Destroyer cover. Photo credit David Galloway.
A tumultuous week for new releases. ‘Spoilt for choice’ describes it nicely. Here is our selection.
Destroyer Dan’s Boogie
Spectacle-laden pop epics, personal piano ballads, and smouldering works of mood that blur the lines between song and novel and cinema.
Great, Grandpa Patience, Moonbeam
Their new album contains signature elements – their nontraditional song structures, penchant for hooky melodies, and soothing yet stirring lead vocals—but it’s more expansive in almost every sense, building from soft choral vocals into unexpected and explosive segues
Wolfgang Flur Times
Member of Kraftwerk from 1974 to 1986 brings together a stellar cast of contributors, including German techno pioneers U96, Boris Blank (Yello), Thomas Vangarde (ex-Daft Punk), Juan Atkins, Anthony Rother, Emil Schult (Kraftwerk collaborator), and Peter Hook (ex-New Order).
Dean Wareham That’s The Price of Loving Me
It sees the Galaxie 500 frontman reunited with producer Kramer for the first time in 34 years. Traces of their earlier work together are apparent, but today the chord progressions are more complex – drawing influence from Bacharach, Gainsbourg, Norma Tanega – and the arrangements are too.
Snapped Ankles Hard Times Furious Dancing
Driven by the primitive thrust of their single-oscillator ‘log’ synths, high and low culture collide in a surreal, free flowing narrative.
Hannah Cohen Earthstar Mountain
Made in collaboration with Sam Evian and drawing from their shared love of Dusty Springfield, Gal Costa, Minnie Riperton, Ennio Morricone, Neil Young and Sly & The Family Stone, Earthstar Mountain also features contributions from Sufjan Stevens and Clairo.
Backxwash Only Dust Remains
Zambian-Canadian rapper and producer whose album touches on themes of mourning, reflection, and hope.
Sacred Paws Jump Into Life
Duo that took their roots in the punk world and wound it together with myriad influences, from Afrobeat, through pop and post-punk, to create a glorious and unique hybrid.
girlpuppy Sweetness
Singer-songwriter who pinpoints a sweet spot between shoegaze, dream-pop, and pop-rock anthems from the turn of the millennium.
Lucy Dacus Forever is a Feeling
The lushness of the album’s sound is matched by a new frankness in Dacus’s approach to sexuality and romance.
Choses Sauvages Choses Sauvages III
French-Montreal dance punk band who post-punk is infused with moments of new wave and electro pop.
Joe Armon-Jones All The Quiet (part I)
First of two distinct but conceptually linked albums find the London-based keyboardist, producer, songwriter and bandleader expanding his sound into new musical and sonic realms, assisted by a wealth of special guests including Nubya Garcia, Asheber, Greentea Peng, Wu Lu, Hak Baker and Yazmin Lacey.
Eiko Ishibashi Antigone
Interlocking her new songs in seamless long-play flow with the compositional ambitions of her acclaimed soundtrack work, Eiko’s expressions are epic and intimate.
Spellling Portrait of my Heart
The most direct Spellling album moving away from the lavishly orchestrated art-pop of ‘The Turning Wheel’.
Bria Salmena Big Dog
Frontwoman of Canadian post-punk outfit FRIGS and vocalist in Orville Peck’s band takes elements of hypnotic krautrock and shimmery shoegaze, opulent goth and pulsing darkwave, with a smearing of electronic textures for a sophisticated and often uncanny sound.
Songdog Mirabilla Mundi
Over the course of the record’s 10 songs Lyndon continues his exploration of favourite themes: time passing and the struggle to make sense of a disappearing world; a foreboding of things ending and a looking back at long-lost glory days in a style that draws comparisons to Eels and Lambchop.
Cocorosie Little Death Wishes
Contributing to the avant garde, yet unbeholden to contemporary trends, CocoRosie collects musical detritus from other times, which they fashion into their own baroque, theatricalized creations.
Yukimi For You
Solo debut from the Little Dragons vocalist entwines musical styles from jazz, soul and electronic pop to hip hop, roots and psychedelia, but the themes of her solo songs dig deeper than ever, across love, loss, feminine energy and innate resilience.
Perfume Genius Glory
A more collaborative approach this time from Mike Hadreas but the album contains themes that he’s wrestled with artistically throughout his career – the body and its decay, of domesticity and love, and of inescapable history and damage.
Somebody’s Child When Youth Fades Away
Second album from an artist who has supported the likes of Noel Gallagher’s High-Flying Birds, Kings Of Leon, Bloc Party, and The War On Drugs.
The Darkness Dreams on Toast
The rock band’s eighth album.
Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Peter Harris & Fritz Catlin Mercy
Collaboration between the legendary reggae producer and Catlin, the drumming co-founder of industrial funk dub act, 23 Skidoo.
The Residents Doctor Dark
A new studio double album from the Residents featuring the story of Maggot and Mark – two young heavy metal fans – and the mysterious Doctor Anastasia Dark, a disgraced visionary who offers those who need it THE GIFT.
CJ Wildheart Slots
Sixth solo studio album from founding member of The Wildhearts and promises ten high-energy tracks, including a potent cover of the Jam’s classic “In the City”.
Seven Sisters Shadow of a Fallen Star Pt. 2
The conclusion to their ambitious sci-fi concept, spanning two albums and five years in the making.
Cloakroom Last Leg of the Human Table
Pop, shoegaze, doom, post-punk, folk only scratch the surface on Cloakroom’s shortest yet most essential release to date.
