Pre-sale of the week: Khruangbin – A La Sala, out 5 April

If 2020’s Mordechai, the last studio album Khruangbin made without collaborators, was a party record that enhanced the band’s musical reputation far and wide, then A La Sala is the measured morning after. It’s a gorgeously airy record completed only in the company of the group’s longtime engineer Steve Christensen, with minimal overdubs. It’s a…

New releases for 12 & 19 January

There’s a strong opener to our recommendations for 2024: Little Rope (out 19 Jan) is one of the finest, most delicately layered records in Sleater-Kinney’s nearly 30-year career. To call the album flawless feels like an insult to its intent: it careens head-first into flaw and brokenness, a meditation on what living in a world…

Pre-sale of the week: Bill Fay Group – Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow, out 23 February

The Bill Fay Group is Fay’s most significant collaborative work; on Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow, he recorded as a member of a larger group, and the result summons a grander sonic scale, an elegent counterweight to Fay’s instincts for the understated. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow brings to bear the galactic qualities of early rock, the…

Pre-sale of the week: The Reytons – Ballad of a Bystander, out 26 January

After conquering the charts and claiming the number one trophy last time out with What’s Rock and Roll?, Sheffield sensations The Reytons are back with their third full-length album, Ballad of a Bystander. “We’re once again releasing 100% independently, with no label backing. Let’s get out there and do it all again! #AllReytons” Note: The…

New releases for 1 & 8 December

Here’s our last batch of recommended releases for 2023, due out in the next couple of weeks. In 2022, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis returned to their native Australia for 16 shows, taking their acclaimed 2021 album Carnage on the road, along with songs from the Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds catalogue. Three performances…

Pre-sale of the week: The Smile – Wall of Eyes, out 26 January

Wall of Eyes is the new album from The Smile, the supergroup consisting of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood with jazz percussionist Tom Skinner. The album was recorded between Oxford and Abbey Road Studios, and was produced and mixed Sam Petts-Davies. It features string arrangements by the London Contemporary Orchestra. The album is the…

More new releases for 17 November 2023

We’ve got some more peaches due for release on 17th November, and the first is Songs of Silence – incredibly, Vince Clarke’s first ever solo album. As its title suggests, Songs of Silence is a lyric-less instrumental album, and is hugely evocative for that. Unlike anything you’ve previously heard from Clarke as an artisan of…

Pre-sale of the week: Neil Young – Before and After, out 8 December

Before and After contains some of Neil Young’s favourites from his playbook, which he performs mostly alone on a solo acoustic journey into his music history. The songs blend into each other and morph with mesmerising clarity into a continuous flow of music, creating a pure and intimate 48-minute listening experience. The 13-track album spans…

New releases for 10 & 17 November

The first of our six stormers for the next two weeks to blow in is Substance (out 10 Nov), which compiled the 12″ versions of all of New Order’s singles from 1981 to 1987 with many of their respective B-sides (on the CD and cassette versions), including specially recorded new versions of ‘Temptation’ and ‘Confusion’.…