resonant work shaped by silence, space, and sincerity.

At its core, "Blush Response" is an exploration of emotional distance, unresolved feelings, and the quiet tension between vulnerability and strength. It’s introspective and melancholic, yet with an underlying clarity that marks a new chapter for the group.

Formed in 2018 by Kate Durman, Lachlan McGeehan, and Morgan Wright, Acopia began with a minimalist palette - slow tempos, sparse arrangements, and a distinct sense of restraint. Since then, they’ve evolved into a more fluid and expressive unit, blending elements of dream pop, downtempo, indie, and post-punk into a sound that’s as delicate as it is disarming.

Following the release of 2022’s "Chances" and their self-titled 2023 album, Acopia gained significant critical momentum with praise from Pitchfork, The Guardian, The FADER, and The Beat. Pitchfork described their work as 'a nod to 1980s ennui and 2020s anxiety' - an apt summation of their unique place in today’s musical landscape. Their growing international footprint includes support slots for Bar Italia and Tirzah, festival appearances at Golden Plains, Rising, and NTS Naarm, and a sold-out 2024 headline show at London’s Lexington.

Recent collaborators include UK producer Daniel Avery, who’s shown strong support for the band - elevating their profile across both electronic and alternative audiences.

With "Blush Response", Acopia deliver their most expansive and expressive project to date - anchored by the emotional depth fans have come to expect, but now sharpened by bold songwriting and a broader sonic reach. Their arrival on Scenic Route marks an exciting new era, one that’s already resonating with tastemakers, record buyers, and a fast-growing global fanbase.

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Well, Scenic Route have done it again! This new one from Acopia has got Piccadilly HQ weak at the ol' knees. Reminiscent of a more dreamy Bar Italia, then at times channelling A.S.O.'s downtempo-ness from yesteryear, certainly don't sleep on this one as Scenic Route releases end up being more sought after than a pair of Kickin' Pigeon's freshest corduroy kecks!

TRACK LISTING

1.Talk About It
2. See You In Everyone
3. Falter
4. Let Down
5. Falling
6. Real Life
7. Chase Me
8. Last Word

The Doves are back with their sixth studio album, 'Constellations For The Lonely'.

First emerging in 1998 with the release of their debut, vinyl-only 'Cedar' EP, Doves’ first album, 'Lost Souls' (2000), received both press and award-panel praise, before Number One follow-up, 'The Last Broadcast' (2002) provided the trio with a major breakthrough, offering with the hit singles, "There Goes The Fear" and "Pounding". Straight-to-Number One follow up, Some Cities (2005) and the difficult birth of the much-loved Kingdom of Rust (2009) appeared before an eleven year hiatus came to an end with Number One 'The Universal Want' (2020).  And now five years later the rejuvenated trio of Jez Williams, Jimi Goodwin and Andy Williams return with the epic and hugely anticipated 'Constellations For The Lonely'.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Doves return for their most progressive, nuanced outing yet. Though they have made their name as an 'indie' band, Constellations For The Lonely shows that their wheelhouse effortlessly expands with each release, crafting pieces that are wildly dynamic and enduringly unique and taking them well beyond the realms of their initial appeal.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Renegade
2. Cold Dreaming
3. In The Butterfly House
4. Strange Weather
5. A Drop In The Ocean

Side B
1. Last Year’s Man
2. Stupid Schemes
3. Saint Teresa
4. Orlando
5. Southern Bell

Like their name suggests, Model/Actriz seek to channel raw emotions into striking new forms. Consisting of Cole Haden (Vocals), Aaron Shapiro (Bass), Jack Wetmore (Guitar), and Ruben Radlauer (Drums), there’s an expectation that Model/Actriz aim first and foremost to be shitstarters. Their debut record 'Dogsbody' was sexy, dark, and humid, full of eerie passages and veiled menace; their unique sound quickly found fans that included the likes of Pitchfork and Anthony Fantano.

After much critical acclaim and an exhausting tour to support the record, the band sought to reinvigorate their visceral live shows that invite that audience into a shared room of carnal ritual. Model/Actriz’s sophomore album Pirouette, which was co-produced and mixed by Seth Manchester and mastered by Matt Colton, their collaborators on 'Dogsbody', swerves out of the maze and directly into the spotlight. 'Pirouette' is both a natural progression and a calculated reset, a move toward reasserting their command as artists by peeling away the smoke and mirrors to become brighter, heavier, and more direct. The pop thread running throughout the album allows the crowd to witness thumping club music in the spirit of cabaret and manifest the catharsis that comes with hitting the dancefloor.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Visceral, thumping kick drums and stabbing guitars work beneath soaring synth arps and snappy 808's before breaking down into tender electronic indie and brittle ambient washes. Beautifully produced and endlessly inventive, never straying too far from melody, but evolving constantly.

TRACK LISTING

1. Vespers
2. Cinderella
3. Poppy
4. Diva
5. Headlights
6. Acid Rain
7. Departures
8. Audience
9. Ring Road
10. Doves
11. Baton

Can a self-portrait be a collage? Can empathy be autobiographical? What’s the point of living if we’re not trying to understand all the horror and humor that surrounds everything? These are a few of the questions lurking under the bleachers of Wednesday’s new album 'Bleeds', an intoxicating collection of narrative-heavy Southern rock that—like many of the most arresting passages from the North Carolina band’s highlight reel so far—thoughtfully explores the vivid link between curiosity and confession.

'Bleeds' is not only the best Wednesday record—it’s also the most Wednesday record, a patchwork-style triumph of literary allusions and outlaw grit, of place-based poetry and hair-raising noise. Karly Hartzman—founder, frontwoman, and primary lyricist—credits Wednesday’s tightened grasp on their own identity to time spent collaborating on previous albums, plus a tour schedule that’s been both rewarding and relentless. “'Bleeds' is the spiritual successor to 'Rat Saw God', and I think the quintessential ‘Wednesday Creek Rock’ album,” Hartzman said, articulating satisfaction with the ways her band has sharpened its trademark sound, how they’ve refined the formula that makes them one of the most interesting rock bands of their generation. “This is what Wednesday songs are supposed to sound like,” she said. “We’ve devoted a lot of our lives to figuring this out—and I feel like we did.”

Just like 'Rat Saw God', one of the defining rock & roll records of the 2020s so far, 'Bleeds' came together at Drop of Sun in Asheville and was produced by Alex Farrar, who’s been recording the band since 'Twin Plagues'. Hartzman again brought demos to the studio, where she and her bandmates—Xandy Chelmis (lap steel, pedal steel), Alan Miller (drums), Ethan Baechtold (bass, piano), and Jake “M.J.” Lenderman (guitar)—worked as a team to bulk-up the compositions with the exact right amounts of country truth-telling, indie-pop hooks, and noisy sludge. More than ever, the precise proportions were steered by the lyricism—not only its tone or subject matter, but also the actual sound of the words, as well as Hartzman’s masterfully subjective approach to detail selection. Every image or scene is filtered through Hartzman’s agile, writerly brain. The particulars deemed essential all contain revelations about Hartzman’s specific obsessions and vulnerabilities, about the fragmented way she processes the world. Maybe sometimes the best way to locate truth or pain or dignity within your own life story, Bleeds suggests, is by crawling into someone else’s.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: To me, while Wednesday's music has all of the evocative charm and quiet thoughtfulness of a country record, there is little to tie Wednesday's southern American roots to their sound, an incendiary mix of snarling grunge rock and sweeping stadium grandiosity. 'Bleeds' is another superb record from Wednesday and a perfect fit for Dead Oceans' off-piste aesthetic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Reality TV Argument
2. Bleeds
3. Townies
4. Wound Up Here (By
Holdin On)
5. Elderberry Wine
6. Phish Pepsi
7. Candy Breath
8. The Way Love Goes
9. Pick Up That Knife
10. Wasp
11. Bitter Everyday
12. Carolina Murder Suicide
13. Gary’s II

Florida-born multimedia artist Ethel Cain returns with her sophomore album 'Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You'. A prequel to the critically acclaimed 'Preacher's Daughter', the new album recounts the story of Ethel's first love, Willoughby Tucker, and their humid, laden romance. Hayden Anhedonia, the creative force behind the entire Ethel Cain project, has spent the past several years assembling the album in her home studios from Coraopolis, PA to Tallahassee, FL, all the while selling out tours and playing festivals worldwide, cementing herself as a singular artistic voice on the rise.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Brittle, ambient folk meets country-pop melodies and wispy guitars, gorgeous ambient washes and Anhedönia’s beautifully evocative layered vocals. It's a perfect follow-up to her understandably adored 2022 outing. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

Janie
Willoughby's Theme
Fuck Me Eyes
Nettles
Willoughby's Interlude
Dust Bowl
A Knock At The Door
Radio Towers
Tempest

On their new album 'The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation', Montreal’s The Besnard Lakes return with their post-rock psych; but this time around, with a lightness and optimism at play.

Unique among their furrowed brow peers, The Besnard Lakes are unafraid to marry textured, questing headphone sonics to the honeyed pleasure of radio hits past: the rapture of My Bloody Valentine entwined with the romance of Fleetwood Mac. Imagine dreamy Beach House riding Led Zeppelin dynamics, with unabashedly androgynous vocal harmonies; a melodic yet mountainous sound world.

In a crowded leaderboard of their own making, 'The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation' might just be their best album yet; a strive for hope when it is needed most.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Like fellow Montrealers GYBE, The Besnard Lakes revel in the sort of slowly blooming wall-of-sound chaos we hear on their stunning new LP, but unlike GYBE there's a levity and melodic anchor in a soaring, haunting shoegazey vocal performance. A beautifully rich, endlessly growing wonder that draws on their established sound but pulls the peripheries out even further into rippling ambient and even in parts, noisy rock.

Andy says: This is a really beautiful album which combines post-rock with a touch of psych and even gently pulsing shoegaze. The band have created a warm and enveloping sound world studded with gorgeous twinkling songs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Calling Ghostly Nations
2. Chemin De La Baie
3. Carried It All Around
4. In Hollywood
5. Pontiac Spirits
6. Battle Lines
7. The Clouds Are Casting Shadows From The Sunlight
8. Give Us Our Dominion

“The true follow up, 35 years later, to The KLF’s ‘Chill Out’”.
JD Twitch (Optimo).

"This record and film are just lovely. You need this in your life. Moo-Moo!” Balearic Mike (Down To The Sea & Back)

"The album is a perfect companion to the KLF classic, utilising the British countryside as the setting, occasionally reminding you that Mother Nature is not to be messed with.” Strictly Kev (DJ Food)

"A beautiful ambient journey into the landscape, taking the listener from reality to dream state and back again. A mystical realm full of mysterious chanting, rattling trains and sounds from the very depths of the earth."
Lally MacBeth & Matthew Shaw (Stone Club)

Recorded in a remote cabin on the Devon coast, STILL OUT is an album-length collaboration between musician-filmmakers – and childhood friends – Will Cookson and Tom Haverly. A reflection on friendship, landscape and the passing of time, it inspired a road trip from North Yorkshire to North Devon they took together in the summer of 2024, and forms the soundtrack to a film of the same name which had its premiere screening as part of Stroud Film Festival in March 2025.

Like the film, STILL OUT is also an oblique homage to The KLF’s iconic 1990 album Chill Out, which the Gloucestershire-based pair revisited after it turned up unexpectedly a few years back in Tom’s dad’s record collection. Inspired to create their own recording using a similarly free-spirited process, Will and Tom relocated to the Devon coast in late summer 2023, splicing together a 40-minute mix from their personal archive of recordings and found sounds in a remote cabin with no electricity or mobile reception.

"It came together using cut-and-paste techniques, with ongoing shifts and tweaks,” says Will. “The final result was an audio collage that felt like something [legendary hip hop producers] The Bomb Squad might make - if ambient music was the only material in their sample library."

Using ‘ambient’ as a starting-point rather than an end in itself, they took inspiration from across the musical spectrum – classic-period Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Bill Evans, plus outliers such as 80s singer-songwriter Virginia Astley and the late DJ-producer Andrew Weatherall. The connections, though, are anything but obvious as the audio shifts seamlessly from field recordings and spoken-word interludes to mood pieces and snatches of vintage pop.

Edited and assembled using freely available open source programs, the source material was often radically altered using tools such as “PaulStretch”, a digital sound-morphing algorithm that allows users to stretch audio files to extreme lengths.

"When we found ourselves in a creative slump or unsure how to navigate a tricky part, we'd say, ‘Let's put some syrup on it and slow it down,’” says Tom. “That always helped us get back on track during late-night recording sessions at the cabin."

Part-soundtrack, part-meditative experiment, STILL OUT is intended as a reflection on the mental and emotional shift that occurs when stepping away from the routine of daily life – an album that forms a celebration of our ever-changing relationship to the world around us and the mystery of what it means to pass through time and space.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Dewy, bucolic ambient music that's reminiscent of any number of post-club staples but with a uniquely shimmering tenderness and richly immersive production. There are moments of surprise too, and humour but the end result is something that comforts and soothes.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1:
Swaledale To Blakeney Straits

Side 2:
Laugharne Estuary To Welcombe Mouth

After previewing new solo music with June’s four track EP The Grand Designer, Adrian Sherwood delivers a brand new full-length work, The Collapse Of Everything, his first solo album since 2012. A meticulously constructed album from the master producer and mixologist, Sherwood pushes his ever adventurous sound into new frontiers. Although underpinned by a natural dub sensibility, the music presented on The Collapse of Everything fluidly crosses genre borders and seamlessly fuses a wide range of influences from a lifetime of listening and producing.

Although Sherwood has been extremely busy in the last few years working with other artists; from remix work for pop artists such as Halsey, full length critically acclaimed dub reconstructions for indie-rock titans Spoon, and Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, or producing critically acclaimed late career albums for reggae icons Lee “Scratch” Perry and Horace Andy (“Midnight Rocker” was heralded the Guardian’s #1 Global album of 2022); Sherwood has not released an album as a solo artist since Survival & Resistance, released almost to the day, 13 years ago.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though we've not been without hints of Sherwood's unique dubby outlook (he's just not been sitting about), it's been a long time since a full album from him and 'The Collapse Of Everything' provides the perfect return for one of the most innovative and creative musicians and producers in the world. Absolutely stunning progressive, dub-adjacent pieces studded with huge guests too (Brian Eno on 'vocals'!)

TRACK LISTING

1 The Collapse Of Everything
2 Dub Inspector
3 The Well Is Poisoned (Dub)
4 Body Roll
5 Battles Without Honour And Humanity
6 Spaghetti Best Western
7 The Great Rewilding
8 Spirits (Further Education)
9 Hiroshima Dub Match
10 The Grand Designer

By the time Irish musician Maria Somerville started writing 'Luster', her landmark label debut for 4AD, she had lived away from her native Connemara for quite some time. Having grown up amongst the wild, mountainous terrain of Galway’s rural west coast, she later relocated to Dublin, where she patiently developed an atmospheric dream pop signature inspired by the landscape of her youth – a spellbinding sound world of gusting ambient electronics, ethereal guitar strums, sparse percussion, and hushed lyrical vignettes. In 2019, this culminated in 'All My People', a self-released LP steeped in reverb, nostalgia and a yearning for home that won praise from discerning press and listeners alike.

