VINYL OF THE MONTH 1
Simo Cell & Abdullah Diawy Dying is the Internet EP (Dekmantel) + Simo Cell FL Louis (TEMƎT)
Where house music has drifted to conservatism, becoming predictable and dull, some electronic producers are still creating dancefloor-adjacent music that rips. One of the very best is French machine-freak Simo Cell. His wonked-out bangers defy definition. He’s been Vinyl of the Month before, with his Yes. DJ EP, back in 2021. These two new releases are also essential. The first, via Amsterdam’s Dekmantel organization, is an album with Egyptian singer-composer-poet Abdullah Diawy, his flights of Arabic singing floating amid liquified squonk-textures and basslines the size of falling skyscapers, whether close to club-shaped fare or the clappy, dubstep-flamenco warping of “Living Emojis”. One gurgling track even features Diawy’s wheezing trumpet-playing. There’s also the four-track FL Louis EP out that’s nearer
to formal techno. Specifically, it’s like an update of Plastikman’s stark, relentless early-Nineties minimalism, but filtered through three decades of musical developments since. These tunes also seem predicated on Simo Cell having fun with an effect which sounds like guttural mouth noises twisted and chopped about. It’s beamed in from the future but is also entertaining, a great combo. Electronic dance music should not be a mid-volume soundtrack to Insta cocktails and pleasant chat. It should make the head giddy while the legs jerk, as drugs bleed out of the eyes. Simo Cell’s music is drugs. Go take them.
VINYL OF THE MONTH 2
Melanie Baker Somebody Help Me I’m Being Spontaneous (Ramborhinoceros)
In 97 editions and a dozen years we’ve never had two separate Vinyl of the Month choices, but this record demands it. It's a great rock album. Melanie Baker is from the Lake District but her debut is lathered in grungy elements that feel American. I'd mention The Breeders but Somebody Help Me... is more seat-of-the-pants ragged, more urgent. Baker alternately rages about and surrenders to everyday boredom, depression, small town mundanity, self-loathing, rundown accommodation, even slugs in her cupboard, but all to riproaring tunes that snag the listener into powered-up bellow-along mode. Every song here is a potential single, all killer, even the sole acoustic mope. There’s something of Withnail and I in its debauched desperation, but of punk rock too. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
VINYL REVIEWS
Stine Janvin | Morten Joh Or Gare: Funeral Procession Music From Ryfylke, Norway (Krets/Futura Resistenza)
Morten Joh, once of wonderfully noisy Norwegian jazz mavericks MoHa!, combines forces with vocalist and audiovisual artist Stine Janvin. They’re both into electronic music, which they use as a blueprint for their investigation into liksongs - “corpse songs” - the ancient traditional singing which accompanies funeral processions in the fjord’n’mountain wildness of north-east Norway. Naturally, the resulting music is melancholic but – and this is key to the album’s success - it’s not morose. The pair have laced Janvin’s singing with a fittingly solemn panoply of electronic abstraction, echoing shimmer and muffled clonking. It’s not something anyone’s going to put on every day but is, nonetheless, a beautiful entity, foraging across electronic ambience, folk and modern classical. Comes in an elegantly put together silver-on-black-printed book-like gatefold, a work of art in itself.
T.P. Orchestre Poly Rythmo featuring Melomé Clement West African Beat (Acid Jazz)
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Dahomey is not the catchiest name. In fact, it’s the opposite. But whenever I hear it, I wake right up. Led by Melomé Clement, they were Benin’s premier band in the late-Sixties and early Seventies, their music hugely influenced by James Brown but also ripe with their own African heritage. This double set, in sleeves full of reproduced old record images, and rich in back story written by academic musical authority Francis Gooding, collects together a bunch of their early-Seventies singles, half of them originally on the band's Albarika Store label. Their style is unique. Fela Kuti is an immediate reference point but this music is rawer, rougher-edged, with an almost punk harshness to its percussive funk. Check a cut like “Les Djos”; it comes cranking at the listener, thrusting forward with a bullish urgency, or the strident organ on “Hin Ayi Towe Do Ye Wou”, a match for The Doors at their most garage. The band reformed in 2009 and still exists, now called T.P. Orchestre Poly Rythmo (“T.P.” for “Tout Puissant” – “All Powerful”). Respect to Acid Jazz for digging further into this excellent niche.
