theartsdesk on Vinyl 93: Led Zeppelin, Blawan, Sylvester, Zaho de Sagazan, Sabres of Paradise, Hot Chip and more

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Martel Zaire (Evil Ideas)

Montenegro-born, Cyprus-based producer Martel Vladimiroff is a hard man to find out about. His online imprint and extensive global travels seem more like “an asset in the field” than a musician. Whoever he is, his new EP, four tracks drawn from his second album of the same name, is a unique idea, well-executed. Inspired by the imperial ravaging of Africa and the ongoing horrors of its modern equivalent, with the Congo as prime exemplar, it’s a conceptual head-trip. A dense gumbo of African field recordings and tribal drums play off dark-ambient atmospherics and an earnest techno pulse. The combination is as unlikely as it is potent: with no actual lyrics, the point is made through dark sonic subterfuge. It’s moody but addictive stuff, possibly also danceable…

VINYL REVIEWS

Snowapple Collective Utopia (Zip)

For at least a decade Snowapple were a female trio who dabbled in everything from indie to acoustic pop to dancey Latin business. Now the Dutch unit have expended into a collective and their latest album opulently combines baroque pop (a small ensemble of instruments such as harp, cello and violin) with surrounding cotton wool cover of synthesizer bubblings, squiggles and rumbly undergrowth. The result is dreamy opiated downtempo, somewhere between the arch pop of Pink Martini, the blissed spacing of Goldfrapp’s first album, Vangelis's keyboard wizarding and The Orb’s less dubby wanderings. Put it on and float off. Comes on double in info-gatefold, replete with a 12” x 12” photo/lyric insert and a second 12” x 12” photo/lyric booklet.

Various When the 2000s Clashed: Machine Music for a New Millennium (Demon)

For my money, DJ Hell was the one who started it (though New York would claim otherwise). Hell was ahead of the curve in the late Nineties, his DJ sets and his International Deejay Gigolo label focusing on a sound where the Teutonic techno-electro of Anthony Rother, I-F, Dave Clarke, etc, met the 1979-82 golden age of synth-pop. Then London tuned in. The NagNagNag night and more. As the new century blossomed, we at Muzik Mag, where I was at the time, backed this new movement. The Ministry of Sound label put loads of money into one of the totemic acts, Fischerspooner. As it turned out, while electroclash, as it became known, flavoured the music of Madonna, Kylie and others, the kids didn’t buy into it en masse. Emblematic of this was Fischerpooner’s career. Their debut single, “Emerge”, arguably the flagpole tune of electroclash, made it to only No.25 in the UK charts. And that was that. But it wasn’t. Circa early 2000s, a plethora of great music came out, music that sounds infinitely better today than the endless filter disco and “progressive house” chuggers that clogged up the charts of the time. This three-record set represents it well; from indie-sleaze classics such as Peaches’ “Fuck the Pain Away” to the Big Apple snark of LCD Soundsystem’s “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” to the retro electropop of The Droyds’ “Girls on Pills”, alongside a side of old classics from Kraftwerk, Human League, Sparks et al. Other names on board include M.I.A., Ladytron, Simian Mobile Disco, and Soulwax. I’d argue that it’s slightly too weighted to the period when electroclash had waned and “nu rave” was round the corner; Justice Vs Simian’s “We Are Your Friends”, CSS, Chemical Brothers remixes and such. Also, essential but absent are Miss Kittin & The Hacker’s “Frank Sinatra” and Felix Da Housecat’s “Silver Screen (Shower Scene)”. But these are just micro-detail quibbles from someone over-invested. This a lively well-chosen set that, alongside the expected, includes welcome off-piste choices such as Pet Shop Boys' Orange Alert remix of Atomizer’s “Hooked on Radiation”. Yes, this will be hammered late night at theartsdesk on Vinyl Mansions. Comes on triple-gatefold vinyl in a card slipcase with a 12” x 12” 22-page booklet with photos, details and NagNagNag’s Jonny Slot telling then backstory.

Jørgen Træen & Stein Urheim Galant Galakse (Action Jazz) + Hekate Evigheten Forestår (Heilo) + Kenneth Lien & Center of the Universe Norwegian Electronic Folk Music (Heilo)

Three slices of appealingly oddball fare from Norway. Jørgen Træen and Stein Urheim are two established producer-composer-musicians whose collaboration consists of two 17ish-minute electronic wibbles, somewhere between Stockhausen, BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Stephen Clark. They’re not conventionally musical but, as ear-fascinating background soundtracks, they’re asuccess. Hekate are equally unconventional but (slightly) more approachable. Again, a collaboration between nationally established artists – Malin Alander, Silje Risdal Liahagen and Synnøve Brøndbo Plassen – Evigheten Forestår, which comes in photo/lyric inner sleeve, is an exploration of Slåttetralling, a Norwegian tradition of folk singing improvisation. The album’s notes suggest they bring “contemporary club energy” to it. Not sure about that, although there is a primitive thumpy percussion. It’s not everyday listening, but some will enjoy the part-song aspect and others – such as theartsdesk on Vinyl – will hone in on the sheer weirdness of cuts such as “Synnafjelet”, which bring to mind a fusion of children’s TV singalongs, drunken burbling and witchy folk horror. Not your usual and well worth a listen. Who could resist an album called Norwegian Electronic Folk Music? Not us. It sounds as you might expect, traditional fiddle and jaw-harp combining with synths and drum machines, not bangin’ but underpinned by a slow hypnotic throb akin to Hans-Peter Lindstrøm and all those 2006 “cosmic disco” dudes. It slowly, effectively winds you in.

Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti: 50^th Anniversary Deluxe Edition + Live EP (Atlantic)

Led Zeppelin’s sixth album, released in 1975, was made by a band reconvening after a break, some more burnt-out than others by the well-documented excesses of their life on then road. Unusually, the sessions were often creatively led by drummer John Bonham, and produced, as so often with this band, a cross section of blues-rock belters, off-the-wall folky bits, and a fair amount of stodge. For those unfamiliar, theartsdesk on Vinyl’s advice would be not to start by dropping the needle first on the funky, Doors-ish “Trampled Under Foot” and the timeless, much-sampled “Kashmir”, then perhaps have a dip in the easy-going blues of the gospel-flavoured “Down by the Seaside” and the acoustic “Black Country Woman”. The 50^th anniversary edition comes with the original album over four sides and a “Companion Audio” disc that contains rough versions of seven songs. The outer sleeve has die-cut windows and the album comes with a poster of the cover art. Separately release is Live EP, containing contemporaneous live versions of four songs recorded at Earl’s Court, including a dementedly fast version of “Tramped Under Foot” that’s quite something (wonder what they were on…).

Chantal Acda The Whale (Starman)

Belgian-based Dutch singer Chantal Acda has been around for a good while and has fired out a bunch of albums, but this is the first time theartsdesk on Vinyl has come across her. She’s an impressive singer-songwriter, the scope of whose work encompasses such mellower fare as that term implies, but who also travels about, musically. Her quiet quavering voice is matched by a band who don’t overplay their hand, providing backing tracks that veer between background ambience, Young Marble Giants-ish indie and noisier rocking (as on “Heads”). Comes with 12” x 12” photo/lyric insert. Lovely stuff.

Sabres of Paradise Sabresonic + Haunted Dancehall (Warp)

After giving it a go with a couple of singles as Bocca Juniors, Sabres of Paradise was a second band-style project for DJ-producer Andrew Weatherall (Andy in those days). This time he was more committed. With his raving producer pals Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns he released two albums, Sabresonic in 1993 and Haunted Dancehall in 1994. There was also a second rejigged version of Sabresonic in 1995, called Sabresonic II, sometimes referred to as their third album. It wasn’t, although it did contain a superior 13-minute version of the title track. I find it hard to make a quality judgment about Sabresonic as their music takes me straight back to the time; murky, echoing synth pulses, a dank yet druggily MEANINGFUL vibe, as steeped in Germanic Seventies electronica as anything clubby (check “Ano Electro (Andante)” for evidence). Those were hedonistic times and Weatherall and co. brought something of the comedown to their work, whilst retaining just enough post-acid house hum’n’buzz. Haunted Dancehall is a more consciously narrative and dubbier emulation of the London nightworld, with Weatherall under the pseudonym James Woodbourne writing sleeve snippets to flavour each track. The sound is closer to Warp Records electronica of the period, especially on “Planet D”, which features production by Portishead. Someone nicked my 12” of the fantastic “Wilmott” many years ago so I’ve always wished that floor-saving version was on the album, but the dub take is enjoyable, nonetheless. The “Peter Gunn”-ish “Tow Truck” is another high point, as is the funkin’ Lao Schifrin-like “Theme”, available on the album for the first time. I think heard raw in 2025, new to the ears, especially by anyone young, these albums might disappoint, but for those with brains perma-stained by the era, parts of them are a bong-techno trip. Both come on double.

Sleaze Daffodils/Push Tuck (Agent Anonyme)

A tasty little 7” single from a Warmduscher-adjacent south London outfit. Two indie-rockin’ songs that, if now was 1978-1980, or even 2003-2005, might have made the Top 20. First is “Daffodils” a first-person yarn of trying in vain – because the protagonist is a wastrel – to save a relationship by buying supermarket flowers. Somewhere between Babyshambles, The TV Personalities, Madness and The Clash, it’s a good-natured, catchy sliver of pub backroom romance. The flip, “Push Tuck”, goes somewhere closer to the spirit of The Stooges in slow-rolling “Dirt” mode, with a touch of Jim Jones Review vibes and a very London attitude. It also features Roxy Music’s Andy McKay on sax.

Eric Burdon & War The Very Best of Eric Burdon & War (Rhino)

Of all those Sixties big cats, one of the most under-celebrated is Eric Burdon. Solely for The Animals’ definitive interpretation of “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” they should be in the A-league. But Burdon, arguably, created equally fine output during his brief sojourn with funkin’ California outfit War as the Sixties turned into the Seventies. He’d had gone over there for his health and became a full-blown lysergic flower-child, then created two albums with War (the title of the second, The Black-Man’s Burdon, might not fly now!). This double set in info gatefold revels in the band's musicality and Burdon’s instinctive bluesiness. They deliver fine covers, ranging from “Tobacco Road” to “Paint It Black”, but their own fare is free-flowing, occasionally eccentric, and full of the bounce of the times. War would go onto greater things, achieving wide success in the mid-Seventies. Burdon less so. Perhaps the reason he’s underappreciated.

Snorkel Past Still Present Tense (Slowfoot) + Blawan Sick Elixir (XL)

Two very different forays into experimental electronica. Snorkel aren’t, in fact, a purely electronic outfit, but their vibe is. Their third album, a double, and their first in almost a decade-and-a-half, showcases a four-piece who remain hungry for terrain where the groovy meets the exploratory. They may have drums and a guitar and occasionally demonstrate instinctive jazz chops, but most of the sound is electronic, whether on head-wibbling yet danceable whimsy or more curious fare. Comes on info gatefold double. Yorkshire producer Jamie Roberts – Blawan – made his name taking techno back to its harshest incarnation, machine crunch’n’hammer for the hardest dancefloors. His new album, though, while equally industrial, is not aimed at clubland but at those who wish to bathe in cutting edge electronic gnarl and grit. It even has occasional song structures but, overall, remember Amon Tobin’s Two Fingers project? Imagine its most abrasive material placed in a less dubstep-rhythmic setting, marching along with Cyberdine Systems’ finest through a warehouse-sized Belgian steel forge. For those with the head for it, and in the mood, it’s cathartic.