It was upon returning to Connemara, in a house near where she was raised overlooking one of the country’s largest lakes, Lough Corrib, that work commenced on the songs that would eventually become 'Luster', an album that illuminates Somerville’s music anew, pushing it forward in both sound and spirit. Where 'All My People' conveyed memories and melancholic longing with misty slowcore balladry, these 12 tracks show us an artist who’s more assured in the path her life has taken, and the person she’s become in the process. As she sings in ‘Trip’ – “I can see more clearly than I could before. I know now wat's true for me.”

Invigorated by her surroundings and emboldened by her community, Somerville found a renewed sense of creative energy upon returning to home soil. It provided “fertile ground” for free-flowing recording sessions in her small living room studio, where she stitched together demos that were then fleshed out with friends and collaborators, and later mixed by the renowned New York-based engineer Gabriel Schuman. Contributors included producers J. Colleran, Brendan Jenkinson and Diego Herrera (aka Suzanne Kraft), as well as Lankum’s Ian Lynch, whose uilleann pipe drones you can hear in ‘Violet’, and Margie Jean Lewis, whose violin bows reverberate through the ambient haze of ‘Flutter’. Sessions with musicians Henry Earnest and Finn Carraher McDonald (aka Nashpaints) helped “tie it all together”, while contributions from friends Roisin Berkley and Olan Monk enshrined the companionship they’ve shared since Somerville returned to Connemara.

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Gorgeous and mesmerising, Maria Somerville's latest is a beautifully produced and wonderfully immersive example of classic 4AD. Hazy and shimmering shoegaze, mixed with lush enveloping ambient passages - Somerville's 'Luster' is destined to be a classic

TRACK LISTING

1. Réalt
2. Projections
3. Garden
4. Corrib
5. Halo
6. Spring
7. Stonefly
8. Flutter
9. Trip
10. Violet
11. Up
12. October Moon

7” Tracklisting:
1. Untitled
2. Spring (II)

'Viagr Aboys' is the fourth studio album from Viagra Boys.

Featuring single 'Man Made of Meat', the LP sees Viagra Boys turn inwards, leaving the acid-laced, conspiracy-addled societal commentary of previous LP 'Cave World' behind to journey into the acid-laced, conspiracy-addled landscape within. Absurd, intense and surprisingly tender, 'Viagr Aboys' shuts out the noise to find that the important part of being alive in the big, stupid world is figuring out that the world inside of you that is equally big and stupid.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Scathing, soaring garage riffs and distorted vocal swathes, as is the order of the day for Viagra Boys. This time the psychedelic quotient is amped up to 11, with woozy riffs and weird scuzzy stoner grooves coated with a veneer of heady, lysergic oddity.

TRACK LISTING

1. Man Made Of Meat
2. The Bog Body
3. Uno II
4. Pyramid Of Health
5. Dirty Boyz
6. Medicine For Horses
7. Waterboy
8. Store Policy
9. You N33d Me
10. Best In Show Pt. IV
11. River King

A sense of musical wisdom, innate discipline and expansive creativity pervades the street-smart electro-soul from Ellen Beth Abdi, as the renowned, prolific collaborator turned towering solo virtuoso announces her self-titled debut album. Popping with synth signatures, swelling with slow-burning background energies and flowing with delicately placed words of potent and personal meaning, the digital single "Sad Chord" give you a taste of what to expect from the LP from Manchester’s very worst kept multi-instrumental, genre-hopping secret.

Counting back almost a decade since her prodigious talents were first discovered and her solo touring and numerous support slots kick-started a journey around national and international venues, all of Abdi’s live experience, including sharing stages with Lady Blackbird, Courtney Pine and Angelique Kidjo, will be poured into dates arranged in celebration of the long-anticipated release of Ellen Beth Abdi.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Silky smooth street soul rich with shimmering arpeggios and throbbing bass, meticulously crafted passages of minimalist electronics and Abdi's athletic, rhythmic vocals. A brilliantly cohesive, musically inventive debut from an artist we'll be hearing lots more of in the future.

TRACK LISTING

1. Who This World Is Made For
2. Thickskinpeel
3. Tenterhooks
4. Elsewhere
5. The Bad Dream
6. Sad Chord
7. Spellbound
8. Problem Child
9. Kingsway Bouquet
10. Sweet Twenty-Three

It was Sunday June 28th, 2024 and Baxter had just stopped from a rapturously received set on The Park Stage at Glastonbury festival. After towelling himself down, a familiar figure approached him backstage. It was Paul Epworth, the lauded producer / songwriter whose creations have draped themselves across the airwaves of the 21st Century more successfully than other Briton.

They agreed to meet back in Epworth’s North London Church Studios in late November, not long after Baxter had finished touring his last album. Their first day in the studio working on this new eighth solo Baxter Dury album was an eye-opener for Baxter, though, and not just because of the comfortable surroundings of The Church which has hosted the likes of Frank Ocean and Adele (“incredible place, all this glistening fruit and catered sushi, I felt like the bloke from Trading Places, stuffing it down my sleeves.”).

Together they dreamt up 'Allbarone’s nine-track tour-de-force, stripping everything away and building Baxter’s most melodically direct, futuristic collection in intense three-hour daily shifts throughout December and January.

“It’s kind of a character arc that goes through the whole thing, two personalities,” he explains. “It’s very critical of people, this album, whoever they are, maybe some bloke with a moustache and sockless loafers in Shoreditch or a fat old Chiswick gangster lording it up in a really comfortable middle class part of London”

“I don’t want to say it’s contemporary,” he summarises. “Because I sound like a cunt using that word. But it does sound really contemporary. It doesn’t sound like a Harrods hamper band made it. It doesn’t sound like a band made it all. Which is what I wanted most of all. It’s just something that’s brand new for me. It’s quite exciting, really.”

Which in Baxter Dury-speak is as good as proclaiming “I’m top of the world!” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Oooof, a slew of absolute bangers here from Baxter Dury channelling the spirit of the club, and resulting in something that's instantly recognisable as his but with a rich heart of percussion and throbbing bass. A wonderfully new twist on Dury's already unique sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Allbarone
2. Schadenfreude
3. Kubla Kahn
4. Alpha Dog
5. The Other Me
6. Hapsburg
7. Return Of The Sharp Heads
8. Mockingjay
9. Mr W4

There’s a palpable flurry of momentum surrounding SPRINTS. The Dublin band have enjoyed a whirlwind year, marked by back-to-back wins and rapid ascent. They unveiled their Top 20 debut album “Letter to Self” in January 2024, picked up two RTÉ Choice Award nominations for Best Irish Album and Breakthrough Irish Artist, opened for IDLES and Pixies, and delivered feverishly talked- about sets at Glastonbury, End of the Road, and All Together Now.

Since the album’s release in 2024 – met with 5-star reviews from NME, DIY, and Dork, and acclaim from Pitchfork and Brooklyn Vegan – the four-piece have taken their visceral live show across the globe. Along the way, they’ve become an essential new name in contemporary rock, known for urgent, compassionate songwriting shaped by personal tales of trauma and resilience.

Now, SPRINTS are turning that relentless energy into new material. Later this year the quartet will unleash brand-new music and pack an even busier schedule, with a major slot at Glastonbury, appearances at Pinkpop, Dour and Latitude, plus a run of German arena dates supporting Fontaines D.C.

SPRINTS about the new album:
“While the world is literally burning down around us there are voices that seem hell bent on pointing the finger at anyone but those responsible. There’s no need to dream-up dystopia, we’re living in it.

And somehow, while the world has never seemed uglier, our life has never been more beautiful. We have clawed ourselves out of the depths of imposter syndrome, anxiety and struggle to come together, stronger than ever, in the pursuit of that which we love most, music.
All That Is Over feels like a second chance at a first album. Gone are the shackles of insecurity, and we have confidently stepped into what we feel is our best work yet. Its loud, emotive, boisterous and a lot of fucking fun.

This is an album about love, lust, art and passion. It is a rejection of the narratives they will try to spin to force those already marginalised to suffer more. It is the repelling of criticism, critique and the combat of the modern world. This is renaissance and rebellion because within the disillusionment with the world, the fatigue, there is still hope. There is still love, music and art and a chance to start again and that’s where you’ll find us. In between hope and a hard place. Welcome to our cowboy gothic.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A raucous, distorted distillation of garage rock and post-punk, with a breadth of sound you don't necessarily expect from a second album. 'To The Bone' is a particularly brilliant non-sequitur that shows how flexible the band are.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Abandon
2. To The Bone
3. Descartes
4. Need
5. Beg
6. Rage

Side B
7. Something’s Gonna Happen
8. Pieces
9. Better
10. Coming Alive
11. Desire

Every BC Camplight album has a backstory every bit as compelling as its music.

A Sober Conversation is no different, as virtuoso songwriter and pianist Brian Christinzio documents the last two years of his life, finally confronting a shocking childhood trauma while embracing sobriety, to create his bravest and most revealing record. It's an enthralling, sometimes haunting quasi- concept record marked by ruthless tragic- comedic purging and sublime, intricate melody, knitting lyrical screenplays to dazzling arrangements.

It is BC Camplight at the height of his remarkable powers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A superb, cinematic journey that's as instantly alluring as any album in his brilliant back-catalogue, but who's myriad sonic non-sequiturs make more sense every time you hear them. A beautifully warm, endlessly enchanting journey from one of the most capable and talented figures in the game. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

The Tent
Two Legged Dog
A Sober Conversation
When I Make My First Million
Where You Taking My Baby?
Bubbles In The Gasoline
Rock Gently In Disorder
Drunk Talk
Leaving Camp Four Oaks

The debut collaborative album from world-renowned UK producer, Kieran Hebden (Four Tet), and American guitarist, William Tyler, '41 Longfield Street Late ‘80s' is inspired by their shared deep connection to 1980s American country and folk artists such as Lyle Lovett, Nancy Griffith, Joe Ely and David Grissom. A cover of Lyle Lovett's song 'If I Had a Boat' is the most literal pull from this ‘80s country sound, accompanied by soft synth tones.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A perfect mix here of William Tyler's warm, athletic guitar playing and Hebden's organic, off-the-grid electronic production resulting in an album that sits easily in the canon of either artist, but is probably just as much reinventing a sound as it goes. A gorgeously immersive journey.

TRACK LISTING

1. If I Had A Boat
2. Spider Ballad
3. I Want An Antenna
4. When It Rains
5. Timber
6. Loretta Guides My Hands Through The Radio
7. Secret City

David Byrne's 'Who Is the Sky?', is his first new album since 2018’s acclaimed and award-winning 'American Utopia'. The album was produced by the Grammy-winning Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus), while its 12 songs were arranged by the members of New York-based chamber ensemble Ghost Train Orchestra.

Musical friends old and new, including St. Vincent, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, The Smile drummer Tom Skinner and American Utopia percussionist Mauro Refosco, also make appearances on 'Who Is the Sky?', which is led by the infectious single 'Everybody Laughs'.

“Someone I know said, ‘David, you use the word “everybody” a lot.’ I suppose I do that to give an anthropological view of life in New York as we know it,” says Byrne. “Everybody lives, dies, laughs, cries, sleeps and stares at the ceiling. Everybody’s wearing everybody else’s shoes, which not everybody does, but I have done. I tried to sing about these things that could be seen as negative in a way balanced by an uplifting feeling from the groove and the melody, especially at the end, when St. Vincent and I are doing a lot of hollering and singing together. Music can do that – hold opposites simultaneously. I realized that when singing with Robyn earlier this year. Her songs are often sad, but the music is joyous.”

Byrne was inspired to enlist Ghost Train Orchestra for the album after hearing their 2023 tribute album to the blind New York composer and street poet Moondog, and later that year jumped on stage with the group during a Brooklyn performance. Enticed by the 15-member Ghost Train’s varied instrumental lineup – which includes drums, percussion, guitar and bass along with strings, winds and brass – he thought to himself, “what if that’s what these new songs of mine sounded like?” Byrne asked if they’d want to serve as his band for the 'Who Is The Sky?' sessions, and they quickly agreed.

“I suspected that intimate orchestral arrangements would bring out the emotion I sense is there in these songs,” says Byrne, who is planning to tour 'Who Is The Sky?' later this year. “It’s something that folks don't always hear in my work, but this time for sure I thought it was there. At the same time, I also see myself as someone who aspires to be accessible. I imagined that Kid Harpoon would help with that, as well as being a set of trusted ears, since there was a lot going on. People think of producers as people who mainly make a record sound good, and Kid Harpoon did that, but he was also aware of how important the storytelling is.”

An admitted “stickler when it comes to grooves,” Byrne welcomed late-in-the-game contributions from Skinner and Refosco, with whom he’s recorded and toured for more than 30 years. Mixed by Mark “Spike” Stent and mastered by Emily Lazar, the finished product is about both hiding and revealing, or as Byrne puts it, “a chance to be the mythical creature we all harbor inside. A chance to step into another reality. A chance to transcend and escape from the prison of our ‘selves.’” These concepts are heavily incorporated in the 'Who Is The Sky?' album package, which was designed by Shira Inbar and finds Byrne nearly obscured by radiating, colored patterns and psychedelic, spiky outfits designed by Belgian artist Tom Van Der Borght.

“At my age, at least for me, there's a ‘don't give a shit about what people think’ attitude that kicks in,” Byrne says. “I can step outside my comfort zone with the knowledge that I kind of know who I am by now and sort of know what I'm doing. That said, every new set of songs, every song even, is a new adventure. There's always a bit of, ‘how do I work this?’ I've found that not every collaboration works, but often when they do, it's because I'm able to clearly impart what it is I'm trying to do. They hopefully get that, and as a result, we're now joined together heading to the same unknown place.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of the most legendary musicians of the past half century returns for his latest solo album, 'Who Is The Sky'. As you'd expect, there's a loose frivolity and organic shuffle to every piece here, with Byrne's incredible outlook and impeccable musicianship clearly shining. A wonderfully uplifting, impeccably conceived masterpiece.

TRACK LISTING

1. Everybody Laughs
2. When We Are Singing
3. My Apartment Is My Friend
4. A Door Called No
5. What Is The Reason For It?
6. I Met The Buddha At A Downtown Party
7. Don't Be Like That
8. The Avant Garde
9. Moisturizing Thing
10. I'm An Outsider
11. She Explains Things To Me
12. The Truth

Everyone Says Hi is the brand-new band created by frontman and ex-Kaiser Cheifs member, Nick Hodgson. The band also includes members Pete Denton (The Kooks), Ben Gordon (The Dead 60s), Glenn Moule (Howling Bells) and Tom Dawson. Their debut album with Chrysalis Records is a collection of dreamy-pop sounds inspired by the likes of REM, The Strokes, Daft Punk, Cigarettes After Sex and Mac Demarco.

The sound of Everyone Says Hi is owed to what Nick calls ‘analogue hour’: “After dinner at my house, we listen to a record, no phones, TV, or remote control, just put it on and take it all in.” Nick remarks on the feelings of wanting to create an album that focuses on authenticity over production "I wanted to make an album that I’d listen to at night on the record player"

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: I never cared for the Kaiser Chiefs but if Everyone Says Hi main man Nick Hodgson was one of their songwriters then perhaps I should revisit? This is simply a very good album of really tuneful guitar pop songs. Absolutely superb songs in some instances! If you imagine the kind of accessible indie pop which Ian Broudie serves up with the Lightning Seeds then you get an idea where ESH fit into the scheme of things. Not one duffer and some melodies on here which are just sky-scraping!