Cat Clyde Mud Blood Bone (Concord)
This writer has not come across Canadian singer Cat Ckyde before, although Mud Blood Bone is her fourth album (and first for L.A.’s Concord Records). This is my loss. Her swampy blues are meaty, catchy and heartfelt. The first and obvious comparison is The Black Keys but Clyde is very much her own creature, her voice ripe with southern music’s whooping, yodelling heritage but also capable of sweet longing guitar pop on cuts such as “Wild One”. Mud Blood Bone is a fine set one could imagine crossing to a wide indie audience. Comes on “eco mix” vinyl that’s a melty blend of reds, with a 12” x 12” four-page art/info/lyric insert.
Backengrillen Backengrillen (Svart)
Backengrillen is three-quarters of the recently folded Swedish socialist hardcore punk band Refused, including frontman Sven Lyxzén, alongside free jazz saxophonist Mats Gustafsson. Their debut album was deliberately recorded in extreme haste, in an effort, presumably, to catch the spontaneous thrill of a band discovering each other in the raw. This, then, is no set of classic worked-up songs. Instead it’s a noisy experiment where electronics, bass, drums, sax (and occasional flute) collide with Lyxzén’s often animalistic vocals. There are outbursts of (sort of) rockin’ ("Repeater II”) and Stooges Fun House skronk (“Socialism or Barbarism”), but much of the album achieves its effect by a leaden weightedness, plodding sludgily along. It’s wilfully difficult, a challenging listen that delivers a kick.
Lightnin’ Hopkins Blues in my Bottle (Bluesville/Craft) + John Lee Hooker That’s My Story: John Lee Hooker Sings the Blues (Bluesville/Craft)
American reissue label Craft, under the Bluesville imprint, does the business reproducing two blues classics. When Lighnin’ Hopkins created Blues in my Bottle in 1961 he was in the ascendent. After years of relative obscurity, his musical stylings, and those of his peers, were gaining an unexpected audience, both in white America and in Europe. Having lived hard for decades, the rest of his life would prove easier as a result. A great electric guitar wrangler, Blues in my Bottle sees Hopkins deliver a rare set of acoustic versions – “Buddy Brown’s Blues”, “Wine Spodee-O-Dee”, “Jailhouse Blues”, the spoken story “Beans, Beans Bean” and more. After a few songs a peace settles and it feels like being in the room with the man. John Lee Hooker, too, was marketed to the new folk boom dominating cutting edge American pop when That’s My Story was released in 1960. It’s a likeable, contemplative set that opens with the well-trodden “I Need Some Money”, and contains the forbidding “Gonna Use My Rod” and the chugging “No More Doggin’”. Somehow, the acoustic situation feels more contrived than with Hopkins but this makes little odds. It's a fine listen.
Alexis Taylor Paris in the Spring (Late Night Stories)
Theartsdesk on Vinyl is somewhat ambivalent about Hot Chip, occasionally digging a single, acknowledging that “Over and Over” is an all-timer, but never returning to the albums. I’ve never heard singer Alexis Taylor’s solo material before but his sixth album is a pleasant surprise. It probably helps that it includes persuasive collaborations with Nicolas Godin of Air, Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside, The Avalanches and American actress-singer Lola Kirke. It revels in the spaciness of analogue synths, with Taylor’s voice injecting an aching soulfulness, including a gorgeous electro-chilled reimagining of The Rollings Stones' “Wild Horses”. At its best, Paris in the Spring twinkles with a horizontal otherworldliness that’s richly realised and delicious.
MarysGarden Everything (MarysGarden)
If you live in Oxford, the singer Laima Bite is something of a local institution, a regular performer in many bands and on her own. MarysGarden, who dissolved a dozen years ago, may be her best-known incarnation. They reappeared in 2022 with a new line-up, fronted by Bite. Their new album collects re-recorded versions of all their songs from back-in-the-day. I’ve no idea what the originals sounded like but the new album, which plays over four sides at 45 RPM, is a lively set of crossover goth-rock, sung with clarity and passion, impeccably produced, and mastered to vinyl fat’n’loud. Arriving in photo/info gatefold with 12” x 12” lyric insert, these songs have legs; catchy, punchy, but retaining black-clad drama. Imagine if All About Eve had been a 1990s post-grunge rock act who’d stormed the Billboard 100. Which is to say Everything might achieve global success in an alternate universe where MarysGarden had a couple of million in their marketing budget. They likely have 40 pence, so if they sound like your sort of thing, you’d better go seek the album here.
