May ends in a flurry of album releases in an array of styles with plenty worth checking out.
Dragon Welding – Fictionary
Dragon Welding – Fictionary
The alias of Andrew “Andy” Golding, a multi-instrumentalist, programmer, videographer and all-round creative explorer, who started his musical path in the mid-80s as guitarist for C86 survivors The Wolfhounds. Andy has created a psychedelic electro-rock juggernaut, where the focus is on a more electro-experimentalist tangent, combining pulsing synths, processed beats, shimmering guitar ambience and mischievous sonic textures.
Water From Your Eyes – Everyone’s Crushed
Brooklyn duo with experimental pop music that’s pretty and violent, raw and indelible.
IzangoMa – Ngo Ma
15-piece S African experimental collective using the alchemic powers of Sun Ra mixed with township styles ranging from pantsula to bubblegum.
Maya Ongaku – Approach to Anima
Japanese psychedelia with malleable guitar and vocals, sinuous bass lines, floating woodwinds, and a sprinkling of delicate percussion—all coalesce into an aural experience that’s assertive yet abstract, calm but unsettling.
The Orielles – The Goyt Method EP
Five brand new songs constructed from randomly chosen parts of tracks from their fourth album, Tableau.
Kevin Morby – More Photographs (A Continuum)
Reflective singer-songwriter signed to Bella Union. Following on from 2022’s This is a Photograph album, this collection contains three re-imaginings and six new songs in a release seen as a prequel, primer and sequel to that album.
Souls Worn Thin – Kill Your TV
Melodic punk-rock band with a scathing rebuke of the manufactured division permeating society delivered in a style that veers between cheeky and aggressive.
Nate Scheible – plume
A record where Scheible’s pieces retain their trademark spectral atmosphere, but more than ever before depict a restlessness, instability, and constant movement.
A Man Called Adam – The Girl With A Hole In Her Heart
Electronica duo with an album about Teesside and the wild coastal and industrial landscapes where co-founder Sally Rodgers grew up and would spend most of the pandemic locked down in the studio. Creating a Balearic dance record a world away from Ibiza, it flows through genres from ambient to synth-pop, house to electronica.
Larkhall – And You Were: Say You’re With Me Reworked
Composer, coder, postclassical-pianist and self-described “mad scientist” Larkhall returns with a new collaborative album this Spring. ‘And You Were…’ offers 10 radical reconfigurations of tracks from the Bath-based artist’s 2022 album ’Say You’re With Me’. Guests include Moshi Moshi legend James Yuill, Welsh electronic-pop pro Ani Glass, award-winning film composer Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres.
Alex Pester – Better Days
A blend of folk, baroque pop, psychedelia, and experimentalism from Bath-based singer-songwriter influenced by the Incredible String Band, the Beatles, Robert Wyatt, Animal Collective, Harry Nilsson, and The Microphones.
Pere Ubu – Trouble on Big Beat City
New album from David Thomas’ veteran group of post-punk, art-rock experimentalists.
Kassi Valazza – Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing
Her music calls to mind Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention) and Karen Dalton, a Southwestern American streak carves its way through these solemn, sweetly sung melodies like a canyon.
Blick Bassy – Madiba
Cameroonian electronic artist who has collaborated with Disclosure. Performed in the Douala language of Cameroon, ‘Madíbá’ brings together twelve songs in the form of fables, dedicated to the theme of water, in which Bassy’s high voice dominates, carried by delicate guitar, synthesiser and sober brass arrangements. It is Inspired by his love for the music of James Blake and Bon Iver and has likeably woozy melodic quality.
I Have a Tribe – Changing of the Guard
Uplifting folk-pop full of references to birds, land, light, water, love.
Bayonne – Temporary Time
An elegant yet wildly experimental form of electronic pop, equal parts meditative and mesmerizing.
The Fucking Champs – III
Remastered 26th anniversary releases from the kings of the insanity sound.
Lucy Dacus – Historian
Lucy Dacus – Historian
5th anniversary reissue of album which combines guitar rock n roll with pop melodies.
Various – Keeping Control – Independent Music From Manchester 1977-1981
3 CD Boxset celebrating the finest independent music of that era.76 tracks from the likes of Buzzcocks, Joy Division, John Cooper Clarke and many more.
Andy Jackson – Twelve Half Steps
Pink Floyd engineer with an instrumental album; a collection of compositions in modal scales
Ben Reed – Bandaged
Has worked with Frank Ocean, David Byrne, Sampha and many others, but his own music is unpredictable, passionate and tinged with melancholy and has drawn comparisons to the so-called Canterbury sound of Progressive rock.
Heinz – The White Tornado: The Holloway Road Sessions 1963-66
5CD box set from Joe Meek’s Tea Chest tapes.
Calexico – Feast of Wire
20th anniversary reissue now including their version of Love’s Alone Again Or.
Henge – Alpha Test 4
Cosmic rave from the Manchester based prog psych electro band which also run a club night in Manchester called Space Cassette.
Demob Happy – Divine Machines
A sprinkle of Queens of the Stone Age swagger; a splash of glam; a Lennon-like knack for melody.
Fridge – Happiness
20th anniversary deluxe reissue of album from experimental trio including Kieran Hebden.
Nevaris – Reverberations
Santana-touted with a dub-based project, with breakbeat, funk, ambient, and afro-Latin elements.
Miya Folick – Roach
Experimental pop from Californian songwriter.