TRACK LISTING

1. Somebody Somewhere
2. Lucky Stars
3. Only One
4. Brain Freeze
5. I Wish I Was In New York City
6. On The Same Side
7. I Wasn’t Dreaming
8. Holding On To Let Go
9. Tried And Failed
10. Did I Just Fall In Love

The Fear of Never Landing takes us on a dynamic journey that's atmospheric, diaphanous and never short of mesmerising. While the new record is certainly infused with a sense of hope, there's more than a soupon of anxiety too, as the title suggests.

Formed in Manchester in 2003, their debut album, Under Wires and Searchlights (2003), introduced their signature sound, but it was their 2011 release of Weightless that brought international acclaim. Developed in collaboration with a sound therapist, Weightless was scientifically recognised as "the world's most relaxing song", praised for its ability to reduce anxiety and heart rates. With over 900 million streams and widespread coverage across media, the track remains a cultural phenomenon.

Over the years, Marconi Union has continued to evolve, producing critically acclaimed albums such as Signals (2021), Ghost Stations (2016), and Tokyo+ (2017). Their work has been hailed for its emotional resonance and sonic depth, with The Quietus noting their ability to find "beauty in the bleakest places" and The Sunday Times describing them as "amongst today's most talented musicians."

With The Fear of Never Landing, Marconi Union once again showcases their unmatched ability to create immersive soundscapes that resonate deeply. The album reaffirms their position as masters of atmosphere and emotional storytelling, making it an essential addition to their storied catalog.

A 55-minute odyssey presented as one seamless piece divided into nine movements, they transcribe the nexus of modern living into a mostly wordless odyssey. The album encapsulates Marconi Union's ability to translate the complexities of the human experience into sound, all while maintaining a stunning sense of cohesion.

Beyond their studio albums, Marconi Union has collaborated with visual artists, provided soundtracks for installations, and remixed notable acts like Max Richter and Vk. Their invitation by Brian Eno to perform at Norway's Punkt Festival further cemented their reputation as innovators in the ambient music sphere.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Stunningly rich electronic music that beautifully drifts in the open space between ambient downbeat music or 'IDM' (sorry) like Kiasmos or Jon Hopkins while cleverly and impactfully floating through a series of clever key changes and pivots more akin to the jazzy timbres of GoGo Penguin or The Drift. A stunningly cohesive, evocative behemoth of an album, and a collection that shows the true breadth of MU's staggering sound design skill.

TRACK LISTING

Through The Heat Waves
Eight Miles High Alone
In Motion
Inhale
Crystalline
Exhale
One More Rush
Silence Is Gliding
Cloud Surfing

Suede have announced details of their 10th studio album ‘Antidepressants’. Due for release on 5th September via BMG, the album is a milestone achievement that sees the band at the top of their game. It follows the success of their critically-acclaimed ninth top 10 album ‘Autofiction’ released in September 2022, which charted at No.2 on the UK Albums Chart and was their highest-charting release in over 20 years.

Suede will celebrate the release of ‘Antidepressants’ with a takeover of London’s Southbank Centre, through a series of exciting live performances kicking off in September, Suede’s four-night residency will commence with two consecutive nights at the Royal Festival Hall on September 13th and 14th, followed on September 17th by an intimate stripped-back performance at the Purcell Room, culminating in a collaboration with the Paraorchestra on September 19th at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Suede were there before Oasis, hammering away at the Britpop bell, but they've not stayed there, they've chameleonically and expertly shifted through various states of indie-adjacent heaviness and landed on 'Antidepressants', a roaring garagey slab of snarling post-britpop heft. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

Standard Format
1. Disintegrate
2. Dancing With The Europeans
3. Antidepressants
4. Sweet Kid
5. The Sound And The Summer
6. Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star
7. Broken Music For Broken People
8. Criminal Ways
9. Trance State
10. June Rain
11. Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment

Deluxe Formats
1. Disintegrate
2. Dancing With The Europeans
3. Antidepressants
4. Sweet Kid
5. The Sound And The Summer
6. Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star
7. Broken Music For Broken People
8. Criminal Ways
9. Trance State
10. June Rain
11. Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment
12. Dirty Looks
13. Sharpening Knives
14. Overload

Friends since the age of six, most of the album was written and recorded by the pair when they were nineteen. The songs possess all the singular magic of a duo writing and playing together while sounding like a full, sonically charged band.

Their debut E.P. track 'Two Monkeys', included here, has a level of shoegazey dirt that will leave many distortion freaks reeling. ‘Every Word Said' is prog-pop perfection. The title track is as moody as anything by Flying Saucer Attack. 'Another One Making Clouds’ evolves over 35 minutes and doesn’t stop elevating and surprising. A founding notion of our label was to release recordings made as the musicians’ first intended. No ‘notes’ and no re-recording with a ‘proper’ producer in a ‘real’ studio. A noble preference we saw labels like Rough Trade pursuing with The Strokes, The Smiths, The Fall et al.This album is a proud example. And captures something you can’t fake. A young band finding an epic, emotional, cinematic sound in their bedroom. Using it in that peculiarly British way to express the wonder, confusion and heartache of being nineteen. Of wanting to be seen and not seen. It’s a kind of British ‘soul’ music with ancestors like The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Jesus & Mary Chain and the original shoegaze bands. Progressive guitar music, channeling deep emotion, a desire to hear something that sounds like how you feel inside. The stuff nobody talks about. Everything Else.

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Slowdive (and Liam) approved, Everything Else's debut is everything you want from a shoegaze LP. Really harkening back to those early Slowdive EPs released on Creation, the swathes of ethereal reverb, distorted artwork and enveloping walls of sound make this is a real gem of 2025 - don't miss this!

TRACK LISTING

1. Deepmind
2. Two Monkeys
3. Every Word Said
4. Another One Making Clouds
5. Hollow Surrounds
6. Uncertain
7. Watch
8. So Long
9. In Bed

Yazmin Lacey returns with 'Teal Dreams' - her soulful, fearless second album, rich with real-life storytelling and sonic flair.

Following the breakout success of her debut album 'Voice Notes', praised by Billboard, Fader and Pitchfork (who likened her to Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill), Yazmin’s star continues to rise. Last year saw her headline London’s Village Underground and KOKO, as well as perform with Ezra Collective on Strictly Come Dancing and Radio 1’s Live Lounge, the unforgettable voice behind firm festival favourite 'God Gave Me Feet for Dancing'.

With 'Teal Dreams', she builds on her signature sound blending soul, ska, lover’s rock and indie into a vivid, emotionally sharp record shaped by real life, late-night reflections, and a last-minute trip to Thailand.

Collaborating with some of the best in class Miles Clinton James (Little Simz ‘Lotus’), Barney Lister, Matt Maltese and more, Yazmin has expanded and elevated her sound on this album. 'Teal Dreams' is a bold, honest evolution, and proof that Yazmin Lacey is only just getting started. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Teal Dreams
2. Two Steps
3. Wallpaper
4. Love Is Like The Ghetto
5. Worlds Apart
6. Rear View
7. Grace (Reflective Dub)
8. No Promises
9. Wild Things
10. Ain’t I Good For You
11. Crutch
12. Ribbons
13. Water
14. Longest Way Around

On WE WERE JUST HERE, Dundalk, Ireland five-piece Just Mustard surge out of the shadows from the submerged world of Heart Under with a sound that leans toward light and euphoria. Their signature elements remain intact - warped guitars, cavernous low ends, twisted sound design - but this time the noise is channelled into something warmer and more melodic. Inspired by club spaces and physical joy, the songs strive for immediacy and feeling. Katie Ball’s vocals rise higher in the mix, capturing a conflicted pursuit of happiness that she describes as “trying to feel euphoric, but at a cost.”

Produced by the band and mixed by David Wrench (FKA Twigs, Frank Ocean, Caribou) the album expands their emotional palette while keeping things strange, textured, and uniquely their own. WE WERE JUST HERE explodes into technicolor, creating a world that feels immediate, haunted and ecstatic.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. POLLYANNA
2. ENDLESS DEATHLESS
3. SILVER
4. DREAMER
5. WE WERE JUST HERE

Side B
1. SOMEWHERE
2. DANDELION
3. THAT I MIGHT NOT SEE
4. THE STEPS
5. OUT OF HEAVEN

Since the release of his 2023 record, 'The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored', Pedigo earned widespread critical acclaim, performed a stunning NPR Tiny Desk Concert, toured non-stop with the likes of Jenny Lewis, Devendra Banhart and Hiss Golden Messenger, and more. He then decamped on a 20,000-acre ranch at an artist residency in Wyoming to write his new album, which he’d later record in Ojai with Scott Hirsch and name for a “pretty devastating” episode of Little House on the Prairie from 1978. The resulting album, 'I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away', is the final installment of what Pedigo has dubbed 'The Motor Trilogy’ – his three latest solo albums, tied together by their vehicular Jonathan Phillips artwork. An innovator of the instrumental genre, challenger of the stereotypical, and son of a truck-stop preacher, Pedigo has crafted an intentionally maximalist, genre-resistant work of warped instrumental Americana on this release, which he calls “a micro-dose psychedelic album…as if somebody had cut up a tab of LSD and put on a Fahey record.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: On his latest album Hayden's mesmerizing finger picked guitars conjure up images of dusty sunbaked landscapes and endless highways. A wonderfully evocative album, perfect for lazy Sunday listening.

TRACK LISTING

1. Long Pond Lily
2. All The Way Across
3. Smoked
4. Houndstooth
5. Hermes
6. Small Torch
7. I'll Be Waving As You Drive Away

Canadian DJ-producer Marie Davidson releases her sixth studio album 'City Of Clowns', made in collaboration with Soulwax and Pierre Guerineau (Essaie pas, L’Œil Nu, Feu St-Antoine), via Soulwax’s own Deewee label. Earlier this year, Davidson debuted on the legendary Deewee imprint with her single 'Y.A.A.M. (Your Asses Are Mine)', reuniting with the Belgian powerhouse Soulwax, who previously reworked Davidson’s acclaimed 'Work It' anthem. Her all-out blistering club cut “Contrarian” soon followed, evoking Davidson's heavier output.

'City Of Clowns', marks a return to the club – but not as you know it. The techno thump and scathing spoken-word delivery of 'Working Class Woman' resurface at points, but the pop structures and melodic sensibilities of 'Renegade Breakdown' also remain. It’s a “strange” sonic blend even by Davidson’s own standards. “It’s definitely linking back to what I was doing pre-pandemic, but with a bit of an evolution,” she says. “I didn't want to just repeat myself.” The sound and the spirit of the album are shaped, too, by the fact that Davidson has a new antagonist. This time it’s not club culture that’s coming for her sense of self, it’s Big Tech.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Scattered electronic fragments melt together into a big, robotic monolith of Linn drums, glitchy vocals and melted oscillators.

TRACK LISTING

1. Validations Weight
2. Demolition
3. Sexy Clown
4. Push Me Fuckhead
5. Fun Times
6. Statistical Modelling
7. Y.A.A.M.
8. Contrarian
9. Unknowing 

Nine Inch Nails returns with over 70 minutes of new music for the motion picture TRON: Ares, the first soundtrack / score work from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that will live under the Nine Inch Nails moniker; consisting of all original music, complete at 24 tracks. Reznor and Ross bring their Grammy and Oscar-winning sonic vision to the Grid, crafting a soundtrack that hums with menace, melancholy, and momentum. More than an album, its architecture in sound: pulsating synths, distorted textures, and haunting melodies that rewire the TRON universe from the inside out. It is the collision of analog soul and digital dread—a score that doesn't just accompany the film, it possesses it.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another roaring suite of cinematic thuds and industrial riffage from one of the greatest musicians in all of recorded music, Trent Reznor. If you haven't heard his soundtrack to Tron yet, you need to and if you have, well you know what this holds. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
01. INIT
02. FORKED REALITY
03. AS ALIVE AS YOU NEED ME TO BE
04. ECHOES
05. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

SIDE B
01. IN THE IMAGE OF
02. I KNOW YOU CAN FEEL IT
03. PERMANENCE
04. INFILTRATOR
05. 100% EXPENDABLE
06. STILL REMAINS

SIDE C
01. WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER?
02. BUILDING BETTER WORLDS
03. TARGET IDENTIFIED
04. DAEMONIZE
05. EMPATHETIC RESPONSE

SIDE D
01. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
02. A QUESTION OF TRUST
03. GHOST IN THE MACHINE
04. NO GOING BACK
05. NEMESIS
06. NEW DIRECTIVE
07. OUT IN THE WORLD
08. SHADOW OVER ME

Already deemed one of the best releases of 2025 (Vulture), Mark William Lewis’ timeless self-titled album moves between nostalgic, deep-rooted poems and upbeat, indie rock grooves. Presented as A24 Music’s first independent artist release.

Mark William Lewis is a singer/songwriter/producer from London whose music takes in wide ranging genres such as left field pop, hypnagogic pop, ambient, indie rock, slowcore and folk rock. In pensive, impressionistic lyrics he explores themes of alienation, intimacy, and the social environment of his hometown.

Mark's music has been widely praised for its emotional depth and innovative songwriting, with support from publications such as Pitchfork and The Fader praising his ability to create atmospheric soundscapes that resonate with listeners on a profound level.

He is the first artist to be signed to A24 not linked to a movie release or soundtrack. Their first signing as a record label has taken careful consideration, but Mark’s cinematic sound and edge of cult coolness makes him an excellent choice.

The album (his second full length) is self-titled, a very personal and revelatory body of work. His timeless sound is influenced by songwriting greats including Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith.

He has been compared and / or associated with contemporary artists including Dean Blunt, MIKE, Bar Italia, Mica Levi and King Krule.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Never has melancholy and fragility sounded so good as when MWL burst onto the scene last year – rightfully earning top spot in many EOY lists (including mine!).
Expanding the instrumental and fx palette somewhat; his rich, syrupy & velvet voice still speaks rousingly (and sometimes painfully) to our hearts, while his harmonica playing reaches its emotional zenith – has there been a more sincere songwriter from the UK in the last decade? I say no.

TRACK LISTING

1. STILL ABOVE
2. RECENT FUTURE
3. SEVENTEEN
4. SOCIALISING
5. TOMORROW IS PERFECT
6. SPIT
7. UGLY
8. SKELETONS COUPLING
9. PETALS
10. BRAIN
11. SILVER MOON
12. ECSTATIC HEADS

Guitar is the first studio album from Mac DeMarco since 2019's Here Comes The Cowboy. Following the two most recent releases - the 199-track One Wayne G and the instrumental, tour-inspired collection Five Easy Hot Dogs, Guitar features 12 new songs written, performed and recorded in its entirety by Mac between November 16th-28th in 2024 at his home studio in LA. Mac writes, “I think Guitar is as close to a true representation of where I’m at in my life today as I can manage to put to paper.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's been a while since a new Mac DeMarco record, and this latest is what I, a moderate DeMarco enjoyer would consider one of his best. I'll tell you why, it absolutely swims in the sort of friendly vibes that MDM excels at, and (for me) he's at his best when he's writing mellow acoustic guitar parts below his warmingly evocative vocals.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
A1. Shining
A2. Sweeter
A3. Phantom
A4. Nightmare
A5. Terror
A6. Rock And Roll

SIDE B
B1. Home
B2. Nothing At All
B3. Punishment
B4. Knockin
B5. Holy
B6. Rooster

The 12 tracks on ABOMINATION... are a hypnotic, maniacal, and propulsive attack on the senses – a fitting reaction to a world suffering from genocide, environmental collapse, state sanctioned violence, progressing technocracy, and more. The album was recorded by Enrique Tena Padilla, Mario Ramirez & John Dwyer, mixed by Padilla and Dwyer, and mastered by JJ Golden.

