Rounding up a bumper week of releases that is equally high on quantity and quality.
Sharada Shashidhar Soft Echoes
Described by Gilles Peterson as ‘The Jazz Kate Bush’, ‘Soft Echoes’ justifies the fanciful description. A step forward, eschewing her previous work’s hip-hop tilt for expansive compositions that blend jazz and Indian classical influences into a swirling, spiritual whole.
Naima Bock Below a Massive Dark Land
The songs started with her writing on voice, guitar and violin but is made up of strong, lovingly rendered arrangements with a huge host of musicians; filled with cradling space and warm light.
Hayden Thorpe Ness
Using a process of redaction, Wild Beasts’ Thorpe brings songs to life from the pages of best-selling author Robert Macfarlane’s book of the same name. Ness is inspired by Suffolk’s Orford Ness, the former Ministry of Defence weapons development site during both World Wars and the Cold War.
Jill Fraser Earthly Pleasures
Composer and electronic music pioneer, her Drag City debut is a modular resetting of American revival-style hymns that speculates on death.
Efterklang Things We Have In Common
On this record they close the circle that began with their 2019 album ‘Altid Sammen’ and continued with 2021’s ‘Windflowers’. These three records represented an opening to a simpler, more inclusive form of expression for the Danish trio, exploring themes of human connection, the relationship between humans and nature and collective spirituality and belonging.
Leif Vollebeck Revelation
The 11 tracks combine narrative lyrics and many one-take lead vocal performances with cinematic arrangements, gorgeous sonics, well-placed space and lush orchestration.
Maximo Park Stream of Life
Their eighth album takes its title from a short story by Ukrainian-born Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, inspired by both its stream of consciousness style and the way it prompts reflection on the inner mechanisms of people’s minds.
The Courettes The Soul of the Fabulous Courettes
A group hitting the sweet spot that straddles garage rock, girl groups, doo-wop harmonies, heartache and all points in between
Keeley Beautiful Mysterious
Every song in the band’s full repertoire shares a single subject – Inga Maria Hauser, a teenaged German backpacker found brutally assaulted and dead in a remote part of Ireland’s Ballypatrick Forest in 1988
Alan Sparhawk White Roses, My God
Solo album from Low co-founder is a record borne by grief but whose bold experimentation is powered by profound lyrics and propulsive beats.
Gemma Hayes Blind Faith
Sixth album from the Mercury Prize nominated artist is as personal as ever, its abstract nature allows the listener to sink into each song, immersed by tender guitar picking, eerie synths and swooning cello.
Sun Araw Lifetime
Sun Araw’s tenth studio album, Lifetime, continues to investigate space as a motionless field against which many motions are observed.
The Telescopes Halo Moon
Seventeenth album from the genre overlapping band.
Dean Spunt Basic Edition
An excursion in electronic sound that instrumentally unpacks his fascination with language.
His Name Is Alive How Ghosts Affect Relationships: 1990 – 1993 Boxset
Featuring Livonia, Home Is In Your Head, Mouth By Mouth and three albums of bonus material from Warren Defever’s long-standing ethereal darkwave project.
Tuelo Regarding My Heart
Her second full-length album is filled with lush textures, dynamic sounds, layered strings, horns and guitars, soaring vocals and intimate lyricism.
Sløtface Film Buff
Norwegian punks eviscerate the idea of stereotypes, expectations, gender roles and toxic masculinity through the lens of various movie tropes.
Nina Nesbitt Mountain Music
The songs are permeated with nods to US folk and Americana.
Shed Seven Liquid Gold
The album sees them revisit a selection of hits and live favourites from their back catalogue with the rousing accompaniment of a full orchestra
Socks and Ballerinas A Bit Jumpy
Their sound contains elements of math-rock, electronic music, progressive rock and more, namechecking Battles, Aiming for Enrike, Bearcubbin, Radiohead and Ratatat as just of few of their myriad influences.
Eli & Fur Dreamscapes
A duo that unapologetically push the boundaries of electronic music through a deeply personal lens that is equal parts enigmatic, dark and emotive.