Bel Cobain Kizzy (Brownswood)
A six-track mini-album on orange-going-brown vinyl, in lyric gatefold, from rising London singer Bel Cobain. Her musical style crosses between singer-songwriterly acoustic-led material, alt-R&B, electro-indie fare and one song, “Mind is a Dancer”, that has a splurged jazzy drugginess. She makes this spicy goulash her own via a lazy, airy voice, capable of both sweetness and sneer, haughtiness and vulnerability, and, particularly via her lyrics. Like Amy Winehouse, her words stay away from R&B’s usual generalisations about love and sex in favour of specificity, swearing and subject matter that feels real and lived. If she can create an album capturing her appeal and, crucially, songs to match, she will be a star.
The Fall Fall Heads Roll (Narnack/Cherry Red) + The Phone Call The Royal Standard (Blang)
Key to The Fall’s “success” was Mark E Smith’s relentless “prole art threat” cantankerousness, his contrarian unwillingness to ever settle on anything. Of course, this rendered him completely (and sometimes brilliantly) obnoxious. On 2005’s Fall Heads Roll, however, despite the fact it was the last album before a renewed period of band line-up chaos, he sounds happy. The music’s quirky, poppy but not as abrasive as sometimes, the atypical opening “Ride Away” a case in point, a skanking, oddball sliver, eccentric but cheery. Even on more typical cuts such as “Assume”, Smith sounds upbeat, as he does on a punky cover of The Move’s “I Can Hear the Grass Grow”. Perhaps his open mood may be intuited by his having guest vocalist Kenny Cummings (of New York band Shelby, later a successful motorbike racer) front the buzzing “Trust in Me”, or the fact Smith used a set of lyrics by a studio work experience person for the song “Breaking the Rules”. Whatever his mood, it’s one of
The Fall’s most consistent 21st century albums. Comes fatly pressed on double with its oral history spread over the sleeves. A tasty package. The Fall may be gone but their spirit can, perhaps, be heard on the second album by London eccentrics The Phone Call, whose theatrically announced “singing” and lyrical surrealism wander similar terrain (“Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be goat rope man”), although on songs such as the keys-laced sweetness of “Something Hasn’t Changed” they show off a wistful pop side.
Agosta For Today (Space Echo) + ANAN Room (Space Echo) + Tema Due (Nicola Conte & Nico Lahs) Universo Astratto (Schema)
Three albums from Italian DJs. For Today is the second album from the Sicilian Roberto Agosta, who goes by his surname, and works closely with studio wizard Salvo “Dub” Bruno. The pair muster blissed Balearic pop, exemplified by the stoned easy listening vibe of the title cut, which features Chiara Castello on vocals. The album also has singing from Nicole Somers, Giulia La Rosa, Reiwa Pia and Marta Collica, who each inject character to the music and add to its appeal. For Today harks back to the millennial chillout boom, but with heightened pop melodies and
dreamy contemporary production. ANAN is the pairing of Agosta with another Sicilian DJ, Massimo Napoli, AKA Galathea, again working with Dub Bruno. It’s a juicier album than his solo effort, more upbeat, albeit less song-based, shuffling Afro-Latin dipped in psychedelic echo, infused with marijuana sunshine. Apulia’s Nico Conte is a prolific musician, as well as a DJ, and combines his talents with Bari
deep house don Nicola Loporchio, AKA Nico Lahs, on a double vinyl set that’s more jazzual and flutey than the two just reviewed, although just as Balearic. Having a band name (Tema Due), and then inserting your individual names in brackets as part of that name, is lame and lacking in confidence. Either have a band name or don’t! But this gripe doesn't take away from a laidback set of rhythmic head-nodders, occasionally assisted by lounge exotica-style female vocals.
Ria Rua SCAPEG.O.A.T (Ria Rua)
The debut album from singing Irish drummer Ria Rua has the same kind of percussive grunge-funk energy as Genesis Owusu and Run The Jewels, crossed with the feel of Kelis’s “Caught Out There”. Punchy rhythms are the name of the game but this is also one noisy, shouty album. On vinyl it’s limited to 1000 in gatefold on bright yellow vinyl, but it’s easy to imagine it catching fire with the States alt-rock crowd and blowing up (everywhere except Spotify, where she’s taken all her music down and left only one spoken word track, righteously explaining why). SCAPEG.O.A.T.'s feminist angst is writhing with a fury well conveyed - “I’m mad as hell, I don’t know what to do about it!” – but also sits not so very far from Rage Against The Machine.