OSEES are John Dwyer (vocals/guitar/synths), Tom Dolas (guitar/samples/keys), Tim Hellman (bass), and Dan Rincon (drums)."

"It feels like its all lighting off. A lot of fodder in today’s world for an artist.
Too easily humans forget their humanity. Forgiveness is a dead science. Empathy is viewed as a weakness by cretins. Easier to hate rather than love. Fear and greed have dug their bloody hands into everything.
At least now we know who you are. We see you. We defy you.
People are under duress. Recognize this abomination. Oppose the oppressor. FUCK the fascists and their enablers. Fuck the war mongers
Good luck out there. ACAB. "—OSEES

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another fiery missive from the scuzz-rock behemoth that is OSEES (OCS, Oh Sees etc.). Big, bold and brash and ram-packed with attitude. Long live Dwyer & co and for the love of god, get this on the player.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. ABOMINATION
2. SNEAKER
3. GOD'S GUTS
4. INFECTED CHROME
5. GLUE
6. ASHES 2
Side B
7. COFFIN WAX
8. ASHES 1
9. FLIGHT SIMULATOR
10. PROTECTION
11. GLASS WINDOW
12. GLITTER

Having released three albums in Welsh and Cornish, 'Utopia' is Gwenno Saunders’ first album recorded predominantly in English, and presents a very different side to her life and songwriting.

Forty-three years into her life, Saunders has been many people. The disaffected Cardiff schoolgirl; the teenage Las Vegas dancer; the singer in indie pop group The Pipettes. There was a turn in a Bollywood film, a nightclub tour, a stint cleaning floors in an East London pub. Long before she would become an acclaimed solo songwriter in both Welsh and Cornish, a winner of the Welsh Music Prize, a nominee for the Mercury, a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh, there were the days of Nevada, London, Brighton; of Irish dancing, techno clubs, messiness and chaos.

'Utopia', Saunders’ fourth solo album, is an extraordinary exploration of all of these selves. If the singer regards her first three solo records — 2014’s Y Dydd Olaf, 2018’s Le Kov and 2022’s Tresor as “childhood records”, rooted in her upbringing, her parents, her formative identity, then Utopia captures a time of self-determination and experimentation. These are songs of discovery, of the years between being someone’s daughter and becoming someone’s wife and someone’s mother. They range from floor-fillers to piano ballads, via contributions from Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline, and encompass William Blake, a favourite Edrica Huws poem, and the Number 73 bus. It is her finest work to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The brilliant Gwenno returns for her latest LP, this time sees the multilinguist rendering her experiences in Vegas in English, and with it moving more towards her wistful 80's influenced indie sound we've not heard so much in the past few albums. Regardless of the language in which she writes, Gwenno's music is always endlessly evocative and beautifully conceived. It's stunning, a perfect development of her sound.

TRACK LISTING

1 London 1757
2 Dancing On Volcanoes
3 Utopia
4 Y Gath
5 War
6 73
7 The Devil
8 Ghost Of You
9 St Ives New School
10 Hireth

A supergroup of sorts - Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi, Trashmouth Records’ Luke and Liam May, and Quinn Whalley of Paranoid London and Warmduscher - Decius have travelled the earth liberating people from banality since the release of Decius Vol. I. They’ve revealed to all those they’ve encountered just what was missing in their lives: pump without borders, pump without reason - absolute pump.

Now they offer up Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience). It throbs with an almost impossible sense of potential, and expands on the lexicon of molten desire. The sound has moved into new territories, with tastes of house, disco and techno, all with an underlying base note of acid on tracks such as the slippery night cruise intensity of ‘Birth of A Smirk’, where Colonel Abrams gets his nipples tortured. ‘Queen of 14th St’ is all watersports and Cybotron force from Detroit via Deptford. First single ‘Walking In The Heat’ struts like a sunburnt and horny Kraftwerk, while ‘Ghent’ is purest uncut ’88 acid. Vol. II is the art of seduction in damp rooms painted black. Keep hydrated from whatever source is available. Be your own pleasure centre. Vol. II is a veritable selection box of booty bumps and illegal highs made at night for the night and beyond. This is music that takes pride in its walk of shame.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Thumping, jagged dance music that's as filthy as it is alluring. Gritty overdriven synths, rattling drum machines and lots of satisfying filter manipulation result in something that's as perfect for the dancefloor as it is a particularly raucous night on the home stereo.

TRACK LISTING

1. A1. Birth Of A Smirk (feat. Lias Saoudi) (5:39)
2. A2. Walking In The Heat (feat. Lias Saoudi & Alex White) (4:53)
3. B1. Queen Of 14th St (feat. Lias Saoudi) (5:51)
4. B2. Ghent (feat. Lias Saoudi) (5:46)
5. C1. Ibrahim (feat. Lias Saoudi & Maggie The Cat) (4:57)
6. C2. I Gave Birth 2 U (feat. Lias Saoudi & Maggie The Cat) (5:25)
7. C3. Punishment/Improvement (feat. Lias Saoudi) (5:03)
8. D1. Y U Look At Me That Way? (feat. Fats McCourt) (5:15)
9. D2. We Carry Our Flamboyance As A Warning (4:37)
10. D3. Arctic Spring (feat. Lias Saoudi) (5.20)

Eddie Chacon’s 2023 album, 'Sundown', established him as a “low-key R&B legend”, 30 years after his rocket-to-the-stars success as half of the duo Charles and Eddie. Now, Chacon is back with 'Lay Low', an album of hazy, seductive songs produced by Nick Hakim. Eddie Chacon’s soulful music has been praised by The Guardian, Uncut, MOJO, Record Collector, Aquarium Drunkard and many more.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A superb new one from Eddie Chacon, long established in his own right but formerly known as one half of Charles & Eddie (Of 'Would I Lie To You' fame). Chacon's latest dips more than a toe into the Balearic seas, but ends up somewhere between poolside electronica, downbeat and funky soul. It's a further extension of Chacon's established sound and shows how far his considerable talents stretch. A gorgeous return.

TRACK LISTING

1.Good Sun
2. Let You Go
3. Empire Ft. John Carroll Kirby
4. Lay Low
5. Birds Ft. Nick Hakim
6. Let The Devil In
7. End Of The World
8. If I Ever Let You Go

The third album from Pale Blue Eyes is called 'New Place' – invocation of fresh horizons; swapping creamy Devon for the synth central of Sheffield. The album arrives on the back of extensive and emotional transit. For PBE, 2024 started with a wonderful tour of 12 European countries with Slowdive. Over 12,000 kilometres. Snow and deep cold in Norway and Poland. Drought-stricken landscapes in France and Spain. On and on, joyously so. The year’s end brought more movement for the married couple at the core of Pale Blue Eyes, singer and guitarist Matt Board and drummer and synth queen Lucy Board. Sadly, family tragedy catalysed a move from South Devon to South Yorkshire.

“Change is a theme throughout the new album,” says Lucy. “It’s about being in a new place, starting again but reflecting on the journey and what and who got us to this place. It's a celebration of making it to this point and starting again.”

That new start is fully manifested on Pale Blue Eyes’ new album, released on the band’s Broadcast Recordings label. Return single 'How Long Is Now' brought uplifting synth carousels and was titled after a Berlin mural and art installation. On 'Pieces Of You' gorgeously deliquescent guitar ripples out over Matt’s distinctive tenor voice. Be There is meditative, delicate, with guest vocals from Rachael Swinton of Glasgow electronic-rock duo Cloth. Aubrey made his own fretless bass. It features on the track 'Seven Years'. Several tracks have input from two musicians who have featured in the PBE live line-up – Tom Sharkett, music producer and guitarist with W.H. Lung, and music producer and musician Lewis Johnson-Kellett.

“The new album comes with a new landscape,” says Matt, summing up. “We were in new surroundings with new city sounds – a bit overwhelming for me, but also exciting. I hope the result is uplifting, driving, a perpetual forward motion." There are new sounds but also a steadfast Krautrock influence, alongside some of the band’s other favourite moods and flavours. The album reflects the end of an era and embracing new beginnings in a new place.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Beautifully rich shoegaze soundscapes with shimmering chorused guitars and dreamy, lysergic vocals swimming over the top. There are echoes of classic 90's 'gaze here, but it's accomplished with an injection of modern sounding pop song structures and a keen production ear. Wonderfully hazy, but without being muddied, Pale Blue Eyes take the best elements of shoegaze, synth and pop and bring them together perfectly.

TRACK LISTING

1. How Long Is Now
2. Scrolling
3. Pieces Of You
4. On The Surface
5. The Dreamer
6. Travel Day
7. Rituals
8. Our Lost Words
9. Now And Again
10. Be There
11. Half Light
12. Seven Years 

“Phi-Psonics is a spiritual exploration of being together and connecting,” says acoustic bassist Seth Ford-Young of the immersive project he initiated in East Los Angeles in 2016. “From the beginning, I wanted to explore a contemplative sound, to create music that can be useful to listen to when you’re in a place of being more meditative, and maybe needing a break from the cacophony of the world.”

For his third long-player under the Phi-Psonics banner, Ford-Young marshalled a series of live recordings at the Healing Force Of The Universe record store in Pasadena, sculpting fourteen tracks, largely composed in the moment with a fluctuating cast of players, which wonderfully transmit his ideals of community and inner peace.

Called ‘Expanding To One’, it features exquisitely calming yet searching pieces like ‘There’s Still Hope’, where Seth’s softly undulating bassline underpins beatific explorations from core Phi-Psonics members, Sylvain Carton and Randal Fisher (both on saxophone), and Josh Collazo (drums), alongside guests Zach Tenorio (Wurlitzer piano) and Mathias Künzli (percussion). Equally sublime, ‘Healing Time’ ripples like a mountain stream, with Ford-Young, Carton, Fisher and Tenorio joined by Minta Spencer (harp), Dylan Day (guitar) and, on drums/percussion, Jay Bellerose, a revered LA stickman most recently under the spotlight in Jeff Parker ETA IVtet.

These exquisite recordings were captured at six fortnightly ticketed sessions at Healing Force in February-April 2024, with sixty-odd fans and locals sitting in rapt attention as the players improvised together. For Seth, the venture was partially a reaction to the brutality of COVID lockdown.

“That experience of being isolated really brought into focus how important being together is,” he says. “That’s really what we have. We have all these other ways of connecting, like via the internet, but actually being together in person, there’s no substitute for it. So, I was like, ‘Alright, I want to do something that brings people together, and builds communities.’”

As much a performance space as a record store, the room at Healing Force Of The Universe (named after the Albert Ayler album from 1970) allowed for studio-quality recording of rare warmth and definition, and Ford-Young wisely chose to present the material as a studio album, benefitting from the energy of the moment shared by all those in attendance across those six sessions, but editing out the crowd noise to let the music stand timelessly – the best of both worlds.

As the world opened up again, and social boundaries became less distanced once more, Seth very consciously took his creativity back towards the spontaneous, and opened up Phi-Psonics to broaden his community, and to improvise music collectively without too much prescribed in advance.

“I thought, ‘Let’s involve some more musicians, different instruments, people that I've played with on other things… Some of them had even sat in with the band at different gigs and stuff, so let's bring them in and really involve them in the recording, and just expand things.’ That's why I called the album ‘Expanding to One’.”

“I feel like the whole record is a document of a time and a place,” he goes on by way of summary. “There's a music community in Los Angeles right now which is doing special things, and that's part of why I chose the various people, because they’re doing beautiful work, and are of a similar mind. So, it’s all about capturing that moment”.

The audiences on each night, he says, were “an intentional listening crowd”, seated on beanbags, eyes closed, drifting with the gentle tides of the music. Experiencing ‘Expanding To One’ in the comfort of their own home, listeners can now share in that moment, and immerse themselves in the gentle beauty of Phi-Psonics musical world.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Deeply restorative droplets, chimes and syncopated tuned percussion below swimming woodwind and jazzy trills break into loungey staggered rhythm and slow grooves.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prelude: Expansion
2. There's Still Hope
3. Healing Time
4. Many Paths
5. Sunrise
6. Love Theme From Your Life
7. We're All One
8. Nature Signs
9. Discovery
10. It Finds A Way
11. Sounds Of The Universe
12. Before The Pyramids
13. New Pyramid
14. Mysteries Of The Dark

Featuring: Coby Sey, Mica Levi and Mark Pell (Good Sad Happy Bad / Micachu & The Shapes)

‘Affectionately’ is the debut album by London based songwriter and musician Raisa K. With self produced instrumentals supporting Raisa’s signature vocal performance, the record delves into the intricate emotional cycles of relationships with heartfelt sincerity. Melodies appear simple and direct, while the themes explored present a great level of complexity. Whether about trust, kindness, doubt, frustration, annoyance, regret, honesty, insecurity, loneliness or friendship, each of the album’s twelve songs lie somewhere in between a diary and a letter.‘Affectionately’ is almost entirely produced on Raisa’s laptop and written in her home in London, as well as finding small pockets of time on trains and buses, during breaks at work, during the kids' nap-times, at the playground, in the park. The production's backbone is formed by a synthesiser sample, weaving together a range of recordings and sonic textures.

This creates a consistent expression where diverse electronic styles merge with Raisa's crisp, candid vocals in unique and personal songwriting. Some listeners might recognise Raisa’s voice and musical language from records by the band Good Sad Happy Bad, which she is a part of. While ‘Affectionately’ certainly moves in its own space, a kinship with fellow London artists is also present, as the record includes a feature with Coby Sey as well as instrumental contributions from long-time collaborators Marc Pell and Mica Levi.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Intriguing DIY / bedroom, experimental synth-pop curio which will appeal to regular visitors to the Dean Blunt sphere.

TRACK LISTING

Affectionately
How Did You Know
Feel It
Tall Enough
As It Seems
Both Still
Honest
Step
Dreaming
Stay Feat. Coby Sey
Come Down
Final Generations

New album from prolific and genre-bending artist Jane Remover. Featuring Danny Brown on track 'Pyschoboost', Pitchfork says "The experimental artist does a complete 180 from their previous record and unleashes an inferno of raw thoughts that pushes everything - rap, pop, voice, their artistic persona - to the breaking point."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Noisy, free-wheeling experimental hip-hop that's deeply rooted in synth music and vapourwave, reminiscent of an amped-up PC Music vibe. Crisply produced, wonderfully odd and in the best way possible, thoroughly undanceable.

TRACK LISTING

1. TWICE REMOVED
2. Psychoboost (with Danny Brown)
3. Star People
4. Experimental Skin
5. Angels In Camo
6. Dreamasher
7. TURN UP OR DIE
8. Dancing With Your Eyes Closed
9. Fadeoutz
10. Professional Vengeance
11. Dark Night Castle
12. JRJRJR

Michael Grigoni and Pan•American present their first collaboration. The album’s title, New World, Lonely Ride, gestures toward its meditative orientation. The duo offers a series of reflections on the zeitgeist of our present moment, the spirit of our age: the isolation and loneliness that continues to echo in the wake of the pandemic; the fractures that mar our political discourse; the uncertainty that has stamped itself on the future of democracy. The vast geography of America and the absence of a common ground, a shared political vision, have contributed to the affective landscape of contemporary American life—of what it feels like to live in the United States today.