Zaho de Sagazan La Symphonie des Éclairs: Le Dernier des Voyages + La Symphonie des Éclairs (Orchestral Odyssey) (Disparate)

In 2023 French singer-producer Zaho de Sagazan released her debut album, La Symphonie des Éclairs: Le Dernier des Voyages, in her home country. It received almost universal acclaim and sold bundles. A new hope of Gallic popular music. Here at theartsdesk on Vinyl, we knew nothing of this. Now her new 2025 orchestral version of the album arrives. It made me check the original, which was then sent to me and which I’ve fallen heavily for. Sagazan combines analogue synthesizer warmth with beautifully enunciated French language singing. The songs are just delicious, pulsing with longing and a light kosmische, the music of dreamers. For me, the orchestral version is pointless as the original is unimprovable. But it does give me an excuse to draw attention to the two-year-old original. Comes on well-mastered gatefold double.

Agriculture The Spiritual Sound (The Flenser)

Los Angeles black metallers Agriculture are not messing about. They’re fit for genre fans but also take their sound somewhere more interesting. While the requisite blast beats are present alongside “singing” from frontwoman Leah B Levinson, which sounds like someone being flayed as their vocal chords are removed, there are melodies swimming around within the stop-start organized mayhem. It’s an assault that, every now and then, relents to something almost pretty, even the guitars adopting harmonic postures. This may eventually take the band beyond the usual Bloodstock niche. Comes on murky scarlet vinyl with 12” x 12” lyric/info sheet.

Various 2015-2025 Les Disques Bongo Joe: 10 Years of Sonic Explorations (Bongo Joe)

This is a fantastic collection that celebrates a decade of the fab Geneva label Bongo Joe. Man, it makes me want to go to the Swiss capital and see what’s in the water, explore the subterranean networks of weirdos! Bongo Joe’s raison d’etre is threefold; to uncover and reissue strange, wonderful music from around the world (this two record collection, on transparent colour-sparttered vinyl, contains music from Algeria, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey and various other countries); to release music by rising new musicians from around the world (I’ve followed the career of bananas Colombian outfit Meridian Brothers via the label); and to discover new music within Geneva (alt-pop wonk-heads Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp are a joy). There’s so much on this collection worth hearing, from the bonkers but brilliant female-fronted Middle Eastern dancefloor pop of Dutch-Turkish band Altın Gün to the scuttling Suicide-esque synth pulsing of Spanish noisies Esplendor Geométrico to the juddering psyche-dance of Genevan outfit ALAMI. And much more. I need this album. You probably do too.

Manzanera McKay AM PM Soho Live (Expression)

Must admit I came to this not expecting much. A jam session from two dudes who used to be in Roxy Music, replicating moments from their noodly 2023 AM PM album, and dipping elsewhere in their back catalogue. But saxophonist McKay and guitarist Manzanera, clearly tuned into some Orb-style stoner magic when this was recorded at Soho’s All Is Joy venue in 2024. Redolent of Ozric Tentacles, with moments reminding of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page’s No Quarter album, but with more sax than either of those references, this double set on gatefold in info inners sleeve also features Roxy drummer Paul Thompson, alongside bass, violin and synth/samples. Primarily (but not solely) instrumental, it closes with Roxy’s “Tara” and “Love is the Drug” and an interpretation of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild” (which was based around the riff from Manzanera’s “K-Scope”). Limited vinyl edition of 500.

Automatic Is It Now? (Stones Throw)

The third album from Los Angeles all-female trio Automatic sees them take their post-punk essence to the dancefloor. Channelling early Factory Records and all those New York no wave disco bands, but with twinklings of synth-pop, the deadpan, low-key vocals of frontwoman Izzy Glaudini ride the deft, easy-rolling rhythm section of bassist Halle Saxon and Lola Dompé. Weirdly, it reminds occasionally of early OMD - but mashed into Marine Girls. Unforced and moody but engaging. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.

The Fall Hex Induction Hour (Cherry Red)

One of The Fall’s best and best-titled albums, 1982’s Hex Induction Hour was a wilful rejection of polish and any kind of nicety, from the sound to the lyrics to the cover art. It's sparse, sometimes murky recordings are a template for 1980s bedroom lo-fi indie (although it was actually recorded in a folk music studio in Iceland and a disused Hitchin cinema). A classic fall line-up of Steve Hanley, Craig Scanlon, Marc Riley, Paul Hanley, Karl Burns and Kay Carroll back Mark E Smith’s stream of consciousness snark and ramblings (“Who makes the Nazis?/Intellectual half-wits” is a good one). Found sounds, scratchy guitar primitivism, pared back instrumentation, ambience (“Iceland”), and closing with 10 minutes of cacophonic noisiness (“And This Day”), Hex Induction Hour, which is reissued on gatefold double in scrawly inner sleeves, is a perverse delight.

The Dwarfs of East Agouza Sasquatch Landslide (Constellation)

The Dwarfs of East Agouza are a trio of seasoned musicians from Cairo who, utilizing guitar, keys, sax and electronica, create music stewed in their locality but which has as much in common with drone-headed experimentalism and the noise band underground. They make skronk with aspects of post-rock, but it’s too bizarre and hypnotic for that dry term. Some tracks are like Pere Ubu but if David Thomas had come from Egypt. Or akin to Butthole Surfers more downtempo weirdness, but with more advanced percussion. It’s mad stuff, psychedelic in its freakiness, not at all straightforward. One for the heads. Oh, and why not “Dwarves”? It’s like that ice hockey team, The Toronto Maple Leafs… WHY NOT “LEAVES”?! Always winds me up…

Parliament Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome (UMG) + Sylvester Step II (Fantasy) + Queen A Night at the Opera (EMI)

