Releases from January–February 2023
Great albums from around the world
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Jump to: 24 February | 17 February | 3 & 10 February | 27 January | 13 & 20 January
Releases for 24 February 2023
- If Songs Of Praise was fuelled by pint-sloshing teenage vitriol, then Drunk Tank Pink delved into a different kind of intensity. Wading into uncharted musical waters, emboldened by their wit and earned cynicism, Shame created something with the abandon of a band who had nothing to lose. Having forced their way through their second album’s identity crisis, they arrive, finally, at a place of hard-won maturity. Enter Food For Worms, which Charlie Steen declares to be “the Lamborghini of Shame records.”
- Cracker Island, the eight studio album from Gorillaz, is an energetic, upbeat, genre-expansive collection of 10 tracks featuring yet another stellar line-up of artist collaborators: Thundercat, Tame Impala, Bad Bunny, Stevie Nicks, Adeleye Omotayo, Bootie Brown and Beck. Recorded in London and LA earlier this year, it is produced by Gorillaz, Remi Kabaka Jr and eight-time Grammy Award-winner Greg Kurstin.
- Algiers return with Shook, their first new music since 2020’s There Is No Year, which NME called “a heady concoction of post-punk, ’60s soul and political insight.” The new album features contributions from Rage Against The Machine’s Zack De La Rocha, Boy Harsher’s Jae Matthews, Big Rube, billy woods, Backxwash, and many more. September’s standalone release of single ‘Bite Back’ was greeted by Fader with a glowing ‘Song You Need’ review: “A sober state of the union rallying cry for the revolution.”
- After three albums as School Of Language, David Brewis’s next contribution to the ever-expanding Field Music universe is this jazz-inflected acoustic record. It will also be the second album released on Field Music’s newly formed Daylight Saving Records label, intended as the home for the Brewis brothers’ extra-curricular projects. The Soft Struggles veers away from Field Music’s eclectic palette and instead leans into the luminous spontaneity of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and the breathy, string-laden chamber pop of Colin Blunstone’s One Year.
- The Montreux Years is a showcase of Paco De Lucia’s mesmerising Montreux Jazz Festival live performances between 1984 and 2012. The audio has been expertly restored and remastered in superlative HD audio, and The Montreux Years is released on superior audiophile heavyweight vinyl and on MQA-quality CD. The release also includes brand-new liner notes and rare photos from his Montreux shows.
- Travel, the 19th studio album by Australian improvisational trio The Necks, documents their recent practice of starting each day in the studio with a 20-minute improvisation. As bassist Lloyd Swanton puts it: “It’s a really nice communal activity to bring us together in focus each day, and some lovely music has resulted from it.” The recordings on Travel offer some of their most ecstatic and captivating music yet cut to tape. Although the trio has never recorded a straight ‘live’ improvisation in the studio, these tracks – save for some light overdubs and post-production – are closest to what they’ve been doing live for more than 30 years now.
Releases for 17 February 2023
- Half man, half melody Ron Sexsmith’s new album, The Vivian Line, features 12 new songs written and performed by Ron, including the single ‘What I Had In Mind’. The who, what, where, why and how of the record are best explained by Ron himself: “The Vivian Line is a rural route right near where we live in Stratford (Ontario). Whenever we have to get out of the city we jump on The Vivian Line and it dumps us out onto the highway. I wondered about the name when we first moved there and thought it was intriguing … it sort of represents escaping from our old life in Toronto to this new phase we’re in. And it’s also like a portal to my old life when I have to get back there. The songs were mostly inspired by this stage in life that I find myself in and trying to figure it all out.”
- Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return with their new album, Optical Delusion. The Hartnoll brothers’ first studio album since 2018’s Monsters Exist was recorded in Orbital’s Brighton studio and includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and – perhaps most surprisingly – The Medieval Baebes.
- Whether inhabiting the realm of dreams or nightmares, the primordial drive of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs is more powerful than ever and Land Of Sleeper, their fifth record in a decade of rancour and revelation, is testimony to this. Arguably the most potent and assured record of their life so far, it’s the product of a band energised and fortified by their individual passions to incendiary effect. After the travails of the two and a half years since 2020’s Viscerals, the Newcastle-based quintet are not so much reinvigorated as channelling a furious drive which only appears to gather momentum as the band’s surroundings spin on their axis.
- With Nowhere And Everywhere, Rachel Unthank and Maxïmo Park’s Paul Smith, both from north-east England and foremost talents in their respective fields, set out to collect songs and pen originals that claw at the beating heart of the region. Though Rachel Unthank has been immersed in the folk world from childhood, Paul Smith’s route towards folk began in his teens with a love of Martin Carthy, Karen Dalton, Nick Drake and Bert Jansch, especially their fingerstyle guitar-playing. Echoes of that approach can be heard throughout this album, albeit simplified and merged with a more direct sound akin to US avant-rock.