Paul Weller Weller at the BBC Vol 2 (Parlophone)
Paul Weller has been around long enough to reach a second volume of recordings made for the BBC (the first one came out in 2008). It arrives on triple gatefold triple vinyl and is only available currently in physical formats (no streaming). Weller, once the grouchy young punk-born rager, is now 67 and a behemoth of English music, expanding his sonic palette all over the place since his eponymous 1992 debut solo album. The BBC collection celebrates this, sprawling in non-chronological order. It’s a mixed bag but there are gems. I may not embrace the stringed-up, swoony “Rise up Singing” from 66, his most recent album of originals, or his run-of-the-mill strummed take on The Zombies’ “Time of the Season”, but just check out the raucous live wah-wah groove or “Rip the Pages Up”, the forlorn slowie “Burn Out”, or his take on The Kinks’ “Days”, the latter pair allowing the world weariness in his voice to elevate the songs. And for Jam fans there’s even a rare live take on the on the 1980 chart-topper “Start!”, albeit it’s a pretty straightforward run-through. This release could do with being a double rather than a triple, but that double would be a good one.
Fcukers Ö (Ninja Tune)
Fcukers’s snarky, jigging club sound is, famously, born of frustration with being in indie bands. The New York duo’s debut album is flirty fun, combining a range of dance styles with well-constructed hooks. Some of its best cuts are when singer Shanny Wise leans into dancefloor seductiveness, her lazily sexy, whisper-laced voice fronting the likes of “Shake It Up”, “If You Wanna Party, Come Over to my House” and “I Like it Like That”, but the pair are equally capable in other areas, whether the “Superstylin’”-ish skank of “TTYGF” or the dubstep-tinted “Play Me”. Never over-reaching itself, Ö is tightly conceived, cheeky, and likeably hip-moving. Comes with 12” x 12” photo insert.
Memorials All Clouds Bring Not Rain (Fire) + Haylie Davis Wandering Star (Fire) + Lucky Break Made It! (Fire)
Three flavoursome albums from staunch 40+-years-old indie bastion Fire Records. Memorials is a duo made up of Verity Susman, once frontwoman with groundbreaking but underheard Brighton band Electrelane, and Matthew Simms, of late-period Wire. Arriving on fluorescent lime-green vinyl in lyric gatefold, their second album is tuneful pop-rock hidden behind fuzzin’ indie, psychedelic atmospherics, and a driving motorik rhythm section (except on stripped-back songs such as “Reimagined River”, “Lemon Trees” and “I Can’t See a Rainbow”, when the tunefulness wanders naked into the open). Reminds in places of The Go! Team but is a stranger more sixties-flavoured creature. The debut album from Los Angeles singer Haylie Davies
owes a debt to the long-ago music of that city’s canyon communities. She has one of those big human voices, filled with life, expressing troubles and joys, over simple, acoustic guitar-led band backing. With its easy country-folk underlay, this album could have been made in 1972, but it’s as easy to wallow in these many years later. A grower, for sure. Comes in lyric inner sleeve on bright orange vinyl. Emma Gerson
is another American singer firing out a debut album but she’s based In San Franciso and her music is a different proposition. It arrives on garish pink vinyl in photo/lyric inner sleeve, and my copy came with an endearing fanzine-style booklet, a cartoon-illustrated memoir, as well as a packet of stickers in a similar style. The music is indie strum-pop, built around bedroom production, dipped in smeary tipsiness, with considered lyrics that feel heart-on-sleeve autofictional, sometimes lovelorn, sometimes carefully joyful, often fatalistic (“I’m getting older/It is what it is/Best friends live in cities/That I’ve never been”). It is, as the young say, relatable.
RECORD STORE DAY VINYL THAT ARRIVED AFTER THEARTSDESK ON VINYL’S RSD SPECIAL
Bruno Mars Collaborations (Atlantic)
Bruno Mars is 40. How did that happen? He should stop it with the growing older. What are the rest of us supposed to do? Fortunately, all those years have given him a juicy back catalogue of collaborative oddments to pick through. Pop suss flows through the man’s veins like oxygenated corpuscles. From the contagious “Billionaire” (with Travie McCoy) to the monstrous whopper “Uptown Funk” (with Mark Ronson) to the kitsch balladry of “Die With a Smile” (with Lady Gaga) to 2024’s global chart smash “Apt” (with Blackpink’s Rosé), this set bats it out of the park, matched with his superstar hip hop side (with Cardi B, Gucci Mane, Lil Wayne et al). Theartsdesk on Vinyl sometimes struggles to get our hands on purest pop on plastic but this RSD set covers that. Comes with 12” x 12" four-page photo/info insert.