Three total Seventies monsters. First off, Parliament. One of my brothers said to me at a party the other night, “You know who doesn’t get full credit for being one of the heaviest caners of all time? George Clinton!” He’s right. And Clinton does it all in plain sight on this 1977 gem. The deranged nursery rhyme-flavoured “Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk (Pay Attention – B3M)” is prime evidence for the prosecution (“This is the Star Child, on another day, chasing the noses away”!). Among others, the album features Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell alongside Clinton, and delivers one of the group’s biggest hits, “Flashlight”. It’s a solid gold set of P-funk madness, essential from start to finish, and comes with a replica of the 12” x 12” comic which (ostensibly!) explains the concept behind it all. Sylvester is one of the great gay icons of his era. He lived an extraordinary life and, although posterity will only remember him for the disco staple “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, there was more to him than that. His fourth album, 1978's Step II, with another disco legend, Patrick Cowley, on synthesizer duties, was his greatest success. Arriving in photo/lyric inner sleeve, it shows of Sylvester as a falsetto-capable soul singer in the tradition of Minnie Ripperton. The funkin’ “Was It Something That I Said?” and slowies such as “I Took My Strength From You” are a match for Motown’s best of the same period, but the main thrust of the album – of course – is the lush disco of “Dance Disco Heat” and, yes, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”. I bought Queen’s A Night at the Opera when I was 15 but quickly sold it when its excesses felt icky to my punk self. I’ve not heard it since. Old codger me is happy to have it again (in lyric gatefold and photo inner sleeve on transparent vinyl). Hosts of bands, from Scissor Sisters to The Last Dinner Party, owe this period of Queen a debt. Released in 1975, it contains “Bohemian Rhapsody”, a song I’d already heard too many times, even back then, but there’s loads more camp, preposterous guitar pop fun, from ramped-up opener “Death on Two Legs” to the bizarre country-folk of “‘39” to the multi-tracked excesses of “The Prophet Song”. It’s a ridiculous album, completely over-the-top, and I can see why my teen self was embarrassed by its lack of “authenticity”, rage and rigour, but 40 years on I’ve got over myself. Bring it on!

Evidence Unlearning Vol.2 (Rhymesayers)

Californian producer and MC Evidence is a member of Dilated Peoples who, 20 years ago, was nominated for a Grammy for production work on Kanye West’s debut album. He's worked with a who’s who of hip hop (and even Linkin Park!). Unlearning Vol.2, the second part of a possible trilogy, sees him work with a wide array of fellow producers, such as Beat Butcha, The Alchemist, Sebb Bash and Conductor Williams, as well as guest MCs, including Blu, Domo Genesis and Theravada. Evidence’s own rapping is casual, smooth, relaxed, confident, a match for the laidback tone of the whole. There’s a smell of Mary Jane to the whole thing and hip hop afficionados would be advised to listen in a similar state. It seems built for it. Comes in photo gatefold.

ALSO WORTHY OF MENTION

Cortney Dixon Hazard a Guess (Cortney Dixon): Cortney Dixon is a wildly curly haired, girly-voiced live whirlwind (she played Glastonbury 2025 three times, for starters). With assistance from the PRS foundation, she recorded a debut EP which now arrives with a bunch of extra tracks, thus forming, in essence, a ten-track debut album. Her game is frothy, lightly spiky guitar pop somewhere between Avril Lavigne and Blondie but with its sonic imprint firmly nailed to 1979 new wave (or the many phases since when indie musicians have borrowed from that palette). Comes with a 12” x 12” lyric insert.

Goodnight Louisa Maralhon (Assai): The second album from Scottish singer Louisa McCraw is a laidback but forceful set of baroque pop that’s tuneful, wordy and appealing. In places, its not a million miles from The Last Dinner Party (but not so OTT), notably on the fab single “Jennifer Aniston” but McCraw is more likely to be offering heartfelt slowies and downtempo synth-pop. One to watch. Comes with 12” x 12” photo/lyric insert.

Various Dream a Dream with Studio G (Craft): Many of us ancients came to library music, as Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley points out in his enjoyable gatefold sleeve essay, via having then telly on as kids when there was nothing on. Yes, unbelievably this happened every day, way back when. The testcard (an image used by engineers to tune the picture in prehistoric times) was accompanied by all sorts of curious music. This was library music, which could also be used by all and sundry, where needed, cheaper than paying for an orchestration or “pop songs”. This collection gathers music into two sides and two sections, Dream A’s “Psychotropic Dream Hopping”, wonky sweet-natured orchestrations that have something of 1970s children's TV about them, and the more interesting Dream B, “Space Temple Midnight”, which is full of weirder, synthier fare, as if Air had fallen down a mescaline rabbit hole. Almost all the pieces are short, which means the listener is never bored. Comes on scarlet vinyl.

Sammy Virji Same Day Cleaning (Capitol): London producer Sammy Virji’s second album has already been an almost-Top 20 hit (No.21!) and is a sprightly set of bubbly UK garage-flavoured grooves with multiple guests. These range from musical accomplices such as Tuff Jam, Chris Lake and MJ Cole, to singers such Issey Cross to MCs such as Skepta and Giggs (it’s great hearing the latter giving an uncharacteristically relaxed, genial performance on “One for the Books”). Not ghettoised by genre, there’s a swing jazz flavour, here and there, and plenty of dipping into dubstep's low-end wobble. These are club sounds that would set a festival tent alight. Comes on gatefold in info inner sleeve.

Snooper Worldwide (Third Man): Nashville outfit Snooper are punk rockers whose second album, characterfully fronted by Blair Tramel, doesn’t exactly do anything new but comes flying out of the traps with an appealing early-Amy & the Sniffers energy. Driving and catchy, it’s a blast. Cuts such as “Company Car” make no pretence to depth but are full of contagious vim. Comes in photo/lyric inner sleeve.

Cécile McLorin Salvant Oh Snap (Nonesuch): France-based Floridan singer Cécile McLorin Salvant makes jazz interesting. Her eighth album, which arrives with 12” x 12” lyric/info insert, moves easily between mellow beatnik numbers such as “What Does Blue Mean to You?” and freakier experimentation such as “I Am a Volcano”, and folk harmonic material, as on “Take This Stone”, as well as four-to-the-floor club chuggers such as the title track. Her voice, which is playfully fluid, is the icing on the cake, but the musical journeying of Oh Snap is what makes it compulsive.

The Durutti Column The Return of the Durutti Column (London): 45 years ago Manchester outfit The Durutti Column, one of the first bands on the city’s now legendary Factory label, released their debut album, perversely and humourously called The Return of the Durutti Column. It’s a tricky one to write about now as, at the time, their twinkling but murky ambient guitar-led instrumental noodle, groundbreakingly produced by Martin Hannett, stood alone in a field of very few, whereas in 2025 whole generations of post-rockers and ambient dabblers have trod in their footsteps. And, dare I say it, some have made more interesting music. Nonetheless, The Return of the Durutti Column is gently lovely, a landmark, and should be appreciated as such.