George Alley George Alley
These grand post-punk pop new songs reaffirm Alley’s description of the follow-up to his more sombre ballad “Just Leave Me Dreaming” as “a power record.”
Rebecca & Fiona Mega Dance
Concept album from the two-time Swedish Grammy award winners which transports the listeners to the thumping beats, maximalist energy and all-round decadence of an iconic Ibiza club back in the heady summer of 2002.
Apollo Ray In Orbit
He weaves a tapestry of influences spanning Stereolab’s avant-garde textures, the cosmic symphonies of Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds and the chameleonic artistry of David Bowie.
Sophie Sophie
Final album from the producer, artist and pop pioneer which was close to completion when she tragically died, it has been lovingly finalised by those who hold her closest.
Turbokill Champion
Band that aims to create a modern heavy metal sound that is catchy and captivates the listener.
Gavin DeGraw Chariot 20
A brand new, reimagined version of his debut album.
Van Morrison New Arrangements and Duets
Big band tracks recorded in 2014 together with duets, recorded across 2018 and 2019, which highlight an array of leading vocalists in the shape of Kurt Elling, Curtis Stigers, Joss Stone and Willie Nelson.
Liang Lawrence What’s Dead and Gone
Her raw and honest tunes lean into indie folk, soft rock and electronic territories in the vein of Clairo, The Japanese House, beabadoobee, boygenius and Lizzy McAlpine.
Crows Reason Enough
Singer James Cox has also recently fronted band Humanist which have supported Depeche Mode on their arena tours.
Happy Accidents Edit Undo
The band will be building and inviting their fans into a whole secret world around the album, all taking place on a hidden artist profile on the streaming platforms.
mu tate wanting less
He enters more jazz-tinged, melodic territory, without forgoing the traces of (post)club music appearing throughout his discography.
Whitney Johnson/Matchess Hav/Stena
A co-existing pair of records, one showcasing the upstanding researcher, the other the deranged artist.
The Giraffes Cigarette
Brooklyn alternative rock combo promise “a score for our current age of decay and disappointment, fear and fury, idiocy and hope”.
Black Brunswicker Been Around Here Before
Manchester-based ambient folk artist whose album was forged from a feverish memory bank of muggy Midwestern summers spent ambling through forests, streams, and caves in search of shade.
Six Organs of Admittance Companion Rises (Twig Harper Remix)
A remix of their 2020 album that shaves their acid-folk space rock original back to its baseline
Various Cut Me Deep – A Story of Indie Pop 1985-1989
4CD set named after a Jasmine Minks song. They feature here alongside Jesus & Mary Chain, Lloyd Cole, June Brides, Happy Mondays, Shop Assistants, Lush and many more over the course of 99 tracks.
The Asteroid No.4 Several Shapes of Solar Flares
San Francisco psychedelic band known for their atmospheric soundscapes, evocative lyrics, prolific discography of reverb-drenched recordings and guitar driven, liquid-projected live performances.
Capo Lee & Bullet Tooth Pound & Dolla
A jagged and unfiltered journey into the heart of the UK garage scene.
Broadcast Distant Call – Collected Demos 2000-2006
A collection of early demos that were worked into finished productions appearing on Haha Sound, Tender Buttons and The Future Crayon.
Allie Every Dog
A twenty-seven minute-long, highly focused collection of sonic portraits, with each song offering immersive, richly layered meditations on queer love, isolative depression, Western U.S. road trips, and singing through the pages of a personal journal.
Soul Asylum Slowly But Shirley
Their thirteenth studio album, its title and cover pay homage to Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney, a pioneering drag racer who inspired lead vocalist Dave Pirner during his youth. It is a combination of country, alt rock, funk-fusion and grunge.
The Black Dahlia Murder Servitude
The death metal band’s first album since the tragic passing of TBDM’s frontman and co-founder Trevor Strnad in 2022.
PIG Feast of Agony EP
Raymond Watts aka PIG is an industrial rock artist who has toured with KMFDM (he was a member of the band in their early days), Nine Inch Nails and Einstürzende Neubauten.