Little Annie Short & Sweet (Expanded Edition) (On-U Sound)
“Little” Annie Bandes lived in shed at the end of On-U dub-meister Adrian Sherwood’s garden for a while. The New York cultural maverick had graduated from hanging out with Crass to hanging out with the On-U crew and her final album, before going on hiatus from music for over a decade, was 1992’s Short & Sweet, created with half of Tackhead (Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald). For RSD a second disc of previously unreleased bonus material is thrown in. For fans of Annie, Tackhead and On-U, it’s a lesser-known treat, with cuts such as “Bless Those (Little Annie’s Prayer)” and “Everything & More” akin to Sherwood’s beloved work with Gary Clail. The extra tracks are a match for the original album and, in the case of the torch song curio “Miss the Light”, add another dimension. Comes on clear vinyl.
Confidence Man Active Scenes Vol.1 (Polydor)
I‘ve been somewhat put off Aussie rave-pop duo Confidence Man by seeing their gorgonzola cheese-tastic Euro-Butlins live show a couple of times (I saw them a second time because a friend convinced me it would be better at a festival). This is unfair to their music as they’ve knocked out some pop-dance stonkers and this seven-tracker, virtually released last September, is a reminder of what they’re capable of. It contains frolicking fresh (in ’25) cuts “Damaged Goods” and “17”, Chris Lake and Bullet Tooth remixes of their single with JADE, “Gossip”, (Lake’s chopped about banger is the winner), remixes of “I HEART YOU”, featuring Eliza Rose, by Saoirse and Tiga (the latter, exclusive to this vinyl reboot), and the song “In a Band”, an old number made over by French producer “Sweely”. It’s a feisty set that’ll have feet moving and comes on vinyl that looks like an orange planet laden with black dust.
Charli XCX party 4 u (Warner Music UK)
This is more of an RSD souvenir and cute snippet of Charli XCX fan bait than an essential musical item. As such, for those who enjoy vinyl for its object-ness, it’s a one-of-8000 collectable. The song dates from XCX’s May 2020 album, How I’m Feeling Now, when she was one of the first to get album-length under the hood of the COVID lockdown experience. Created with hyperpop don A.G. Cook, it’s a sci-fi-trap-beats-addled sex-dance, a sensual electronic banger that ramps its sonics as it progresses. It’s on one-sided transparent vinyl with “charli xcx party 4 u” etched on the other side, and comes in a transparent sleeve embossed with a blue-tinted slide-style print of what I presume is a shot from the session for the album’s cover art.
Mark Lanegan Band Bubblegum: Original Draft (Beggars Banquet)
This two-record set reminds what a loss it was when the grouchy, growling, charismatic singer Mark Lanegan died four years ago (though no cause was revealed, it’s thought to be COVID-related). This two record RSD set on white vinyl, limited to 1500 copies, lays out Lanegan’s original double-album vision for his 2004 album Bubblegum. It was one of Lanegan's most approachable releases, with guests such as PJ Harvey, Josh Homme and a couple of Guns N’ Roses adding sheen. Ranging from the drug-broken blues of “One Hundred Days” to the Stooges-flavoured “Hit the City”, the Original Draft’s first half sticks, approximately, to the original’s tracklisting but, by the end, it’s gone completely elsewhere, dumping songs and including others such as the Tom Waits-ian “Skeletal History”. Perhaps gnarlier than the original, it’s a welcome alternate.
Bad Fractals The Sea Sang Screaming (Creation Youth)
This one arrives from London with a solid pedigree; co-produced by Youth and on his and Alan McGee’s label. Touted as acid punk, it’s harder to find out more about the background of the band, who hail from all over Europe and go under stage names (Bang Crosby, Astral Oz, etc). I reckon they’ve all seen significant time in bands you might have heard of. They sound like they’re having fun, mingling shouty, Angelic Upstarts-ish hooligan street-punk (such as “Strike!”) with more angular numbers that go for a spiky, sped-up prog feel. Like Warmduscher, Fat Dog, Sleaze, et al, there’s a sense of pub lags chancing an arm but, also like those bands, there’s enough to be worth a listen. Comes in gatefold on dark aquamarine vinyl with info inner sleeve.