Public Service Broadcasting Night Flight: The Last Flight Remixes (So): Public Service Broadcasting’s album-length 2024 tribute to pioneer flyer Amelia Earheart receives the remix treatment. Anyone expecting club bangers will be disappointed as this a mostly floaty, horizontal selection from the likes of Alex Silva, Gus Alt-J, Hainbach, Peter Sandberg and The KVB, alongside PSB side-project Late Night Final. The highlight, for theartsdesk on Vinyl, is the more driving, post-punk-ish “Monsoons” reversion by EERA, AKA US producer Cameron Kozlooff.

KT Tunstall Eye to the Telescope: 20^th Anniversary Stargazer Edition (BMG): Aside from the fact ‘Suddenly I See” is one of the 21^st century’s most deathless ear-worms, my affection for KT Tunstall derives from seeing her in concert and realising she’s the real deal. That and her pre-success background with Fife’s alt-folkie Fence Collective. 2004’s Eye to the Telescope was her major label debut and remains her most whoppingly successful album (it contains “Suddenly…”). It’s somewhere between Radio 2 pop-rock, US FM radio fare, and something more heartfelt and campfire. The songs are likeable, well-wrought, and this 20^th anniversary edition comes on pink’n’blue vinyl in gatefold double with the second disc containing three newly released cuts and a bunch of live stuff.

El Michels Affair 24 Hr Sports (Big Crown): Leon Michels’ El Michels Affair are New York hip hop royalty, an orchestral unit who accompany big names (such a Wu Tang members) as well as putting out a wide range of their own music, whether tribute albums honouring favourite artists or their own material. They’ve been at it for quarter of a century. Their latest album recalls library music, but with breaks along the way for actual songs, featuring names such as Norah Jones, Clairo and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. It’s a likeable, easy-going collection that majors in lounge-funk and floaty space noodle, but has enough tunes and character to hold the attention.

Daniel Blumberg The Brutalist: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Milan): Daniel Blumberg, long ago of grungey sorts Yuck, is more likely in recent times to be found at Café Oto performing improvisations around one of his avant-garde-ish Mute albums. He's now found success with his Oscar-winning soundtrack to last year’s holocaust/architecture drama The Brutalist. Mostly based round a recurring piano motif, in various incarnations, it’s also unafraid to go off-piste with clonky percussion, dissonance and tone pieces. Overall, a thoughtful, sometimes abstract slice of modern classical on gatefold and double.

Hot Chip Joy in Repetition (Domino): About 20 years ago I was sent a CDR of “Over and Over” by Hot Chip (possibly from the Moshi Moshi label?). It was and remains an all-time classic. Whatever the song’s actually about, the couplet “Like a monkey with a miniature symbol/The joy of repetition really is in you” is the best ever pop-lyrical summation of the Ecstasy experience. For this writer, while their output is usually worth a listen, they’ve never matched that high, veering towards soul-house Balearic living room chug rather than banger or pop classic. This is a somewhat mean-spirited way to introduce their Best Of on gatefold double (with artwork by Peter Blake) because, of course, smooth synth-pop tunes such as “Flutes” and “Devotion” are rather lovely, and their only Top 10 hit, “Ready for the Floor”, is a hypno-dance gem.

Backxwash Only Dust Remains (Ugly Hag): Zambian-Canadian musician Backxwash bursts vigorously through easy categorization. We could term her a rapper, as she spits rhythmic bars over her music, but that music is not hip hop. Inhabiting, very loosely speaking, territory somewhere near Dälek, Genesis Owusu, and Death Grips, her fourth album is riven with rage and identity (she wears blackface on the cover art and enclosed 12” x 24” lyric leaflet/poster). I could imagine her ruling Download Festival – some of the backing rocks that way - but she’s as happy rolling round everything from gospel to synth washes. A one-off, for sure.

Lush Gala (4AD): Miki Berenyi is one the great characters of Eighties and Nineties indie. Her autobiography is essential reading. I was never a Lush fan but re-exploring them after reading her book, I found a few oddments I enjoyed. However, this collection of EPs and singles, which Pitchfork rightly assessed as one of the “Foundational documents of shoegaze”, is mostly too watery for theartsdesk on Vinyl (although I do like “De-Luxe” and a couple of others). For fans, though, it’s a well-realised package, a 1990 compilation album reissued as the band originally intended, thus arriving as the Sweetness and Light EP (silver vinyl), the Mad Love EP (smeary blue vinyl), the longer Scar EP (off-red vinyl) and a 7” featuring “Scarlet” alongside a sweet C86-style nugget, “Hey Hey Helen”.

Jenny Don’t and the Spurs Live at the Jenny Lind (Property of the Lost) + Margo Price Hard Headed Woman (Loma Vista):  Two albums representing very different sides of Americana. Property of the Lost Records continue their series of rowdy live sets recorded at Hastings pub The Jenny Lind. Portland band Jenny Don’t and the Spurs mash up twangy Johnny Cash hoedowns with punkier garage, resulting in a raw set that makes me wish very much I’d been there. Margo Price is well-established on the American country circuit and her sixth album is spirited country, laced with a mainstream blues-rock feel. Like the best country singers, she knows her way round telling a story in song, airing gritty detail to add resonance (check out “Losing Streak”). It’s not edgy, and doesn’t pretend to be, but it does have barroom-swingin’ sass. Comes in photo/info inner sleeve with a black’n’white poster featuring Price topless, backwards, astride a horse.

Werkha Unsung Irregular (First Word): Discovered around a decade ago by the labels Tru Thoughts and Brownswood, for his fourth album Manchester producer Tom Leah (Werkha) has moved away from explicitly jazz-funkin’ music. Instead, the sticker on the front of Unsung Regular states that its 11 tracks celebrate “the resilient power of music to transform discomfort into rhythm”. I’m not sure exactly what this means but it intimates an interesting idea. The music is edgier than what he’s done before, ear-intriguing experiments in electronic percussiveness, like a (much, much) mellower early Squarepusher. There are a couple of songs but mostly its all wibble, wobble and quirk, and the better for it.