Using instrumental voices and textures drawn from the traditional American forms of folk, country, bluegrass and blues, and informed with a modern sense of ambience and space, the sound is both contemporary and deeply rooted. With New World, Lonely Ride, Grigoni and Pan American join countless American artists who have drawn upon this landscape—physical and affective—giving it a voice and shape, listening to its character. And in starting there, with listening, offer a response for the future.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm BANG into this sort of rippling, ambienty American guitar music at the moment, and New World, Lonely Ride is possibly the most perfect example of this I could imagine. Of COURSE it's Kranky, and of course it's majestic.

Saxophonist, flautist and producer Chip Wickham casts a formidable shadow across the worldwide jazz landscape. Originally from Brighton, but now dividing his time between the UK, Spain and the Middle-East, he has made a name for himself with a series of beautifully crafted solo albums that draw equally on the hard swinging spiritual jazz of Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and Sahih Shihab, alongside the music of British jazz legends such as Tubby Hayes and Harold McNair and the more contemporary sounds of Jazzanova, Kyoto Jazz Massive and Robert Glasper. His close working relationship with Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Records has spanned close to two decades (since he played on Halsall’s 2008 debut ‘Sending My Love’) and has since released three standout releases on the label (the ‘Cloud 10’ LP, and the ‘Astral Travelling’ and ‘Love & Life’ EP’s). Once again returning to the heralded label, he now prepares to release his elegant fifth studio album ‘The Eternal Now’. Further exploring his penchant for hard-hitting soulful, spiritual jazz and modal hard-bop, it denotes an exciting new chapter in his much- revered discography, once which sees his unbridled artist flourish into new and fruitful pastures.

A beautifully crafted record, ‘The Eternal Now’ is a heartfelt ode to submitting oneself to the practice of creating art, and the freedom that’s derived from letting go. Speaking on his journey to bringing it into the world, Chip explains “'The Eternal Now' is a creative place where time has no purpose. A place where the past and the future don’t exist. A place where an artist can create something that is timeless and relevant. Writing this album has been a deliberate journey of exploration and drive into the furthest reaches of creativity. An attempt to push myself artistically into new spaces using new colours and new energy”. On how he approached this record in comparison to his previous offerings, he divulges ‘I had to be playful and take risks. It has taken longer than any other album to make and it has been so worth it. I have been drifting and taking the road less travelled as well as not looking back. I’ve enjoyed being on the outside and the freedom it has brought me to create something new and fresh and relevant and timeless.’

Opening with the rolling hand percussion and floating notes of ‘Drifting’, the record quickly finds its footing, and dives headfirst into a propulsive and splashy rhythm section. A tasteful drum fill ushers in the commencement of second single ‘Nara Black’, which features the sultry vocals of Peach, whose dreamlike lyrics intertwine with uplifting flute motifs and sweeping strings. The album’s title track is up next, channeling curious and alluring melodies through a swirling portal of sound. ‘Lost Souls’ is a restful and nourishing track, giving time for the spirit to breathe amidst rich woodwinds and soulful shakers. On ‘No Turning Back’ pensive atmospheres ease into torrents of melody, twisting like the banks of a great river. ‘The road less travelled’ sees wandering keys traverse vast undulating expanses of sound, before ‘Falling Deep’’s winding motifs beckon the listener to venture deeper within. Penultimate track ‘Ikigai’ (translating to ‘a reason for being’) harnesses a potent moment of beauty, as spectral flute dances amongst lush strings before the flourishes of ‘Outside’ bring the album to a poignant close.

A captivating and emotive listen, ‘The Eternal Now’ sees Chip at the top of his game, creating an other-worldly dreamscape with enchanting sound. He says ‘This album is about giving lost souls a home, falling deep in love with the spiritual joy of music and making something that will last like a Japanese tattoo made with Nara Black ink. Giving me balance and flow in life, my Ikigai.’

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Clattering, staggered percussion and soaring woodwind come together in a beautiful show of skill from one our favourite jazzers for UK heavyweights, Gondwana. Wonderfully rich, lysergic keys and treble-heavy rhodes stabs echo throughout, intensely skilled percussionists and silky smooth vocals. Honestly, what else could you want.

TRACK LISTING

1. Drifting
2. Nara Black
3. The Eternal Now
4. Lost Souls
5. No Turning Back
6. The Road Less Travelled
7. Falling Deep
8. Ikigai
9. Outside

GOLLIWOG is billy woods’ first album in two years, preceded by 2023’s Maps, his second collaboration with producer Kenny Segal. That nimble travelogue has little in common with woods’ newest work, despite the fact that Segal shows up a couple times in the credits. GOLLIWOG is a haunting collection that weaves horror, humor, surrealism and Afropessimism into a cinematic tapestry, aided and abetted by a murderer’s row of producers. African zombies, time traveling trap cars, malevolent ragdolls and a dying Frantz Fanon are just a few of the revelers in woods’ danse macabre.

GOLLIWOG features production from The Alchemist, Kenny Segal, EL-P, Conductor Williams, Preservation, Messiah Musik, Sadhugold, Ant (Atmosphere), Shabaka Hutchings, Steel Tipped Dove, DJ Haram, Willie Green, Jeff Markey, Saint Abdullah, and LA-based experimental jazz trio Human Error Club. Meanwhile, woods is joined on the mic by Backwoodz labelmates ELUCID and Cavalier, along with rappers Bruiser Wolf, Despot, Al.Divino, and singer-songwriter Yolanda Watson.

GOLLIWOG is another triumph in the woods oeuvre, as layered and compelling as anything he has ever done. A black carnival pitched in a muddy field overnight, empty rides whirring and clattering in the dark

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: If it wasn't for Woods' *impeccable* rapping, this could easily be an outsider noise / plunderphonics odyssey, with lo-fi samples bringing to mind Lilacs & Champagne or DJ Shadow, while Woods' obviously political lyrics and Sci-Fi fantasism adds a rich, odd lore. Brilliant, and completely startling experimental hip-hop. Anticon eat your heart out.

TRACK LISTING

1. Jumpscare Produced By Steel Tipped Dove
2. STAR87 Produced By Conductor Williams
3. Misery Produced By Kenny Segal
4. BLK XMAS Feat. Bruiser Wolf Produced By Sadhugold
5. Waterproof Mascara Produced By Preservation
6. Counterclockwise Produced By The Alchemist
7. Corinthians Feat. Despot Produced By EL-P
8. Pitchforks & Halos Produced By Kenny Segal
9. All These Worlds Are Yours Feat. ELUCID Produced By Shabaka Hutchings & DJ Haram
10. Maquiladoras Feat. Al.divino Produced By Saint Abdullah
11. A Doll Fulla Pins Feat. Yolanda Watson Produced By Jeff Markey
12. Golgotha Produced By Messiah Musik
13. Cold Sweat Produced By Ant
14. BLK ZMBY Produced By Steel Tipped Dove
15. Make No Mistake Produced By Messiah Musik
16. Born Alone Produced By Kenny Segal
17. Lead Paint Test Feat. ELUCID & Cavalier Produced By Willie Green
18. Dislocated Feat. ELUCID Produced By Human Error Club

The Charlatans are back with their highly anticipated new album, 'We Are Love'. Their first studio album since 2017, this eleven-track collection marks a significant return for the band. 'We Are Love' sees The Charlatans pushing their sonic boundaries, featuring exciting collaborations with the acclaimed Dev Hynes and renowned producer Steven Street, promising a fresh yet unmistakably Charlatans sound.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brand new one from The Charalatans, drifting in familiar waters, with evocative jangling guitar and snappy percussion sitting beneath Tim's unmistakeable (and enduringly iconic) vocals. There is more of a focus on the rhythmic element here perhaps, with more of a danceable groove underpinning the whole affair, but in the end it's a wonderfully familiar sound from one of our favourite outfits.

TRACK LISTING

1. Kingdom Of Ours
2. We Are Love
3. Many A Day A Heartache
4. For The Girls
5. You Can’t Push The River
6. Deeper And Deeper
7. Appetite
8. Salt Water
9. Out On Our Own
10. Glad You Grabbed Me
11. Now Everything

Pastel are a 5-piece guitar band signed to independent Manchester label; Spirit of Spike Island - Having previously topped the vinyl charts with their debut EP, selling out shows across the UK and being personally chosen by Liam Gallagher to play at his Knebworth shows, they now release their long awaited debut album 'souls in motion'.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: This record delivers blissed out, spacious grooves and a vibe brimming with belief and positivity, a sound that's gonna take you somewhere. Mostly reminiscent of The Verve circa Northern Soul, there's a (coolly understated) swagger which makes you think this band's really going to inspire people. It's a heady brew.

TRACK LISTING

Heroes Blood
Your Day
Dancing On A Pin
Isaiah
Running On Empty
Deeper Than Holy
Gone Too Fast
Leave A Light On (Velvet Storm)
Sunnyside
Escape

'Horizon' is a new collaborative album by Resavoir & Matt Gold. Across the 10 tracks the two Chicago-based producers combine their distinct sensibilities to create a hypnotic and inviting love letter to their shared admiration for '60s and '70s Brazilian music. Resavoir leading man Will Miller the acclaimed trumpeter, composer, and producer who's worked with SZA, Whitney, and more makes room at the table for Gold — a seasoned multi-instrumentalistand accomplished guitarist who has collaborated with the likes of Makaya McCraven and Greg Ward - and the results are distinctly new for both of them. The sunny and expansive tunes on Horizon are as immersive as they are endlessly replayable, a dynamic and joyous body of work.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another International Anthem stunner, this time channelling Brazilian music and ending with an album that's just driven enough to not end up horizontal.

TRACK LISTING

1. Canopy
2. Memento
3. Dewy
4 Zero Gravity
5. Diversey Beach
6. Ahhh
7. Horizon
8. Hazel Canyon
9. Metropoli
10. Tomorrow

Deftones have always defined boundless creativity in the music space. Across nine prior studio albums, they have carved out an unmistakable sonic identity — ferocious yet dreamlike, while making space for constant refinement and surprise.

Now, decades on from the groove-forward sound of their era-defining debut, Adrenaline, and following a long line of masterpieces including 2000’s White Pony, 2010’s Diamond Eyes and 2020’s Ohms — an album that earned them their second and third Grammy nominations — they return with one of the most focused statements of their career: private music.

Joining the band’s creative core of Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham and Frank Delgado (as well as touring bassist Fred Sablan, who appears on the album) is producer Nick Raskulinecz, who previously worked on Diamond Eyes and 2012’s riveting Koi No Yokan. The result is a lean, masterfully paced 11-song set that plays like a new Deftones benchmark.

Meditating on the beauty and peril of nature, the challenge of cultivating a positive mindset and visions of a journey beyond the physical realm, private music showcases Deftones at their most evolved. At once a psychedelic voyage and a skull-rattling wallop, it’s the latest peak in a catalog filled with immersive, emotive triumphs.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I've honestly been a Deftones fan from the first minute I heard them, and i'd consider myself one now too *but* i'm not afraid to jettison a band if they get rubbish or whatever, but Chino & crew have kept the quality high, with both 2020's 'Ohms' and thia easily recalling the heft of Adrenaline or the ingenuity of White Pony.

TRACK LISTING

01 My Mind Is A Mountain
02 Locked Club
03 Ecdysis
04 Nfinite Source
05 Souvenir
06 CXz
07 I Think About You All The Time
08 Milk Of The Madonna
09 Cut Hands
10 ~metal Dream
11 Departing The Body

Bon Iver’s three-song collection SABLE, was a prologue mired in darkness, a controlled burn clearing the way for new possibilities. fABLE is the book that follows. Where SABLE, was a work of solitude, fABLE is an outstretched hand. Radiant, ornate pop music gleams around Vernon’s voice as he focuses on a new and beautiful era. On every song, his eyes are locked with one specific person. It’s love, which means there’s an intense clarity, focus, and honesty within fABLE. It’s a portrait of a man flooded and overwhelmed by that first meeting (“Everything Is Peaceful Love”). There’s a tableau defined by sex and irrepressible desire (“Walk Home”). This is someone filled with light and purpose seeing an entire future right in front of him: a partner, new memories, maybe a family. There’s something undeniably healing about infatuation. Cleaving to someone else can feel like light pouring in from a door that’s suddenly swung wide. But there’s a reason SABLE, is of a piece with fABLE; the shadow still rears its head in lighter times. Even when you’ve reached a new chapter, you’ll still find yourself back in your own foundational muck. A fable isn’t a fairy tale. There’s good stuff: unbridled joy and trips to Spain. But fables aren’t hinged on happy endings; they’re here to instill a lesson. As the album winds to a close, he acknowledges the need for patience and a commitment to put in the work. There’s a selfless rhythm required when you’re enmeshing yourself with another person. The song—and by extension the entire album —is a pledge. He’s ready to find that pace.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: SABLE, fABLE sees the inimitable Bon Iver return for a cathartic, epic album comprising two parts. While the first disc 'SABLE' is undeniably beautiful, it's definitely more rooted in Bon Iver's alt-folk roots, while the contrasting 'fABLE' is a widescreen burst of emotion, and results in some of the most captivating material in his stylistically varied catalogue.

TRACK LISTING

SABLE,
SIDE A
1. THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS
2. S P E Y S I D E
SIDE B
3. AWARDS SEASON

fABLE
SIDE A
1. Short Story
2. Everything Is Peaceful Love
3. Walk Home
4. Day One (feat. Dijon And Flock Of Dimes)
5. From
SIDE B
6. I'll Be There
7. If Only I Could Wait (feat. Danielle Haim)
8. There's A Rhythmn
9. Au Revoir

The journey Big Special have been on is one of the key stories told by their second album, National Average. And trust Big Special to invest those stories with wisdom, insight and the most absolute humanity. And these might be their stories, but the lessons speak to us all.

And so National Average reflects the world as it is, as Big Special have seen it while grinding around the nation and screaming their poetry at the people. The album also registers how their own lives, their own world has changed, and what that means.

With characteristic Big Special flair, the darkness is leavened by more than a ladle-full of the blackest humour.

But the upbeats are easily matched by the album’s downbeats, the album’s emotional shifts more crafted than on the debut. “The first half of the album is about ambition – you can hear the confidence of it, even a little bit of sleaze,” says Hicklin. “The second half is about reflecting on what’s happened, how everything’s changed. You’ve got to be honest with the darkness.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Wry, political spoken word pieces that are nicely produced and perfectly constructed, some a little louder and some a little less but all superb.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. THE MESS.
2. GOD SAVE THE PONY.
3. HUG A BASTARD.
4. SHOP MUSIC.
5. PIGS PUDDIN.
6. PROFESSIONALS.
7. GET BACK SAFE.
8. YESBOSS.

SIDE B
9. DOMESTIC BLISS.
10. JUDAS SONG.
11. THE BEAST.
12. I ONCE HAD A KESTREL.
13. THIN HORSES.