ALSO WORTHY OF MENTION
Smag På Dig Selv This is Why We Lost (Stunt): Smag På Dig Selv were born of Copenhagen’s anarchic Christiana community. This is their second album. The core trio consists of two saxophonists (baritone and tenor) and a drummer, but there’s also vital input from vibraphone player Viktoria Søndergaard, and singer Luna Ersahin (the latter on Palestinian folk song “Ya Tal3een”). At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of This is Why We Lost, which varies between atmospherics, electronic-percussive pieces and pummelling techno-trance, Danish rap, and gabber/techno-trance-aligned hammerings, while “Ya Tal3een” is point-making, doomy and semi-acapella. But once settled in it becomes more-ish. Comes in die-cut blurb-packed inner sleeve in photo gatefold wrapped by an OBI-strip featuring yet more blurb.
Derek Jarman Through the Billboard Promised Land Without Ever Stopping (Cold Spring): This limited-to-500 vinyl run celebrates the cult film director and LGBT+ figurehead, keeping his memory alive. Derek Jarman was a lovely man whose imagination sprawled in many directions, mostly known for films such as Caravaggio and Jubilee (and my personal favourite, The Last of England), but also for the contemplative works of his final years, among which we might include his Dungeness garden. We might also consider the 1993 film Blue, a meditative piece released the year before he died. Through the Billboard Promised Land Without Ever Stopping inhabits similar territory, with Jarman’s erudite, gently fruity voice relating his 1971 novel of the same name, the strange odyssey of a blind king and his valet. More than a narrative, it’s an exercise in closing eyes and letting the mind wander into his flowing psychogeography. Of limited interest but a worthwhile addition to the Jarman canon.
Youniss Good Effort (Viernulvier): Last month’s Vinyl of the Month, Borokov’s eponymous collection of wonk-funk, was produced by their fellow Belgian, Youniss Ahamad, who goes by his forename. He is not a man to be hemmed in. His latest album, his third, I think, mingles bullish electronics, rap, post-punk and jazz in a stew that’s urgent, sometimes cacophonic, and usually ear-interesting. It’s challenging stuff but with an underlying rhythmic propulsion that keeps the listener onside. Comes on photo gatefold with an OBI band filled with blurb.
Joe Henderson Tetragon (Craft) + Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete From All Sides (Craft) + Steve White Trio The Jazz Sessions Volume 1: Soul Drums (Acid Jazz) + Knats A Great Day in Newcastle (Gearbox): A gaggle of jazz, two vintage, two new. First, the older fare. US saxophonist Joe Henderson is on solid form on a 1968 set that’s been out-of-print for a long time, Tetragon. Masterfully cut to vinyl, it sees Henderson at his ease, skilled and as showy as you like, perhaps because he has an unrivalled support system around him. The album was made with two interlinked quartets, Ron Carter on double bass but the piano and drums swapped between Kenny Barron & Louise Hayes and Don Friedman & Jack DeJohnette. A treat for full-blown jazz afficionados, and fine to my ears, but this jazz tourist prefers the second collaboration between pianist Vince Guaraldi and Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete. The pair were San Francisco buddies, although their communication was rudimentary due to Sete’s minimal English. Created in their hometown and released in 1965, theirs was a different San Fran from the rising freak scene, yet there’s a lovely looseness and upbeat sensibility here, eight cuts with Guaraldi’s piano to the fore (indeed, it would be nice to hear more of Sete’s guitarwork). The opening “Chorro”, alone, is a delight, but they also invest “The Girl From Ipanema” and “A Taste of Honey” with new life. Fast forwarding to the present, Style Council drummer Steve White presents the opening shot from his new trio, with Chris Hague (bass/guitar/keys) and Joel White (keys, no relation). There’s a Hammond-led lounge version of “My Ever Changing Moods” to appease Weller obsessives, but the album gambols around where it fancies, from the retro-cinematic shuffle of “When the Tourists Leave” to the funk of “Running” to the purer jazz of “Changes”. It would be pleasing if White took his trio around summer festival-land to show this stuff works with that audience. I can imagine Newcastle collective Knats blowing up with their second album, A Great Day in Newcastle. Centred around bassist Stan Woodward and drummer King David-Ike Elechi, it features Geordie poetics from Cooper Robson. With its everyday spoken word tales, there’s sometimes a Streets-ish feel, but the album is primarily instrumental, with a focus on eclectic musicality, from late night slowies such as “Messy-In” to the noisier fusion of “Never Gonna be a Boxer”. You will be hearing more from Knats.