- Inhaler return with Cuts & Bruises, which includes the singles ‘These Are The Days’ & ‘Love Will Get You There’. The album is the follow-up to Inhaler’s debut, It Won’t Always Be Like This, which debuted at no.1 in both the UK & Irish official charts and became the fastest-selling debut album on vinyl by any band this century, with Inhaler becoming the first Irish group to top the album charts with a debut in 13 years.
- Inhale/Exhale is an album that elevates the signature hard-hitting rock of Those Damn Crows to dizzying heights. The band whip up a storm of atmospheric hard rock, with Shane Greenhall’s trademark rousing lyricism, delivered by molten-smooth melodies and ever-passionate emotion, backed by drummer Ronnie Huxford’s earth-quaking percussion, the twin attack of guitarists Ian Shiner Thomas and David Winchurch’s rampaging riffs and glacial auras and bassist Lloyd Wood’s juddering bass thunder. Those who show up in hope of the band’s highly esteemed anthemic, piano-based balladry will also not be disappointed.
Releases for 3 & 10 February
- 3 February: On his 8th solo album, The Candle And The Flame, acclaimed Australian singer-songwriter Robert Forster has followed a very different creative path from his previous works. The first single, titled ‘She’s A Fighter’, reveals just a part of what became a journey of creating music with family and friends with a need to find joy and solace in the face of adversity.
- 3 February: Mercury Prize-winning Edinburgh trio Young Fathers are back with Heavy Heavy, their follow-up to 2018’s standout Cocoa Sugar. The band – Alloysious Massaquoi, Graham ‘G’ Hastings and Kayus Bankole – have long been recognised as one of Britain’s most vital and distinguished bands, merging incendiary and thought-provoking lyrics with cutting-edge visuals and an undeniably propulsive live show.
- 10 February: “The public sphere we find ourselves re-entering after 4 years at home, in our comfort zones, is an entirely different thing than the one we knew. The restlessness, the anxiety, and the compulsion to take action – it all feels like a contradiction. On one hand, we have a legitimate platform to use which makes me want to march at every protest for social justice and devote every waking second to every single cause I believe in. On the other, I just want to go home, plant a garden, and become a distant memory to the outside world.”
- 10 February: The Future Is Your Past, the 20th full-length studio album from The Brian Jonestown Massacre, was recorded in Berlin and remotely between 2020 and 2021 by Anton Newcombe, who was joined in the studio for this album by Hakon Adalsteinsson (guitar) and Uri Rennert (drums).
- 10 February: This Stupid World is the most live-sounding Yo La Tengo album in years. Times have changed for Yo La Tengo as much as they have for everyone else. In the past, the band has often worked with outside producers and mixers; but on their latest effort, their first full-length in five years, they worked all by themselves. And their time-tested judgement is both sturdy enough to keep things to the band’s high standards and nimble enough to make things new.
- 10 February: Barefoot On Diamond Road is the third album from Dutch singer-songwriter Amber Arcades. This is a record of engaging maturity, filled with slow-motion builds and epic lifts that elevate it to dizzying heights. Immersed in an all-consuming wall of sound, Barefoot On Diamond Road is like My Bloody Valentine gone acoustic – it shouldn’t work but it does. It’s a juxtaposition of textures, from skittery, uneasy dancefloor beats to symphonic kosmische, a baroque pop tapestry side-stitched with cellos and harps with a plaintive steel guitar echoing in the distance.
Releases for 27 January 2023
- In 2015, Dan Auerbach entered the studio with Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss and Richard Swift (who passed away in 2018) to record The Arcs’ debut album, Yours, Dreamily, in a handful of freewheeling sessions over two weeks. Now, more than 7 years later, those same sessions became the bedrock on which the surviving members fleshed out their much-anticipated follow-up album, Electrophonic Chronic: a collection of psychedelic rock, gritty funk and heady, soulful grooves.
- Time Out Of Mind is one of Bob Dylan’s most commercially successful and critically acclaimed albums and it won three Grammy Awards, including album of the year. It includes such iconic songs as ‘Love Sick’, ‘Not Dark Yet’ and ‘Make You Feel My Love’, which became a modern standard after it was covered by artists as diverse as Billy Joel, Garth Brooks and, of course, Adele. Fragments: Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996–1997) is one of the most highly anticipated Bootleg Series releases and it follows the evolution of songs written for the album, from intimate early incarnations in the previously unreleased 1996 Teatro sessions through incandescent live renditions showcasing Dylan and his touring ensemble channelling the songs on stage between 1998 and 2001.