Ash Ad Astra (Fierce Panda): When Northern Irish Irish indie-rockers Ash were in their 1990s pomp, I dismissed them out-of-hand, wondering why anyone would want to pretend it was 1978 when the RIGHT NOW was so full of groundbreaking originality. 30 years later, I can appreciate their ability to write a nifty pogo-bouncing’ song. Their latest is less punkin’ than their last one, shinier, more synthy and glam, but their ability to write tunes, whether in The Smiths or KISS mode, is undimmed.

Oswald Slain Bucky (Oswald Slain): Debut album from a Bristol band who deal in catchy epic Seventies-flavoured sing-along rock. It’s very immediate and sits somewhere between the baroque opulence and pretension of Steve Harley and the boogie good times of The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (with a hint of Elbow in there too). If they can emulate this set in a live environment, they’re going to go places.

Air The Virgin Suicides Redux (Aircheology): Most people would go for Lost in Translation as their favourite Sofia Coppola film but theartsdesk on Vinyl’s favourite is 1999’s The Virgin Suicides. In truth, it’s her only film well-liked in these parts. Aside from being morbidly languid and containing a fantastic character name in Trip Fontaine, part of its appeal is the soundtrack by Air which sees the French duo in their post-Moon Safari pomp. It is lush, especially in its new "25th anniversary analogue mix". They even make a rare foray out of the completely chilled in “The Word ‘Hurricance’”. The short of it is that if you enjoy Air’s retro-synth loveliness, you’ll dig it; if not, it will drift by you like a waft of a honeysuckle on a summer day... there... not there... gone...

THE FOLLOWING SOUND LIKE THEY’D BE GREAT LIVE – SO GO SEE ‘EM AND PICK UP THEIR RECORD FROM THE MERCH STALL

Howlin’ Grassman Vs Stompin’ BigFoot The Wild One of the Wood is Back in the City (Property of the Lost): Crampsy, Jim Jonesy blues-punkin’ from France.

Joseph Decosimo Fiery Gizzard (Dead Life): Virtuoso North Carolina banjo and fiddle player deep-dipped in Appalachian traditions.

Dug Have At It! (Claddagh/Decca): Transatlantic Scottish-American duo whose sound takes in Irish pub jiggin’.

The Spitfires MKII (Bellevue Music): Watford four-piece in thrall to mod, ska, new wave and general 1979-ness; they know how to write a tune.

Spiritual Cramp Rude (Blue Grape Music): San Francisco punkers whose second album has bottle and a Green Day tunefulness.

Mên An Tol Regional Music (Mên An Tol): Debut album from a strummy, London-based indie band named after Cornish standing stones.