Avalon Emerson & The Charm Written Into Changes (Dead Oceans): San Francisco DJ-producer Avalon Emerson has released music via an array of Europe’s smarter electronic outlets and her second album now arrives on transparent scarlet vinyl in photo/lyric inner sleeve. The game is not dancefloor stompers; Emerson delivers a set of woozy but poppy songs that bubble along in a very faintly stoned ambiance (not ambience). Her work recalls that wave of female electro-pop stars around 15 years ago, La Roux, Little Boots, et al. In 2026, it’s an original direction so this is a good thing.
The Zombies Begin Here (Beechwood Park): The 1965 debut album from St Albans beat popsters The Zombies. For a moment that year, with the song “She’s Not There”, the band rivalled The Beatles (it was a UK chart-topper and hit No.2 in the States). It’s on the album and is still one of the greatest songs of its era (arguably of any era), mustering an exhilarating, desperate excitement in its two-minutes-and-25-seconds. This album reissue sticks with the original mono format and also includes another US Top 10 hit, the quirky “Tell Her No”, which combines summery balladry with the stuttery shouting of “No!”. It was originally, only on the US version of the album, as were a few other songs now included. Albums were only just starting to become a thing in pop back then but The Zombies acquit themselves OK, with blues-pop, organ-laced Beatles bops and a pleasant cover of “Summertime”. The back cover is packed with the full story.
Bolbec Foutu Félin (Batov): French pairing Axel Concato and Barth Corbelet are Bolbec, a unit who skilfully emulate 1960s and 1970s film themes. Opener “Café Frappé”, for instance, is a hat-tip to Ennio Morricone's theme to 1969 crime flick The Sicilian Clan, different enough to be its own thing but close enough for me to scratch my head thinking, “I know this one.” They’re as capable of gorgeous downtempo jazz, including the only vocal cut, “Fanny”. Whether going for John Barry or Kenny Doreham or giallo kitsch, they’re both skilful and richly listenable.
The Itch It’s the Hope That Kills You (I OH YOU/Fiction): Luton duo The Itch are described by those who like them as “indie-sleaze”. It’s a term that seems (to me) an aesthetic rather than a sound. Nevertheless, The Itch’s grimy amalgamation of jaded nightworld lyricism, chunky-but-moody synths and a buzzy punk feel does seem firmly indie-sleazy. There’s a fantastic song called “AuxRomanticiser” about show-offy phone-streamers doing “DJ sets”. It’s both a pin-sharp skewering and a Nag Nag Nag-style banger (the ‘00s club, not the Cabaret Voltaire number). It’s a stand-out but there’s enough going on here to pay attention. They seem to be hitting the live circuit so watch out. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
Jonas Cambien Man Eating Tree (Sonic Transmissions): Sometimes, as I plough through these piles of music on plastic, I ask myself, “But who’s actually buying this stuff?” Such is the case with Oslo-based Belgian Jonas Cambien. This isn’t to diss his music, which is avant-garde-leaning minimalism on treated piano, including a piece called “Silverware Vibrating Inside Grand Piano”, which is exactly that. These tonal experiments are, indeed, interesting, looping, clattering, sometimes hypnotic and, in the case of “BOOM”, with its kosmische synth interference, pushing into zones beyond off-the-wall art sounds. But, seriously, who’s buying this? I genuinely want to know.
Various Darrow Fletcher presents Jacklyn & Genna Records (Kent): This release showcases Kent Records’ curational skills. It’s deep dive into a small Chicago soul label, gathering its output from the late-Sixties to the early Seventies. Set up by record shop owner Johnny Haygood, when he realised his nephew Darrow Fletcher had talent (the latter would go on to become a singer collectable among Northern Soul afficionados), these 14 plucky numbers represent a worthwhile output, from the heartfelt rhythm‘n’blues balladry of Bobbie Brown’s “Love Won’t Give us a Chance” to the psychedelic soul of “All Power to the People” by Joe Savage and the Soul People, to the floor-filling stomp of “Ain’t That Something” by Paul Smith. Making it all the more enjoyable is the inner sleeve’s dense, detailed background story by Ady Croasdell, one of Kent’s experts and a soul DJ of many decades standing.