Following 'Shadow People' (2018) and 'De Pelicula' (2021) done with Laurent Garnier , The Limiñanas are making their big comeback with their new album entitled 'Faded' , whose first single is 'Prisoner of Beauty' featuring Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream), supporter of the band for years. The French psych-garage duo has also gathered on 'Faded' for duets artists such as Jon Spencer, Bertrand Belin, Rover, Penny, Anna Jean & Pascal Comelade.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: France's Liminanas beautifully segue through a selection of gritty psychedelic groovers and airy tropical pop gems. Helped by a star-studded selection of guests, it's hard not to be swayed by their inescapable songwriting talent and incomparable vibe.

TRACK LISTING

1. Spirale
2. Prisoner Of Beauty Feat. Bobby Gillespie
3. J'adore Le Monde Feat. Bertrand Belin
4. Shout Feat. Rover
5. Faded Feat. Penny
6. Catherine Feat. Anna Jean
7. The Dancer
8. Space Baby Feat. Jon Spencer & Pascal Comelade
9. Tu Viens Marie
10. Louie Louie
11. Autour De Chez Moi
12. Degenerate Star Feat. Jon Spencer & Pascal Comelade
13. Où Va La Chance (Françoise Hardy Cover)

Strut presents Mulatu Plays Mulatu, the first major studio album in over 10 years from the father of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke.

Featuring masterful new arrangements of some of his classic compositions, Mulatu Plays Mulatu finds Mulatu revisiting the sounds that helped to change the face of Ethiopian music during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The album was recorded between London and Addis Ababa, working with his long-standing UK band, a tight, intuitive ensemble honed through years of live performance, alongside cultural musicians resident at his Jazz Vi lage club in Addis. Mulatu Plays Mulatu realises Mulatu’s long-term vision of Ethio-jazz, intricately balancing Western jazz arrangements with the rich sounds of traditional Ethiopian instruments including the krar, masenqo, washint, kebero and begena. Throughout the album, he reshapes familiar material with rich textures, expanded improvisations and a deepened rhythmic complexity, creating a body of work that feels as vital and contemporary as it does steeped in tradition. Familiar compositions like ‘Yekermo Sew’, ‘Netsanet’ and the celebratory ‘Kulun’ are reinvented here as elegant big band performances.

“Ethio-jazz brings us together and makes us one,” explains Mulatu. “This album is the culmination of my work bringing this music to the world and pays respect to our unsung heroes, the original musical scientists in Ethiopia who gave us our cultural music.”

Bridging continents and generations throughout his 50-year career, Astatke now offers us an invitation to hear his music again, with a completely fresh perspective. Ethio-jazz, like its creator, is always in motion.

Mulatu Plays Mulatu was produced by Dexter Story and features contemporary artists LA-based artists Carlos Niño and Kibrom Birhane. The album was recorded and mixed by Isabel Gracefield at RAK Studios in London and by Dexter Story in Addis. The inspired album artwork was created by acclaimed Oslo-based Ethiopian artist, Wendimagegn Belete with photography by Alexis Maryon.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The Ethio-jazz godfather returns for a brand new album, clearly showing how his dedication to the preservation of classic Ethiopian music has shaped the appreciation of it throughout the world. One of the true legends and pioneers, in the finest form of his stellar career.

TRACK LISTING

LP
A1. Zelesenga Dewel
A2. Kulun
A3. Netsanet
B1. Yekermo Sew
B2. Chik Chikka
B3. Motherland
B4. Yekatit

CD
1. Zelesenga Dewel
2. Kulun
3. Netsanet
4. Yekermo Sew
5. Azmari
6. Chik Chikka
7. The Way To Nice
8. Motherland Intro
9. Motherland
10. Mulatu
11. Yekati

If there's one thing Panic Shack know, it's how to have a good time. Comprised of Sarah Harvey (vocals), Meg Fretwell (guitar/backing vocals), Romi Lawrence (guitar/backing vocals), Em Smith (bass/backing vocals) and Nick Williams (drums), the band formed in 2018 as a middle-finger to the “members-only club” atmosphere of indie and punk scenes – not just because they’re male-dominated, but because they make playing music seem out of reach or, even worse, boring. “Boys make it look so hard,” Em says, rolling her eyes. “Whenever I see someone on the floor fiddling with their pedals with a face like a slapped arse I think, you're making this look so unattainable and it’s actually so fucking easy.”

This carefree approach gives Panic Shack’s music the same effect as popping a bottle of Prosecco – explosive, intoxicating, and delightfully chaotic. With barely any music available online, they built a word-of-mouth following off the back of their live shows, which have been praised for fusing “thrashy early LA-style punk with choreography that owes something to the Go-Go’s and Iron Maiden all at once” (The Guardian). That quickly snowballed into tours with the likes of Bob Vylan and Soft Play, and festival appearances at Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds, Green Man, End of the Road, SXSW and more. Released in 2022, their acclaimed Baby Shack EP bottled the lightning they have on stage, cementing their ability to blend killer hooks with a contagious sense of humour. The first vinyl pressing – splattered pink, obviously – sold out almost instantly.

Panic Shack’s self-titled debut album represents a serious level up. Linking up with producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Yard Act), it finds the band expanding their gutsy punk sound into fuller territory, packed with vocal harmonies, synths, electronic experimentation, and even a trumpet at one point.

Over 11 breakneck tracks, Panic Shack never lets up or loses momentum. It opens with the rising sound of chatter, glass clinking and laughter, most of which was recorded in the beer garden at an Amyl & the Sniffers gig. Fizzing with the anticipation of walking into a club at the start of a night out, it feels like party-punk’s answer to the intro of Spice Girls’ ‘Wannabe’. From there, the bouncy bass line and blistering guitars of ‘Girl Band Starter Band’ kick in, and the band pulls you into their world the way a friend would grab your hand and drag you onto the dancefloor. “Four iced lattes / Sit outside / Smoke a rolly / Sun is shining / People watching / Things are moving / Got us talking…” Sarah chants, the pace ramping up like a heartbeat beginning to race.

Across the album, the lyrics are conversational, often stemming from in-jokes, while the subject matter spans the full range of the feminine experience. Whether it’s everyday stuff like browsing Hinge (‘Unhinged’) and remembering everything you need to stick in your bag because your dress has no pockets (‘Pockets’), or broader societal issues like the impact of toxic tabloid culture on body image (‘Gok Wan’) and sexual harassment (‘SMELLARAT’), no topic is too frivolous or too vast. There’s no point-scoring or political commentary to be made here, though. The songs spring naturally from the way they live their lives, which is, more often than not, with a great deal of enjoyment.

Irresistible because of their simplicity and charming because of their familiarity, Panic Shack are the answer to a question that, quite frankly, isn’t asked often enough: what if the funniest girls you know started a band? The sonic equivalent to a coming-of-age film unfolding over a single night, Panic Shack takes the shape of a bender, beginning by approaching a bar and ending with an impassioned speech at sunrise about how much you love your friends. Swerving the expected topics of sex and romance, the entire album revolves around the ionic bond between the four girls.

“This band has taken us on the most mental journey that nobody else will fully understand,” says Meg. It’s only right, then, that their debut marks a celebration of that as much as it does the start of a new journey entirely. “We've always wanted people to come in and be part of our world, and this album is every part of who Panic Shack are. The party side, the angry side… It’s a story about us, really,” Sarah explains. “That’s why we named it after the band. We can't help but be ourselves.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bouncy, punky dance music that's rooted in garage rock and the clattering mayhem of lo-fi but is shining with the sort of modern production and song structures that lean heavily into modern, wild party music. RIYL a good time.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. Girl Band Starter Pack
2. Gok Wan
3. Lazy
4. Tit School
5. We Need To Talk About Dennis

SIDE B:
6. Do Something
7. Personal Best
8. Pockets
9. Unhinged
10. SMELLARAT
11. Thelma And Louise

You Are The Morning was formed amid personal upheaval in 2021. “I came out as trans to my nearest and dearest,” she says, “Some did not accept me, but some did.” Jasmine got divorced, and a difficult home life meant she was writing while experiencing homelessness and precarious housing, sleeping on friend’s couches and relying on community support. Despite the pain of some of its background, the record is an uplifting look at t4t love. Jasmine describes her first trans romance as the first time she experienced joy in a deep sense, because of her experience of living as a woman.

First single ‘Skin on Skin’ explores the new joy of physical touch. Usually a quick writer, it’s a rare song that grew over time, during which a close connection with a friend began to form. “Sticking to the physical boundaries we wanted to have with each other became increasingly difficult. We were spending lots of time together, then falling in love. This song became a celebration of healing and physical catharsis found through unrepressed queer love.”

Jasmine and her band travelled to L.A. to record at Sound City Studios. It was made across 12 days in a highly collaborative and emotional process, and because Jasmine sees her songs as fluid and ever-changing, the recordings carry that free and spontaneous spirit.jasmine.4.t is supported by an all-trans band, Phoenix Rousiamanis contributes piano and strings, with Eden O’Brien on drums and Emily Abbott on bass. With Jasmine’s voice and songwriting at the centre, the record incorporates a wider cast of voices. ‘Best Friend’s House’ features a chorus including her bandmates, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus (“the girls and the boys”), Saddest Factory Records label-mate Claud, Becca Mancari and E.R. Fightmaster. The song carries the communal spirit of the record’s creation. On the closing track, ‘Woman’, she is backed by the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, a cross-generational group of trans singers who, like Jasmine, use their voice as a source of communal power. The song blossoms from solo performance to wider group catharsis. All the while, Jasmine sings unwaveringly about the power of knowing yourself at a core level: “I am, in my soul, a woman”.

The writing of You Are The Morning pulled from dark moments to tell its story. Surrounded by friends, the recording process was full of light. Through her performances, activism and artistry, jasmine.4.t is ushering in a new dawn.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm a massive fan of Calud, so was excited to hear the latest record from Phoebe Bridgers' Saddest Factory label. Jasmine's music thoroughly soars, nestling comfortably between the country-adjacent majesty of onetime tourmate, Lucy Dacus or the folky fingerpicking of Ryley Walker or Yasmin Williams. It's a beautifully written union of her perfectly evocative lyrical themes and the intricate, athletic instrumentation. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
Kitchen
Skin On Skin
Highfield
Breaking In Reverse
You Are The Morning
Best Friend’s House

SIDE B
Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation
Tall Girl
New Shoes
Roan
Elephant
Transition
Woman

Loyle Carner's fourth album is a life-affirming exploration of fatherhood, childhood and alternative music. Whereas his previous albums drew on his past experiences, on 'Hopefully!' he takes a confident stride forward both musically and personally as he embraces change and looks to the future. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An absolutely stunning, heartfelt new album from Loyle Carner, perfectly mixing his established disaffected lyrical flow with understated full-on singing! It's a perfect melodic counter to the more intense sections and lends a lovely sense of balance, showing that Carner (Larner) really is one of the UK's premier musical talents. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. feel At Home 
2. In My Mind
3. All I Need
4. Lyin
5. Time To Go
6. Horcrux
7. Strangers
8. Hopefully (Ft. Benjamin Zephaniah)
9. purpose (Ft. Navy Blue)
10. don't Fix It
11. about Time

‘Never Exhale’ is the sound of a band that hasn’t stopped for a breath. DITZ have toured relentlessly since the release of their first album ‘The Great Regression’. The songs that form their newest offering were written across Europe, often on off days and in borrowed rehearsal rooms.

It could be said that the band treat recording and release of music as an afterthought. Often playing songs live years before their release, tweaking them as they go. The songs on the final record may change before they are ever heard as part of the album.

‘Never Exhale’ was largely recorded at Holy Mountain studios in London during a freezing cold January. The process was frought with obstacles, the original plan, to go and record in Rhode Island, was abandoned when DITZ were offered a support tour with IDLES, although the album was still mixed by the originally intended engineer, Seth Manchester (Model/Actriz, Lingua Ignota, Big Brave). The result is an album hardened by the pressure of its own making. Laboured but not loved.

The album themes reveal themselves more on further listens. The opening gambit taxi man is an exploration into what it would be like to weigh up your impact of the world. The eponymous taxi man could be seen as a St Peter type figure.

Further on the album explores themes of unnecessary hatred and division, Space/Smile and It smells like something died in here, aging, Senor Siniestro and the separation of the physical from reality, The Body As A Structure. It’s political, but ultimately personal. More Genet or Kafka than Orwell or Huxley.

Sonically the album has its roots in the usual DITZ influences, classic noise rock such as The Jesus Lizard or Shellac, or the obtuse post punk of the Fall, but also brings in fresh influences. The closing track Britney, could be compared to Radiohead or Mogwai. Overall the album is a clear development from their first effort. A sign of things to come.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Ditz' second record is an incendiary slab of distorted guitars, pummelling percussion and roaring vocals. There's a post-punk groove and militaristic stomp to proceedings, but the instrumentation and timbres lean more towards post-hardcore (Fugazi come to mind in places) and claustrophobic industrial metal.

TRACK LISTING

V70
Taxi Man
Space/Smile
Senor Siniestro
Four
God On A Speed Dial
Smells Like Something Died In Here
18 Wheeler
The Body As A Structure
Britney

Blue Lake reveals his most ambitious album yet, which finds its visionary creator Jason Dungan harnessing the collective alchemy of his band, with ten spirited tracks that resonate with a powerful directness, evoking an ecological connection to the wider world.

Growing up in Dallas, Texas, Dungan then moved around for many years, living in both Europe and the USA, before finding a close connection to the Danish capital Copenhagen, where he now resides, a location heavily spotlighted in recent years as fertile creative ground for fellow experimental artists like Astrid Sonne, ML Buch and Clarissa Connelly. This well travelled upbringing would no doubt prove of spiritual significance on Dungan’s emergence as a singular artistic voice, traversing the planes of Ambient, Americana, with hues of Kosmische, uniquely infused with his own Nordic aesthetic.

The solo project (Blue Lake), now on its fifth album, found its name and inspiration via Don Cherry’s 1974 live album, sparking a creative epiphany in Dungan, who set off on a path into his own untapped sonic world, guided by what he cited as the emotional potential found within non-lyrical composition. With a newly inspired ethos aimed toward creating direct and simple instrumental music imbued with a deep sense of feeling, Jason began combining an array of musical elements that gave rise to his highly revered album ‘Sun Arcs’ (2023), with its “ornate, zither-led lattices” (Pitchfork, Best New Music). Conceived in the blissful isolation of a Swedish cabin set in the woods, this was music that soundtracked spring in full bloom. Then, in contrast to the solitary approach of ‘Sun Arcs’, the highly lauded mini-album ‘Weft’ (2025) began to set the tone for a more band-oriented approach to delivering the Blue Lake sound. Jason had by this time experienced a special collective energy with his band during a swathe of live performances, which he then sought to harness and distill on ‘The Animal’, leading him to take the project into a traditional recording studio (The Village) and its limitless potential along with his gifted cohorts.

‘The Animal’ at its core vividly celebrates human collaboration and is deeply rooted in a sense of community and non-hierarchical connectivity. The group's creative alchemy transcends outwards and beyond the musicians performing together, to summon an inclusive, existential and ecological connection to the wider world and its inhabited spaces. The album contemplates the idea of the human as an animal as Dungan explains: “I’m quite fascinated in thinking about humans more as part of the animal environment and not as something that’s so separated into a “human” realm, or sitting on top of a hierarchical pyramid. So the Animal is also me, or us - that we are just living, existing, in the same way as a piece of moss or a sparrow or a cow.