AND WHILE WE’RE HERE…

• Californian alt-rockers AFI broke through 20 years ago (having already been around for 15 years before that!). Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… on Run For Cover is their latest and dips into a variety of dark, emo-flavoured styles, while keeping things tuneful enough. It’s like the gothic Eighties never stopped.
• The Norwegians are always at it with mingling jazz and electronica, kingpins of this very particular niche. Synth wizard Jan Bang and trumpet player Arve Henriksen are a case in point. Their After the Wildfire album on Punkt Editions, wherein they work with guitarist Eivind Aarset and percussionist Ingar Zach, is a spooked, desolate exercise in orchestrated ambience, part snowbound horror film theme, part floatation tank trance-out. Explore this one late at night.
• Hard-gigging Carlisle unit Hardwicke Circus were the first band to tour Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, and they release a lively vinyl document of their Lviv concert, One Hour Ahead of the Posse on Alternative Facts Records. Opening with a version lof the Ukrainian national anthem played by local sax hero Roman Korchevskyi, it showcases this lively band in an especially vibrant setting.
• Anglo-American singer-songwriter Ilana Zsigmond records as St Catherine’s Child and her debut album, This Might Affect You on Shamus Records, casts a grief-stricken forlorn mood of atmospheric indie-Americana. The songs are sad and solid. Comes on gatefold double with 12” x 12” eight page photo/lyric booklet.
• Griff Lynch of Welsh indie band Yr Ods releases his first solo album, Blas Melysa’r Mis (“Sweetest Flavour of the Month”) on Lwcus T Records. It mellows down Yr Od's psyche leanings to a gentler but still quirky, marijuana-laced, honeyed guitar pop, mostly in Welsh. One song that isn’t is the string-laced maudlin “Same Old Show”, featuring Manic Street Preacher James Dean Bradfield.  Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
• Is Denmark’s April Records the same April Records (also Danish) that was once on the cutting edge of downtempo electronica? Whether it is or not, they’ve made it their current mission to offer accessible but gently envelope-pushing new jazz to the world. They deserve to be better known in the UK. Such is the case with the third album from Polish female quartet O.N.E. (piano/sax/bass/drums). Entitled Well, actually…, tunes such as “Berio”, with their emphasis on dissonance and percussion alongside approachability, make this well worth a dip.
• Newcastle musician (and gardener) Daniel Foggin records as Smote and fired out a few records in the 2020s, most of them on Rocket Records, as is his latest, Songs From the Free House. On it he experiments with drones, sinister ritualistic drumming, feedback, and more, all adding up to a primarily instrumental set that balances down-tuned doom metal-ish relentlessness with a folk horror feel. Comes in photo inner sleeve with a bright poster of then cover art.
• Saxophonist-flautist Tenderlonius is a musician of many parts, always busy, not least with his Ruby Rushton band, a quartet that also contains trumpet, keys and drums. Their fifth album, Legacy! on 22a Records, steps away from the one-take pieces they’ve become known for, and uses the studio to add layering to the palette. They retain their usual upbeat chewiness but this new direction builds in further atmosphere.
• Eera is Berlin-based Norwegian singer Anna Bruland. Her 2007 goth-grunge debut was an uncharacteristic release from Ninja Tune’s primarily weird-tronic hip hoppy Big Dada label. Since then, she’s involved herself in various projects and now her third album, I’ll Stop When I’m Done, appears on Test Card Records. Her voice has become more emotive, while the music is less moody, a dreamy indie sound, resulting in effective downtempo rumination. Comes in kyric inner sleeve.
• Working in London, producer Adrian Corker, percussionist George Barton, and Japanese singer Tujiko Noriko came up with a new project CxBxT. Their six-track debut, After on Constructive Records, matches hums, tones, echo and percussion with Noriko’s free-floating sweet voice, and is an exercise in untampered, noise-licked avant-garde-ism.
• Back in the days when they were in the music press, when it existed, I never “got” Bristol outfit The Blue Aeroplanes. Their sound, kind of The Fall meets They Might Be Giants with a bloke talking over it à la It’s Immaterial, didn’t seem hefty. So let’s try them again 30-40 years later on Outsider Art, a compilation subtitled The Other Best of The Blue Aeroplanes 1985-2025 on Chrysalis, which comes lovingly packaged with photo/info inner sleeve, 12” x 12” lyric insert and 7” single. Nope, not offensive, rolls along sounding like the Eighties, but still not seeing the real appeal.
• With Far From Nowhere on Corduroy Punk Records, prolific British folk singer Josienne Clarke adds another album to her mountain of catalogue. This isn’t to dismiss it, or her. It’s a pared back set with her poignant voice leading the emotion, folk only in the loosest sense. It's as much in the spooked lonesome singer-songwriter territory of Beth Gibbons and Beth Orton. A solid quiet contemplative listen.
• After the now-admired commercial misstep of 1983’s experimental Dazzle Ships, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s career was a long slow slide into the dustbin (until they reappeared 15 years ago, sounding refreshed, for a series of more rewarding albums). That said, back then, those hits kept coming, on’n’off until they went on hiatus in ’96. 1985’s Crush, now reappearing via Virgin, is a case in point, containing the single “So in Love” and a bunch of other stuff that’s occasionally entertaining but nowhere near essential. For the fans, it’s on double with loads of notes and a second album of unreleased cuts and remixes.
• DJ-producer Sonikku has built a solid rep on the international LGBTQIA+ underground, swerving between alt-pop dancefloor cuts and woozier fare. Into the latter category falls his latest 12” single on Bella Union, featuring two tunes, “Heatwave” and “Drowning”, both of which are hazed-out, sweet-natured chill-pop to blissfully nod-out to on pharmies.
• By the time Simple Minds released Once Upon a Time in 1985, they’d gone from smart post-punk explorers to U2 wannabes. It paid off. They cracked the US. Truth to tell it was their non-album global smash “(Don’t You) Forget About Me”, from the film The Breakfast Club, that did it (for years, the band seemed gutted they didn't write their most famous song). It’s now included for the first time on Virgin’s new reissue, alongside the other biggies “Alive and Kicking” and “All the Things She Said”. It’s a NO from theartsdesk on Vinyl but those who hark back to those Rattle and Hum days may enjoy.
• Welsh singer Laura Evans sounds as if she hails from midwestern USA. Her latest, Out of the Dark on Absolute Records, is more gung-ho, FM radio-rockin’ than the older school country-orientated music she released a decade-and-a-half ago, when she first pivoted from acting to music. It has Radio 2 heft but is the sort of material that might find a wider audience more easily in the States than in the UK.
• Classically educated London singer-songwriter Jana Varga releases her second album, Chicory, on her own eponymous label. She keeps things simple yet musicologically advanced, her admiration for Joni Mitchell showing through in her lean but ambitious, acoustic guitar-led jazz-folk stylings.
• If you like your blues with a real contemporary US deep south barroom feel, you could do worse than check out 20-something Mississippi singer-player Kingfish (Christone Ingram). On his latest, Hard Road on Redzer Records, there are some swingin’ rockers, tipping their hat to Buddy Guy, who he’s worked with. His fret-wrangling holds its own against any metal player as he holds fast to his own version of the classic electric blues style.
• Go to Scandinavia and ask who's at the leading edge of of jazz saxophone in the region and they’ll likely mention Sweden’s Elin Forkelid. She has her fingers in many pies, including Sol Sol whose new album, Oscillations, arrives via Sail Cabin Records. On gatefold double, it’s expansive, plenty of space and slow abstract sequences within which Forkelid and guitarist David Stackenäs take flight or, alternately, double down on minimalist motifs. Those that like their jazz uncompromising, innovative and laced with joyful play will find something to enjoy,