- Greatest Hits Live In ’76 is a live performance from Marvin Gaye recorded at the Edenhalle Concert Hall in Amsterdam during his 1976 European tour. The recording features a fantastic set of 23 songs (22 on the LP) highlighting a wealth of material from the course of his legendary career, including ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, ‘Let’s Get It On’, ‘Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)’ (all US #1 hits), ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ and many more.
- A space of wonderment and exhilaration, the home of true heart and a timeless soul, Faded Seaside Glamour, the atmospheric and evocative 2004 debut album from Southampton’s very own Delays, gets its first outing on vinyl. The fragile strength of frontman Greg Gilbert’s vocals intertwine in an intoxicating way with the forward-looking synths of his brother Aaron, Colin Fox’s bass and Rowly’s drumming to create a series of affecting songs that deliver an immediate pop hit and that also leave a deep and wistful impact worthy of the album’s enticing title. Its iconic singles ‘Nearer Than Heaven’ and ‘Long Time Coming’ became immediate yet lasting focal points, while tracks including the melancholic ‘No Ending’, the smooth beats of ‘Stay Where You Are’ and chiming opener ‘Wanderlust’ demonstrated the remarkable depth of this unique debut.
- Setting The Reytons apart from the competition is their fiercely independent approach to the way they work. Not exactly welcomed with open arms by the industry from the very start, the band channel their working-class grit and determination to overcome every obstacle thrown at them, and their second album, What’s Rock and Roll?, is being released 100% independently, with no label backing. Aided by the masses of their loyal fans, no achievement is out of reach.
- Chaos & Colour, the energetic and triumphant 25th studio album from British hard-rock legends and progenators Uriah Heep, bristles with explosive classic rock guitars, supreme harmonies and Heep’s famously generous keyboard foundation. Led by founding member Mick Box, it is no surprise that themes of light, love and, ultimately, positivity are constant through the eleven tracks. Opener ‘Save Me Tonight’ shows the band’s weighty yet blistering chops, while ‘One Nation, One Sun’ is a journey of soaring balladic contemplation.
Releases for 13 & 20 January
- 13 January: While most of the songwriting for Strays took place the previous summer – during a six-day, mushroom-filled trip that Margo Price and her husband Jeremy Ivey took to South Carolina – it was amongst the hallucinatory hills of western Los Angeles that Price experienced the best recording sessions of her career. Instilled with a newfound confidence and a comfort with experimenting and exploring like never before, Price and her longtime band, Pricetags, channelled their telepathic abilities into songs that span rock’n’roll, psychedelic country, rhythm & blues and glistening, iridescent pop.
- 13 January: Recorded at her flat and Invada Studios, CACTI is a huge step up for Billy Nomates, who received widespread critical acclaim for her eponymous 2020 debut album, with heavy airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music and support from luminaries such as Iggy Pop, Florence Welsh and Steve Albini. Though every bit as unrepentant as her debut, CACTI comes from a far more exposed place and sees her further develop her instinctive, inventive songwriting and production.
- 13 January: Don’t ask Rozi Plain to explain her spellbinding fifth album, Prize. Its ten hypnotic, gently askew songs exist as if in another realm, where feelings matter more than meanings, where thoughts have room to roam and where you can live in the moment for as long as you like, and the album marks Rozi as one of our most innovative and engaging songwriters.
- 20 January: Mercy enlists some of music’s most curious young minds: Animal Collective, Sylvan Esso, Laurel Halo, Tei Shi, Actress. They’re only some of the astounding cast here, brilliant musicians who climb inside John Cale’s consummate vision of the world and help him redecorate there. Cale turned 80 in March, and he’s watched as many peers have passed away, particularly during the last decade. This is a musician who has always searched for new ways to explore old ideas of alienation, hurt, and joy; Mercy is the latest transfixing find of his unsatisfied mind.
- 20 January: Hot on the heels of 2021’s Huffy (which reached #1 on the UK indie chart), New York indie rock legends We Are Scientists return with their eighth studio album, Lobes. Largely written at the same time as Huffy and once again self-produced, Lobes stays glued to the indie dance floor but showcases a darker, more electronic pop sound than its rock-indebted predecessor. Always present, though, are the catchy melodies and soaring choruses which have become the band’s calling card over their near two-decade career.
- 20 January: For Gigi’s Recovery, their second studio album, The Murder Capital had to learn to navigate their personal relationships through the relationships they harnessed with these new songs. Although they didn’t know what these songs would actually sound like, the band knew what they wanted them to feel like – and worked backwards from there. “We had this slightly tongue-in-cheek mantra at the near-beginning of writing this record, it was – The evolution will not be compromised. This kept us on a course, even when we didn’t know where we were going.” And that’s exactly how The Murder Capital ended up with an album that is totally pure yet completely confident in its direction.
Other releases for 2023
Find releases from 2024 | 2022.
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