Dungan welcomed an entirely open dialogue, a process that started from early band rehearsals, which saw his demos quickly evolve and amass weight from double bass, cello, clarinet, viola and drums to become refined and audibly decorated. Jason focused on capturing more wide ranging depth in the recording process, dissecting detailed nuances in instruments to convey the intricate, ever changing balance and dynamics that play out in the natural and urban world as the theme too circulates around the idea of The city as an animal or urban being. Speaking of his Copenhagen home town, with its industrial past but close proximity to areas of semi-wilderness, as well as the sea, he explains the overlapping scenario: “I don’t think it’s possible now to think about nature as a pure or isolated thing. Being around animals in this setting, I think about how they communicate with each other, forge relationships, and navigate the city, but all without language. It’s not an experience of nature which is bucolic and uncomplicated - it’s an experience of nature and the animal world which is bound up in human activity.”

On ‘The Animal’, Dungan introduces the use of voice as an instrument, as a way of unlocking song-like characteristics as heard on the gracious album opener ‘Circles’, which sees the group embrace in choral unison, like in birdsong, their voices echo as a part of the surrounding sonic environment. The band are foregrounded and formidable in their delivery, forming a rich, acoustic accompaniment to Dungan’s zither strokes, earthy guitars and percussive patterns. The soundworld is noticeably bolder and livelier as evidenced on ‘Cut Paper’, with now regular mixing collaborator Jeff Zeigler capturing the fullness of the new band sound. Jason also enlisted the help of Danish producer Aske Zidore who encouraged him toward new working strategies, a liberating intervention which allowed the element of surprise and discovery. The centre ground is never fully consumed by Dungan as we find him consciously orchestrating from a respectful distance, giving generous space for the musician's spontaneous performance and improvisation, allowing their musical intuition to give rise to beguiling, holistic synchronicity.

Dungan wrote the cinematic ‘Berlin’ whilst on a tour stop in the German capital, with its lush zither flurries and long reverb decays painting an expansive late night ode to the rolling hill country of Texas. The poignance of Jason’s intimate, evocative writing is heard on ‘Flowers for David’, a heartfelt folk-leaning tribute with lofted fingerpicking guitar, signalling a fond farewell to a friend's passing. The album gains forward momentum on ‘Yarrow’ as the group move in melodic tandem, before the kaleidoscopic ‘Strand’, with its soaring solos and earthy undercurrents propelling toward a euphoric komische crescendo. The title track ‘The Animal’ is a brief melancholic foray into ballad-esque territory, with a drum machine charting a dotted path for emotive horns and a second gathering of wordless, healing atmospheric vocals. As we reach ‘To Read’ Dungan’s quest is encapsulated with wondrous clarity as the group lands entirely together on a resounding chord, a precious moment for Dungan who reels in the existence of the moment as they remain interlocked in sound and space. He concludes: “I’m interested in moments that are fleeting, with a powerful sense of togetherness, shared in the music.”

‘The Animal’ is a form of musical metamorphosis, still acoustic, yet more amplified, elevating it to new dimensions. The Blue Lake project takes on a new lease of life to encompass collaboration with Jason Dungan bound in a universal connectivity, resulting in his most ambitious album to date. A harmonious rejoicing that cements his reputation as a transformative presence in contemporary music. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A properly lovely selection of rippling, bucolic ambience, slide guitar and zither recalling folk traditions with a heavy nod to Americana and new age improvisation. A thoroughly lovely, hypnotic set of acoustic songwriting.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Circles
Cut Paper
Berlin
Flowers For David
Seeds

Side B
Yarrow
Strand
The Animal
Vertical Hold
To Read

This extraordinary eight track collection not only confirms that Manchester's Maruja as a creative force of nature but also finds them a deeply emotional and empathetic band concerned primarily with the power of community, both in the nuclear sense, as a tight knit creative unit, but also as a wider force for social and political change in the age of the individual.

Maruja believe passionately in the ability of art to empower, heal and unite and have created a body of work with ‘Pain to Power’ that they hope will offer both strength and an emotional release to anyone who is struggling with the impact of years of political turmoil and social isolation.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A melting pot of slow, thoughtful percussion and flickering post-rock guitar passages, topped with athletic saxophone trills and thoughtful vocals, resulting in an album that's as jazzy as it is ambient.

NYC punk-chic, discodelic funk band Say She She is back with 'Cut & Rewind', their politically-charged, dancefloor-crushing third album and first with their new label partner, drink sum wtr (aja monet, THEY.) Led by the powerhouse vocal trio of Piya Malik, Sabrina Mileo Cunningham, and Nya Gazelle Brown, the group channels progenitors like Minnie Ripperton, Charles Stepney, Liquid Liquid, and Raw Silk to create a groove-forward, psychedelic soundscape of pulsing disco beats, heavenly whistle tones, and soaring three-part harmonies. There’s a feeling of righteous rebellion simmering beneath these songs’ body-moving exterior, though: 'She Who Dares' is a call to fight against a near-future dystopia where women’s rights have been decimated globally; 'Disco Life' decries the racism and homophobia of Steve Dahl’s 1979 'Disco Demolition Night', reclaiming the dancefloor as “a playing field where all are free". 'Cut & Rewind' is protest music dressed up as a sweat-dripping, hip-shaking, mind-expanding good time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The Brooklyn nu-soul powerhouse return for another blast of smooth basslines, snapping percussion and gorgeous 3-part harmonies, rendering possibly their most addictively funky outing yet. Though the subject matter varies from the playful to the serious, it keeps a solid eye on the past while injecting the discoid revisions with enough modern production and genre-fluidity to keep things exciting. A brilliant return for one of the most singular modern soul acts.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cut & Rewind
2. Under The Sun
3. Disco Life
4. Chapters
5. Possibilities
6. Take It All
7. She Who Dares
8. Shop Boy
9. Bandit
10. Little Kisses
11. Do All Things With Love
12. Make It Known

With 'Touch', the Tortoise bandmembers — Jeff Parker, Dan Bitney, Douglas McCombs, John Herndon, and John McEntire — harness their collectivist songwriting approach, a slightly anarchistic but resolutely egalitarian process where ideas triumph over ego towards an abstracted muscularity. While there are still excursions into the dusky, elegantly gnarled jazz ambience that flourished on landmark works like 'Millions Now Living Will Never Die' and 'TNT', 'Touch' is perhaps most remarkable for Tortoise's unapologetic embrace of grand gesture. Aerodynamically re-engineered Krautrock, hand-cranked techno rave-ups, and pointillist spaghetti western fanfares are all imbued with Tortoise's now-signature internal logic — equally alluring and confounding, a puzzle to be savored rather than solved.

The stylistic diversity is also a reflection of the band's current operating circumstances: With two members now in Los Angeles, another in Portland, and just two remaining in the band's Chicago hometown, their creative process has shifted dramatically from when they lived together in a loft space in the late 1990s, honing their sound over endless hours of collective experimentation.

Recorded between the three cities — Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago — Touch is the result of an intentional effort by these five musicians to reconnect, recenter, and reinvigorate their sound for what is perhaps the group’s most diverse release to date.

'Touch' is the culmination of a long-gestating reunion, the results of which Tortoise first shared this past March, when they released 'Oganesson' — "an off-kilter, 7/4 funk tune with a spy-movie ambience" ( New York Times) that is included on the new album — ahead of a career-spanning opening night performance at the boundary-crossing music festival Big Ears. They followed that with the 'Oganesson Remixes' EP, which featured reworks of the track from poet and activist Saul Williams, prolific mastering engineer Heba Kadry, Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney, indie music icons Broken Social Scene, and International Anthem labelmate Makaya McCraven.

TRACK LISTING

1. Vexations
2. Layered Presence
3. Works And Days
4. Elka
5. Promenade à Deux
6. Axial Seamount
7. A Title Comes
8. Rated OG
9. Oganesson
10. Night Gang

Beneath Strawberry Moons, is the third album from Gulp and this time around the combined inspirations of Lindsey Leven and Guto Pryce are supplemented by the musicianship of Andrew Wasylyk as the stomach -butterflies of optimism flutter around and the lapping foams of the band’s ethereal, folkish psych-pop.

Musician and multi-media artist, Leven rejoins Pryce, who traces faintly around the simmering offbeat sounds of his life as a Super Furry Animal (as well as part of Das Koolies and The Pictish Trail), and supporting bandmates, Gid Goundrey (guitar) and Stuart Kidd (drums), for Gulp’s third album. The nine-track Beneath Strawberry Moons, released via ELK Records, follows their 2014 debut, Season Sun, released with Sonic Cathedral and the acclaimed All Good Wishes, which arrived four years later. Extending the gestation of a complete, new collection of work to seven years, accounting for the pair’s relocation from Pryce’s native Cardiff, Beneath Strawberry Moons emerges as a minimal-carbon-footprint, hyperlocal album, created amongst friends with no deadlines between Piggery Studio and the duo’s garden cabin in North East Fife.

Describing their surrounds as ‘idyllic’ and responding artistically to the significant life change, that has brought energy and release, Leven describes the album as “in the most part a love letter to this new way of life”, celebrating space, love, connection and time, cut with an underlying awareness of the fragility of this beauty. Having leaked new material, the cinematic showdown of Always So Far, back in May, the choice of Hope Shines Through The Haar as Gulp’s first single since 2018 links the pair’s delicately charged sense of abundant possibility, Scotland’s heritage and their bracing proximity to the sea.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's no secret that I love Andrew Wasylyk, he's talented musician and a very nice man so it was with some excitement I heard he'd teamed up with Leven and Pryce for their latest outing of dreamy tropical pop music. There are few artists that have the same grasp of pace and melody that Gulp do but their sound is very much in the rein of AW's drifting folk for Clay Pipe records, so this collaboration is bang on for me. 10/10 would listen again.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sea Bear
2. Always So Far
3. Salt Years
4. Hope Shines Through The Haar
5. The Way We Live
6. Wildflower
7. Summer Storm
8. Someday In A City
9. Ultramarine Blue

Crafted between Baltimore, London, and NYC, 'The Passionate Ones' is a sermon, a twelve-track catharsis, howled from the underbelly of late-stage capitalism, a blueprint for building your own altar in the ruins of the American Dream.

Initially created in Los Angeles' in late 2019, Nourished By Time emerged as Marcus Brown’s escape from the monotony of his day jobs and a continuously crushed spirit by an increasingly corrupt world. Channeling his deeply personal and sharply observational visions into songwriting, Brown has created a singular sonic world shaped by his hometown of Baltimore’s rich and eclectic musical heritage where jazz, punk, indie, hip hop, electronic and R&B collide in raw harmony. On 'The Passionate Ones', Brown tackles love, labor, existentialism, dreams, disillusionment, and hope through the lens of metamodernism, documenting an American story of an artist using their vices to keep them afloat while they follow their passions and dreams.

'The Passionate Ones' arrives in the wake of a radiant ascent. With 'Erotic Probiotic 2' (Scenic Route), Nourished by Time cracked open 2023—earning Pitchfork’s Best New Music and topping Gorilla vs Bear’s year-end list, while drawing praise from The Guardian, The FADER, Paste, and more. 2024’s 'Catching Chickens' (XL) only deepened the allure: CRACK Magazine placed him on its cover, naming ‘Hell of a Ride’ the track of the year. The song echoed across NPR, Resident Advisor, CLASH, The FACE, Mixmag, UPROXX, and Spotify’s Best Songs of 2024 lists, and he performed a magnetic live performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s #LateShowMeMusic live series. Along the way, Nourished By Time’s voice threaded through collaborations with Yaeji, Kacy Hill, and evilgiane, a spectral remix of Dry Cleaning’s 'Gary Ashby', and tours with Metronomy, Panda Bear, and Toro y Moi, solidifying his position as one of contemporary music's most intriguing and vital new artists.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Nourished By Time's huge 'Erotic Probiotic 2' was one of the shop's heavy hitters all the way back in the distant lands of 2023. For his second LP for megalabel XL, Baltimore's Marcus Brown brings all the ravey rhythms and snappy 909's, crafting a comfortingly wonky base for his singular lysergic vocals. Drifty, dancey mayhem

TRACK LISTING

1. Automatic Love
2. Idiot In The Park
3. Max Potential
4. It’s Time
5. Cult Interlude
6. 9 2 5
7. Crazy People
8. Jojo Feat. Tony Bontana
9. BABY BABY
10. Tossed Away
11. When The War Is Over
12. The Passionate Ones

Jessica Winter’s debut ‘My First Album’ is a fully realised bold, questioning album, full of personality sitting somewhere on the spectrum between therapy and the dancefloor. Musically there are shades of Kylie Minogue and the glitter of 80s Madonna, there’s the flamboyance of Prince and Queen, the energy and occasional snarl of punk and the dreamy arched eyebrow of psychedelia. In a world where maximalist pop is back and therapy memes rule supreme, My First Album is the perfect soundtrack.

Jessica Winter is a British singer, songwriter, and producer known for her experimental pop music that blends elements from various genres, including pop, industrial, and indie. To date, Jessica has released a series of EPs, including Limerence (2023), More Sad Music (2021), and Sad Music (2020), each showcasing her ability to infuse unconventional themes and introspective lyrics into pop song structures.

In addition to her solo project, Winter has an extensive list of credits as a co-writer and producer, having collaborated with artists like The Horrors, The Big Moon, Jazmin Bean, Phoebe Green, Lauren Auder, Pre Goblin, Sundara Karma, Walt Disco, and Brodka.


“a pure pop confection” – The New York Times.
“Jessica Winter is a pop-music obsessive whose sound and lyrics are high-concept experimentations that test how far she can take the genre” - Rolling Stone US
“The UK’s most exciting alt-pop oddball” - NME
“Moreish pop music that’ll be spinning around your head for days” - GQ
“Gothic, pop-centric cabaret” - The Guardian
“Weird, moreish pop music” - Dazed
“Rebellious alt-pop that feels both classic and utterly new” - CLASH
“The new face of outsider pop” - The Line Of Best Fit
“Vibrant, paradoxical, and all-in-all exuberant” - DIY
“Jessica Winter is an artist with an astounding talent” - So Young

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bright, bold synth pop that sounds as influenced by modern synthesis and production techniques as it is the classic synth era, and shows a songwriter who is unafraid to embrace pop sensibilities while taking things a little outside the comfort zone. Hefty in parts, sugary sweet in others and wonderfully written throughout.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nirvana
2. L.O.V.E.
3. Feels Good (For Tonight)
4. Aftersun
5. Big Star
6. Worst Person In The World
7. I See The Robin
8. All I Ever Really Wanted
9. Wannabe
10. Just Like That
11. Got Something Good
12. Only Lonely
13. To Know Her

In a landscape where the term 'psych' often feels confined and predictable, MIEN stands out as a beacon of true sonic exploration. Comprising members of The Black Angels, Elephant Stone, The Earlies and Golden Dawn Arkestra, their long-awaited sophomore album ‘MIIEN’ marks a bold new chapter for a band whose alchemical approach to music has redefined the boundaries of psychedelia. Building upon the foundations of their critically acclaimed 2018 self-titled debut while venturing into uncharted territories, this new release pushes the group’s collaborative and exploratory ethos to thrilling new heights. Recorded between Montreal, Abilene and Austin, Texas, ‘MIIEN’ captures the band’s unique creative process. Most songs began as simple ideas—a loop, a vocal phrase, or a groove—passed between members and meticulously layered. John Mark Lapham, the band’s “musical alchemist,” transformed these sketches into fully realized compositions, adding bold textures and dynamic shifts. The Black Angels frontman Alex Maas’s hauntingly beautiful vocals bring a dark yet alluring dimension to the sound, elevating each track with his distinctive presence. “It’s an organic process,” notes Rishi Dhir. “A simple idea can become something monumental when we each put our stamp on it.” A tapestry of vivid third-eye visions and nocturnal serenades, ‘MIIEN’ represents the strength of the band’s collective vision. Each member brings their unique perspective to the table, creating music that is both deeply personal and universally resonant. With its richly textured soundscapes and fearless experimentation, the album bridges the golden age of ‘60s psychedelia with the cutting edge of modern music. The album is released April 18th 2025 through their new label home Fuzz Club. MIEN is: Rishi Dhir – bass, guitar, keyboards / Robb Kidd – drums / John Mark Lapham – keyboards, samples, programming / Alex Maas – vocals, bass, guitar

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Off-kilter lysergic psychedelia that's both hypnotic and entrancing on the ever-reliable Fuzz Club. There are hints here of minimal ambient and Industrial, music concrete and classical but the whole lot remains as uncategorisable as it does spellbinding.