• As you might expect, the sound of a band called Moon Panda is self-consciously cute. The third album by this Californian-Danish unit, Dumb Luck on Moon Panda Records, is a wafty set of tunes somewhere between Air and Norwegian downtempo sorts, Flunk, fronted by the airy, whispery voice of frontwoman Maddy Myers. Its dozy-feel horizontal pop. Comes in photo/lyric inner sleeve on vinyl that looks like a curdling lemon milkshake.
• Spanish musician Silvia Alvarez goes by the moniker JASSS. Her latest album, Eager Buyers on AWOS Records, steps away from her last album, 2021’s A World of Service, which primarily featured her singing over gnarly techno-pop, Instead, it harks back to her hauntological 2017 debut, Weightless. It’s an album of blurred abstraction and atmospherics, made for pondering installation art in a grey industrial European gallery, populated by people with asymmetric haircuts. Comes with 12” x 12” lyric insert.
• The new album from Gambian-Norwegian singer Mariama Ndure is a fusion of jazz and Afro-centric flavouring, tinted with hip hop. Entitled Rituals on Global Sonics Records, it veers between percussion-led bounce and piano-led easy soul, with an unlikely hint here’n’there of Fifties beatnik spirit. It’s charting its own terrain, and is underpinned by the notable upright bass-playing of Norway-based Swede Joel Ring.
• Tomás Donker cut his teeth on New York’s No Wave scene at the end of then Seventies and has been a session man in that city ever since, playing with some major names, as well as running his own operations, including True Groove Records, on which his latest album, Hard Hard, as Tomás Donker & The True Groove All Stars, appears. It’s a mixture of soulful styles, from the bland to the funkin’, one highlight being a bluesey cover of “Ace of Spades”.
• Scottish funkateer Marco Cafolla has many strings to his bow, the best-known of which may be Mama Terra but Federation of the Disco Pimp comes a close second, with three albums under their belt and a fourth now arriving, Gratuitous on Acid Jazz. Featuring a guest appearance from surviving JB, Fred Wesley, it’s a selection of hip-shaking Bootsy Collins-ish grooves with the occasional opulent slowie. Comes with 12” x 12” photo/lyric/info insert.
• Swedish saxophonist Lina Langendorf leads her Langedorf United quintet on a second album, Undercover Beast on Song Fighter Records. It’s a delicious amalgam of upfront jazz chops, Ethiopian scalings, frolics into other global styles, Seventies fusion, and even moments of wibbly psychedelia. A treat.
• Nicole Wray may be best-known for the burst of fame that arrived following her late-Nineties debut single “Make It Hot” but, over the last decade, she’s redeveloped her career as Lady Wray, majoring in effective retro soul stylings, as on her latest album Cover Girl on Big Crown . Those after smooth-rollin’, feminine retro funkin’ that also brings new songs to the table should check it out
• The sticker on the front of Sanam’s new album, Sametou Sawtan, says, “a heady collision of Arabic poetry and noise rock” and that about sums it up. On Constellation Records, the second album from this group of Lebanese experimentalists is given human depth by the mournful tones of singer Sandy Chamoun but their stew of droney sounds, Middle Eastern scaling and rock song structure is involving.
• Mike Bourne is part of the uncategorizable London sound explorer trio Teeth of the Sea but, when he’s by himself, he’s now Bruise Blood. His debut album is the excellently titled You Run Through the World Like an Open Razor on Rocket Records which sees him dip into moody smudged electro and grinding M83-ish pieces. As with his other band, he’s still in the business of head-frying.
• Easy Eye Sound, the label owned by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, has provided a home to a selection of venerable, often not widely known southern US blues players. These include established septuagenarian performer Robert Finley, whose new album, Hallelujah! Don’t Let the Devil Fool You, also produced by Auerbach, now appears. As you might expect from the title, it’s infused with God but also rich in blues’n’soul spirit, boosted by the singing of Finley’s daughter, Christine Johnson. Comes on vinyl that looks like a yellowy mushroom soup.
• Composer Faten Kanaan has heritage derived from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. After 20 years in the US, she has settled in the last of those countries and her latest album, Diary of a Candle on Fire Records, is a response to that experience. This information is Googled. I would not have known it from how the album sounds. It’s an exercise in modern classical that edges into new age music and formal minimalism but never drifts into either. As such, with its electronic atmospherics and looping woodwind sounds, it’s an eyes-closed affair for the meditative.
• Chrysalis Records’s Red Series sees the label taking a likeable excursion into the depths of their catalogue. Scottish trio The Clouds (and their predecessor 1-2-3) were one those bands owed a debt by many but who never made it. Artists ranging from the great (Bowie, The Who) to the terrible (Emerson, Lake & Palmer) acknowledge their importance as one of the first bands to kick pop and rock’s formatting into the grass, welcoming in prog and the stylistic loosening of the 1970s. Their 1969 album The Clouds Scrapbook, however, sounds like what might have happened if The Small Faces had pursued their Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake direction rather than turning into Humble Pie and The Faces, which is to say Beatles-influenced maximalist pop rather than prog. Comes with 12” x!2 photo/info insert
• Talking of prog, London’s The Orchestra (For Now) collective certainly fall into that camp. They follow their Plan 75 debut EP from earlier this year with the Plan 76 EP on their own eponymous label. I am not a Radiohead fan but if you are, and fancy hearing that kind of sound, replete with vulnerable voice-breaking male vocals, occasionally being smashed into guitar work somewhere between Squid and thrash, then this may be your cuppa.
• West Country producer Adam Gibbons has been producing music as Lack of Afro for 20 years. His style is a home studio emulation of classic funk, interlaced with the instrumental influences of its musical successor, hip hop. Now he’s decided to bow out but not before one final album, Love Dealer on Bastion Music Group. His work has never been my thing but if you fancy a smooth set of fruity looped grooves in this vein – and this sort of thing is hugely popular, for instance, in Brighton and Bristol – he’s your man,
• Minus points for being called Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity, which recalls the most self-regarding excesses of Seventies prog-fusion, but plus points for some of the music on their fifth album, Great Intentions, wherein the Norwegian trio invite a couple of extra saxophonists on board, with Kjetil Møster and Signe Emmeluth taking their place alongside the band’s André Roligheten. Jagged and unpredictable, but also giddy-spirited and full of virtuosic players lettiung loose, it’s better than the band name. On Action Jazz Records, it arrives on gatefold.
• Gulp is a band led by Guto Pryce of Super Furry Animals and Scottish singer Lindsey Leven. Their third album, Beneath Strawberry Moons on E.L.K. Records, is short but sweet, a half hour of woozy, catchy pop that’s been sieved through a mushroom microdose, and made to lie down for an afternoon nap. It’s easy, twangy and likeable. Comes on white vinyl in photo/lyric inner sleeve.
• Over in Norway Martin Hagfors is an icon of alternative folk singer-songwriting. His latest project is interpreting his songs with Scandinavian folk band Valkyrien Allstars and composer-singer Tuva Syversten. It’s called Folk-A-Dots and it’s on Diger Records. The vibe sits somewhere between the acid-laced output of certain early-Seventies singer-songwriters and the wave of indie-folk that rose around Bon Iver and the like. It’s a decent listen and comes in lyric inner sleeve.
• Mancunian producer Matt Wilde is a self-taught jazzer who’s wandered into the world of piano noodle. His second album is called Find a Way on Hello World Records. Lightly tinged with trumpet and electronic percussion, it’s essentially smooth jazz but, while background, it’s not gone full waiting room/phone-on-hold.

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