The Adventures Once More With Feeling
First studio album in 30 years from the Belfast band features ten tracks that reaffirm their knack for crafting unforgettable melodies and heartfelt lyrics.
Sandwell District End Beginnings
A coming together of cinematic techno and mind-bending dancefloor dynamism.
Ohyung You Are Always on my Mind
The experimental solo artist explores their own gender transition with an arresting rave culture-inspired record.
Dawn Brothers Cry Alone
Dutch band that starts with basic Rock n’ Roll and unfurls through Pop, Soul, Funk, Blues, Country, Americana
Sam Akpro Evenfall
The ten tracks craft an immersive sonic world, rich in mood and atmosphere – a flowing tapestry of South London noir that’s serrated yet dream-like, psychedelic yet pounding with intent.
Mess Esque Jay Marie, Comfort Me
Australian duo that combine Mick’s pounding toms, mud-toned guitars and spectral organ roll and tumble with Helen’s fractured lyrical wonderings.
Sky_A Labyrinths
The record pulls on threads of wandering jazz bass, world music rhythms, and layers of progressive rock distortion.
Noonzy Puppies Out EP
Five avant-pop songs with exuberant expressive basslines and hazy analogue synths, simultaneously evoking the carefree leisure of youth and the spiky anxieties of our modern disconnected age.
False Heads Cracked EP
A mix of punk-rock fury and post-punk swagger full of lyrics dealing with the increasingly bizarre modern world in which we find ourselves—filled with rage, isolation, misery, grifters and pointless fame.
Hans Nieswandt Fluoreszent
Ten shiny, fresh, joyous songs taking you to many wonderful places; from Kraut to Goth, Synth Wave to Art Pop, Cosmic to Comic – and all the way to the end of the rainbow.
Bag People Bag People
Archival collection from Chicago band that weren’t around long, but their compulsive noise-rock sound looms large and stands tall next to the efforts of better-known contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Swans.
Clothing La Muerte en Realidad no Existe
Inspired by personal trauma, and Santi Ropa’s own experience of growing up queer either side of the US-Mexico border in the era of Trump, the album is an intimate, heart-rending Bildungsroman disguised as a fantastical, gunslinging cowboy epic.
Various Artists Volcanic Tongue – A Time-Travelling Evangelist’s Guide to Late 20th Century Underground Music
A compilation to coincide with the release of David Keenan’s writings about music and featuring Ashtray Navigations, The Bachs, Idea Fire Company, A To Austr, Christina Carter, JD Emmanuel and Circuit Des Yeux.
Vraell Once A Blue Hour
The album builds on Scozzaro’s genre-blending ethos, mixing ambient electronics, beats, and his agile guitar technique to trace a trajectory through his personal growth.
Public Order Hello EP
New Welsh band builiding a reputation for blending emotive guitar-driven storytelling with a pulsating energy
Ruby Gill Some Kind of Control
Unflinching, lyric-driven and written largely alone – and often in the bath – Some Kind of Control is immediate in its emotional pull, laced with intricate hooks and meticulously crafted one-liners.
Whitney Johnson & Lia Kohl For Translucence
Their dialogue, found initially in free improvisation on viola and cello, has evolved over time into a neophonic orchestral expression.
Reptile Reptiles All Things Return To One
A work of enveloping ambient, plangent dustbowl guitar & meditative poetry, with texts narrated by renowned Indigenous actor Gary Farmer; a homage to Farmer’s iconic turn in Jim Jarmusch’s film Dead Man.
Helloween March of Time (The Best of 40 Years)
German group combining the speed of thrash, the twin-guitar approach of NWOBHM, and the hymnal melodies of European folk music.
Frenchie Frenchie
French-English singer-songwriter traversing soul, jazz and alternative R&B.
Bellzzz Dear Elizabeth
The character is Bellzzz’s invention, a young girl who stepped into her imagination as a child and out onto the page. There’s a story to be unravelled. Elizabeth runs away. From what, to where, and who she finds on the way are all things you’ll discover in this tale of Burtonesque horror and whimsy.
Claude9 Chords of Love
An offering that tastefully blends Enoesque ambient music and downtempo trip-hop.
Lala Hayden Viva Venus EP
Draws from the work of strong female voices such as Robyn, Róisín Murphy, Ladyhawke, Self Esteem, Donna Summer, Jessie Ware and Lykke Li, with its themes exploring love in a digital age.
Teeth of the Fae Beneath Pointed Hat
A world of instrumental dungeon synth and folk music.
Viz Danse des Larmes
An uncanny, moonlit vision of ‘Eastern European melancholy’, exploring memory & trauma. A work of phantasmal electronics, Eastern European folk, industrial music, drone, giallo soundtracks, electro-acoustic experimentation.
Chris Church Obsolete Path
New album from North Carolina indie rocker.
Desert Smoke Desert Smoke
Psych rock from Lisbon
Better Joy Heading Into Blue EP
A solo project led by Bria Keely and backed up by her band, Bria has an upfront and centre voice as colourful as Debbie Harry and a knack for effortless storytelling. Ringing, complex riffs winding around Bria’s vocals, dancing bass lines, characterful drumming and vulnerable lyrics.
Vulvarine Fast Lane
They define their own sound as “vulvarock”: a unique fusion of high energy rock’n’roll, heavy metal and glam, topped up with punk and blues elements.
