We kick off this week’s recommendations with Anna Von Hausswolff’s fourth album, Dead Magic, which confirms her formidable reputation as the creator of a singular world, equal parts black magic and beauty. Its five solemn but never less than thrilling tracks extend over 47 uncompromising minutes full of heightened qualities: among them tension, grace and…
Pre-sale of the week is Tell Me How You Really Feel by Courtney Barnett, out on 15 May. The Grammy- and Brit-nominated Courtney Barnett returns with her second album, Tell Me How You Really Feel. The new collection follows her critically acclaimed 2015 debut, Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit…, and…
We have six of the very best to recommend this week. Plunge carries a supernatural charge from beginning to end. Fever Ray’s voice and chiming parallel fifths are enough to make the hairs on your arms stand on end, as though you had been visited by a ghost. Karin Dreijer’s vivid sonics and imagistic lyrics…
Pre-sale of the week is The Deconstruction by Eels, out on 6 April. Eels say: “The world is a mess. This is just music. Music by someone who tends to believe that change starts in your own backyard. I’m just optimistic enough to believe that kind of thing can still help people. It doesn’t have…
We’ve picked six of the best releases for 9 February for you. Transangelic Exodus, the second album from Ezra Furman, is a new landmark for the American singer-songwriter: “not a concept record, but almost a novel, or a cluster of stories on a theme, a combination of fiction and a half-true memoir,” according to its…
Pre-sale of the week is Be More Kind by Frank Turner, out on 4 May. Be More Kind represents a thematic and sonic line in the sand for 36-year-old Hampshire-born singer-songwriter Frank Turner. It’s a record that combines universal anthems with raw emotion, the political with the personal, and the intricate folk and punk roar…
The first of our 6 of the best releases this week is Whatever it Takes, the sixth album from The James Hunter Six. They have already established themselves as a permanent fixture in the world of rhythm and soul with their five previous albums, each more poignant and well-executed than the last. However, Whatever It…
Pre-sale of the week is All Nerve by The Breeders, out on 2 March. Iconic US alt-rockers The Breeders release their first album in 10 years. Even better, it’s the first in 25 years from the band’s classic line up: Kim and Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson. All Nerve is not to be…
The year has really kicked into action with loads of releases for 26 January. Our first recommended release is All Melody, the seventh studio album from Nils Frahm, whose new bespoke studio has allowed him the freedom to explore without restriction. Merging musical flavours like jazz, house and dub all orbit Frahm’s classically influenced core.…
Pre-sale of the week is World’s Strongest Man by Gaz Coombes, out on 4 May. World’s Strongest Man is the magnificent third solo album by Gaz Coombes, the follow-up to 2015’s critically acclaimed Matador. This remarkable collection of eleven deeply personal songs set to expansive, addictive melodies has been inspired by an eclectic mix of…