TRACK LISTING

1. Evil People
2. Counterbalance
3. Silent Golden
4. Mirror
5. How Could You Run
6. Empty Sun
7. Tungsten
8. Knocking On Your Door
9. Slipping Away
10. Morning Echo

Scheduled for release on 12th September on Metropolis Records, ‘Arctic Moon’ is the first full-length album by Chameleons since the release of ‘Why Call It Anything?’ in 2001. 

Long cited as a hugely influential act, having inspired the likes of (The) Verve, Oasis, Interpol, The Killers, Editors and White Lies, Chameleons are renowned for their transformative catalogue and intense, emotionally charged live performances, creating a legacy that extends far beyond their four studio albums to date. Their widely acclaimed debut, ‘Script of the Bridge’ (1983) has been cited by many as a masterpiece way ahead of its time, and was followed by ‘What Does Anything Mean? Basically!’ (1984), ‘Strange Times’ (1986) and ‘Why Call It Anything?’ (2001).

Their unique sound quickly won them an audience with its mix of melancholic yet energetic and powerful tunes, hypnotic, ethereal riffs and a potent, timeless lyrical style. They are considered one of the most influential guitar bands of the ‘80s and ‘90s, contributing substantially to the post-punk, shoegaze and indie scenes.

2024 saw the release of two EPs that kicked off a new chapter for the band. ‘Where Are You?’ consisted of three new songs, while ‘Tomorrow Remember Yesterday’ featured five re-recorded archive tracks. ‘Arctic Moon’ sees them propelling forward musically while retaining the essence that originally made them iconic.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning new outing from one of Manchester's most beloved bands, their first since 2001 sees the indie pioneers laying down a perfect mix of their trademark guitary jangle and a more modern production aesthetic. It's a beautifully engineered and quintessentially Chameleonic endeavour. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. Where Are You?
2. Lady Strange
3. Feels Like The End Of The World
4. Free Me
5. Magnolia
6. David Bowie Takes My Hand
7. Saviours Are A Dangerous Thing

Written in Los Angeles and self- recorded in the band's hometown of Auckland, 'Straight Line Was A Lie' (their first release for ANTI-) follows 2022's critically celebrated LP 'Expert in A Dying Field'. Lead singer and songwriter Liz Stokes delves deeper into her psyche to address everything from roundabout progress to physical and mental health challenges, and fraught family dynamics. Inspired by The Go-Go's, Olivia Rodrigo, flmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and Stephen King's On Writing, amongst others, Stokes' songwriting has achieved startling new depths of insight and vulnerability.

Fans will agree that 'Straight Line Was A Lie' is the most sharply observant, truthful, and poetic Beths project to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: While the high moments on The Beths' brilliant 'The Straight Line Was A Lie' are amongst the most profoundly beautiful and deeply melodic of their career, the album is a much more nuanced exploration of the human condition warts and all. There are pieces that swim with melodicism but drift into near-mournful placidity. It's a beautifully nuanced, gorgeously evocative indie-rock opus.

TRACK LISTING

1. Straight Line Was A Lie
2. Mosquitoes
3. No Joy
4. Metal
5. Mother Pray For Me
6. Til My Heart Stops
7. Take
8. Roundabout
9. Ark Of The Covenant
10. Best Laid Plans

'A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole' is the latest album from London-based composer-poet-activist-improviser Alabaster DePlume, his first major work following 2022’s 'GOLD' and 2020's 'To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol 1'.

The 11-song album covers all of DePlume’s musical touchstones: lush and gentle instrumentals informed by ghostly ancient folk melodies; groove-focused rhythm explorations as a bed for self-searching spoken declamations; sweeping and beautiful string arrangements (in this case by Macie Stewart) set against his trademark vibrato-infused tenor sax whispermoan.

Most of all, 'A Blade...' finds Alabaster DePlume at his most purposeful and direct yet, building on foundations laid through years of writing and touring to craft this ambitious work. Here lyrical explorations of healing, dignity, and struggle set the tone of the music itself—the mysterious and tense sensuality of the Melody Nelson-like strings on 'Form a V'; the playful and idiosyncratic echos of the 1960s British Folk scene on 'Invincibility'; the golden-era Elvrum level of vocal intimacy on 'Too True' - it’s all handed over with such familiarity and intention that the album’s full sonic grandness reveals itself at an IV-drip-pace.

"A blade, because a blade is whole, it has forgiven itself, and because it will take a small piece of our opposite, for us to be complete. A blade has marked out these former selves on my hand, a blade made the lines that divine us and the blade is whole. A blade. While I forgive myself, and heal, and lead us in healing. We can only forgive each other once we forgive ourselves. We can only heal eachother while we heal ourselves." - Alabaster DePlume

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Immediately reminiscent of some of the more off-piste Constellation Records excursions (Matana Roberts, Eric Chenaux etc), Alabaster DePlume's music is rich in jazz tradition but also swims with avant garde folk influence, with Plume's voice providing a welcome counter to the deep, oft dissonant instrumental element.

TRACK LISTING

1. Oh My Actual Days
2. Thank You My Pain
3. Invincibility
4. Form A V
5. A Paper Man
6. Who Are You Telling, Gus
7. Prayer For My Sovereign Dignity
8. Kuzushi
9. Salty Road Dogs Victory Anthem
10. Too True
11. That Was My Garden

Studio Electrophonique, the solo project of singer-songwriter James Leesley, is one of the most original musical outfits to emerge from Sheffield's current independent scene. Taking the name 'Studio Electrophonique' from an old analogue recording studio in Sheffield, Leesley has already released two celebrated EPs under this moniker. He will release later this year his eponymous debut album on Paris-based label Valley of Eyes Records. It is produced by Simon Tong (The Verve, The Good, The Bad and The Queen and The Magnetic North).

James Leesley grew up in Handsworth, Sheffield where week-day evenings were spent kicking a football around grassy urban edgelands. At the weekends, the social clubs with their glitter balls, comedians, cockle sellers and sequin-suited cabaret singers brought a touch of glamour to this hilltop suburb on the fringe of an industrial northern city. The stage was not some far-off place. Dreams could be made and broken under bright lights and by the brusk tones of a bingo caller.

The classic songs, slap back echo and house organ sounds of the social club scene are in Leesley’s blood. His work draws inspiration from the heartfelt melodies of songsmiths like Carole King and Burt Bacharach with the smokey tenderness of vocalists such as Dusty Springfield and Elvis. Add to that his enthusiasm for American literature and the surrealism of 60s French cinema.

After stumbling across an old 4-track tape machine at a local Bring and Buy, Leesley used it to distill these influences into something that is spare in its sound but full in its intention and emotion. In 2019 he released Buxton Palace Hotel on Violette Records, an EP of six odes to the mystery of modern romance, followed in 2022 by the Happier Things EP. Leesley found a fan in Richard Hawley who he joined on a tour of the UK and Ireland and, under the Studio Electrophonique name, he played at the prestigious End of the Road and Green Man Festivals. He was also invited by French superstar Etienne Daho to support him at the legendary Olympia in Paris. Leesley received airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music (Steve Lamacq, Gideon Coe, Mark Radcliffe, Stuart Maconie & Tom Robinson), BBC Radio 3 (Unclassified) and Soho Radio (Pete Paphides).

After a chance meeting with Simon Tong, the pair bonded over a love of The Velvet Underground, The Byrds, Barry Hines’ books, Jake Thackray, Blackpool's North Pier, and late night attic-darts. At Tong’s home studio in South London they added an assortment of vintage guitars and Casio keyboards (Pipe Organ mode) to fragments of lyrics Leesley had scribbled on the back of betting slips and bus tickets.

The result is an 11-track album that finds big feelings in small details. Loneliness, beauty, longing and loss all linger in the everyday occurrences: the moments of miscommunication over tea and eggs, the neatly folded pyjamas left by a long-gone lover, the raindrops on the top deck window of a No. 52 bus, the rain-sodden faded glamour of a cheap seaside getaway. Captured on a Tascam reel to reel, Leesley’s mesmerising debut promises to whisk any listener away to a warm, intimate and day-dreamy place.

TRACK LISTING

01. David And Jayne
02. Taxi Ride
03. How Can I Love Anyone Else ?
04. All-Time Biggest Fans
05. Too Many Lonely Nights
06. The World’s Most Beautiful Cinema
07. Break My Heart Again
08. Handbrake Turns
09. The Last One
10. The World’s Most Beautiful Cinema Pt.2
11. Him Without Her

Returning with 'caroline 2', the eight-piece collective embrace a bolder, more expansive sound. Going beyond their debut's explorations of repetition, slowness and space, the new album pushes further into dynamic contrasts — organic and electronic, raw and refined. Launched with the striking single ‘Tell me I never knew that’, featuring Caroline Polachek’s unmistakable vocals, caroline 2 showcases a fearless interplay of layered instrumentation, warped vocal processing, and moments of both euphoria and melancholy. Intentional and immersive, this next chapter solidifies caroline as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: With the sort of off-piste melodic direction and slowly building, soaring verses you'd expect from any of the big post-rock bands, you'd be forgiven for thinking of Caroline as rich in feeling but lacking in hooks, fortunately you'd be dead wrong. This is beautifully structured, monolithic compositions with soul and intrigue that also get stuck in your head like nothing else.

TRACK LISTING

Total Euphoria
Song Two
Tell Me I Never Knew That (ft. Caroline Polachek)
When I Get Home
U R UR ONLY ACHING
Coldplay Cover
Two Riders Down
Beautiful Ending

'A Study Of Losses' is the seventh studio album from Beirut, the musical project of Zach Condon. The project originated in spring 2023, when Viktoria Dalborg, director at the Swedish circus Kompani Giraff, reached out to Condon, asking if he would be interested to provide the music for their next project, a show based on an adaptation of a novel by German author Judith Schalansky. The main themes in Schalansky's book and in the adaptation for the circus show deal with the concept of loss and the impermanence of everything known to us: from extinct animal species, lost architectural and literary treasures to more abstract concepts of loss through the process of aging. In close collaboration, 'A Study Of Losses', turned into a rather unexpected piece of music-at 18 songs and nearly an hour long, it is by far the largest album Beirut has ever done, and amongst some of their most beautiful work to date

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another superb suite of thoughtful, wandering melodies and swooning harmonies from Condon here, this time commissioned for a contemporary Swedish circus. Though Beirut's albums are usually quick bursts of emphatic, mournful melodicism, 'A Study Of Losses' is a decidedly more expansive operation. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Disappearances And Losses
2. Forest Encyclopedia
3. Oceanus Procellarum
4. Villa Sacchetti
5. Mare Crisium
6. Garbo's Face
7. Mare Imbrium
8. Tuanaki Atoll
9. Mare Serenitatis
10. Guericke's Unicorn
11. Mare Humorum
12. Sappho's Poems
13. Ghost Train
14. Caspian Tiger
15. Mani's 7 Books
16. Moon Voyager
17. Mare Nectaris
18. Mare Tranquillitatis

RIYL: Richard Thompson, The La’s, The Charlatans, Aztec Camera, Superchunk, The Chills, Felt, The Smiths, Pentangle.

The Tubs' second album, Cotton Crown, sees the Celtic Jangle boyband venture into darker, more personal territory while continuing to hone their highly addictive brand of songcraft. It’s a true level up album which sees the band expand their sonic palette to take in a kaleidoscopic range of influences: everything from soulful pub rock (Chain Reaction) to Husker Du aggression (One More Day) to melancholy sophisto-pop (Narcissist) gets a look in. As Pitchfork noted, The Tubs see jangle as a ‘vast world of moods and muses’ and Cotton Crown sees them continuing to explore this world and creating a distinctly Tub-ular sound in the process.

This is in no small part down to Owen ‘O’ Williams’ vocal performance- often compared to a young Richard Thomson- and his frank, bleakly funny lyric writing. Cotton Crown sees him delve further into his favourite themes of love-psychosis, unsympathetic mentally ill behaviour, and the humiliations of being a musician in London. This time around, however, there’s a palpable sense of risk in his self assessments / confessions. No more so in the track’s closing track Strange- an accounting of the clumsy, intrusive, well-meaning social interactions that took place in the period following the suicide of his mother (the folk singer Charlotte Greig.)  As Williams says: “I’d tried a few times to write a song about it. The result had always seemed either mawkish, simplifying or like I was hawking my trauma. But then this one came out, and it felt right because it looked at something smaller: the weird, unsatisfying, strangely funny ways everyone, including myself, acted after the dust settled.” The album artwork features an image of Williams as an infant being breastfed by Greig in a graveyard- a promotional shot taken around the release of her debut album (the re-issue of which was featured in The Guardian in 2023.)

The essential trick Cotton Crown plays is to offset Williams’ lyrical bleakness with joyous, hook-laden blasts of pop perfection. This is largely down to the guitar work of George Nicholls, who, across the album, effortlessly slips between the virtuoso jangle of Marr, the driving folk-rock of Pentangle and the chorus-heavy hi-fi grooves of contemporary bands like Tops or The 1975. Add to that the breakneck rhythm section of Taylor Stewart (Drums) and Max Warren (Bass)- who attack each song with power-pop ferocity, recalling Guided by Voices at their drunken-yet-tight best- and you’ve got yourself a recipe for indie rock greatness.

The band’s debut ‘Dead Meat’ was a word-of-mouth sensation that saw the band earn accolades from Pitchfork, The Guardian, MOJO, SPIN and more. They even gained some celeb fans: the inimitable Mark Proksch (The Office (US), Better Call Saul, What We Do in the Shadows) starred in the video for their “Round the Bend” single & punk legend Iggy Pop has praised them on his BBC 6Music radio program. Standing in opposition to the UK norm of post punk, and hookless high-minded indie prog, the album was described by Kitty Empire (Observer) as a “shot in the arm for indie rock”. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though there is a darker undertone to the lyrics here, the music itself oscillates from their bombastic punk-adjacent throb and driving distorted power chord groove to nuanced, jangling indie melodicism and soaring, memorable harmonies. Wonderfully dynamic, packed with moments of surprising juxtaposition and every bit the progression of a band who will stay on our radar for as long as they keep making music.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Thing Is
2. Freak Mode
3. Illusion
4. Narcissist
5. Chain Reaction
6. Embarassing
7. One More Day
8. Fair Enough
9. Strange