Gabe Stillman What Happens Next? (Gulf Coast) + Garret T. Willie Bill’s Café (Gulf Coast): A couple from Texas label Gulf Coast. Out in the States there’s a whole scene predicated on barroom blues-rock. They love it. Roadhouse music. It’s massive. From way across the Atlantic, it’s easy to criticize as conservative or retrogressive, but this is to miss the point. It’s a music that needs to be absorbed on its own terms, not in comparison to Oneohtrix Point Never or whatever. It makes this writer pine for a half-full bar in a torrid nowhereville Southern town while an unrecognized guitar virtuoso lays out their wares (and sometimes their soul); the old drinkers drink and the young lovers circle the floor. Pennsylvanian Gabe Stillman’s second album mingles expert fret-wrangling with songs that vary between Buddy Guy-esque wig-outs and others which don’t sound a million miles from Squeeze. Garrett T. Willie, from Canada, on the other hand is a grittier proposition. Where Stillman has an almost soul-pop edge at times, Willie closes in on ZZ Top-style grooves. Slinky and hip-swaying, his is a meaty second album. Both are in their twenties, and full of old-time American musical spirit. Willie’s album comes in photo/info inner sleeve.
Dälek Brilliance of a Falling Moon (Ipecac): When I first heard Dälek, around 20 years ago, they blew me away. A hip hop group that understood (as Public Enemy famously did) the power of mixing their beats with noisiness and scrawl. They had and have a power akin to sludge metal. I still like them but every record since has sounded very much the same so the initial thrill has worn off. This one has ICE raids in its sites and is the usual Dälek gumbo of murk, drums and hard-spoken words, which Is no bad thing.
Simon Joyner Tough Love (BB*Island): I’m excited when a new BB*Island record appears at theartsdesk on Vinyl Mansions. They've put out some excellence (including one of my favourites of the century, Ariel Sharratt & Matthias Kom’s Never Work). Unfortunately, this means that when I receive one I quite like, rather than love, I can be dismissive. I initially was when I put on the new double-in-gatefold set from prolific and perennial Nebraskan singer-songwriter Simon Joyner, partly because he already has a Mount Everest of Lou Reed-y, Leonard Cohen-esque songs. But then the album sits for a bit and I forget all that; doomed sounding songs such as “Wild Palms” sweep me off. (“I called Richie last night with my confession/I sold the LPs you left me except for Live Rust’”). Joyner’s still hungry, still literate, still means it, and his work takes me back to Hydra in 1965, where neither of us ever were. Comes in lyric inner sleeves.
Molto Morbidi Maybe Marcel (No Salad): Arriving on mauve-purple vinyl, the second album from French singer-producer Swan Wisnia – Molto Morbidi - is eccentric but poppy. She sings her songs airily over cheap-but-effective bedroom synth sounds which jerk, loop and bubble in a tuneful but oblique fashion. Occasionally, its sweeter, but usually Maybe Marcel rides around an edgy alternative version of pop which is, nonetheless, appealingly oddball.
Parliament Osmium: Deluxe Edition (Demon) + The Brides of Funkenstein Never Buy Texas From a Cowboy (BGP) + Millie Jackson Get It Out’cha System (Southbound) + Various Spring Originals (BGP): Four albums which showcase the funkin’ face of black 1970s America. Let’s start with George Clinton at the beginning of his gold-run decade, with 1970’s Parliament debut. Clinton was mired in contractual complications around band names and, in fact, Osmium, is closer in scope to his pop-rock crossover Funkedelic material than what he’d later do with Parliament. It’s no Maggot Brain, though much of the line-up is the same, but contains juice, such as a wacky take on country on “Little Ole Country Boy”, the riff’n’organ grind of “Funky Woman”, and the harpsichord-tinged gospel epic “Oh Lord Why/Prayer”. This Deluxe Edition is four sides long and contains five bonus cuts, including the essential guitar rock-outs “Red Hot Mama” and the 10-minute “Loose Booty”. Fast forward to 1979 and Clinton is riding the back of P-Funk’s immense success and has a raft of bands under his control, including The Brides of Funkenstein who, by this time, included longterm member Dawn Silva, alongside newbies Sheila Horn and Jeanette McGuber. Their second album, which appears on bright orange vinyl in photo/info inner sleeve, is primarily known for the 15-minute title track, a classic P-Funk romp, but it also contains plenty of similar quality. More female funkin’ comes courtesy of the outrageous Millie Jackson who, by 1978’s Get It Out’cha System, was firmly established as Afro-America’s most vociferous sex-positive female singer, known for her “raps”. Most of Side One is themed around her man keeping Millie’s home fire burning or she’s gonna need a bigger log... and so on. It’s delivered with righteous humorous sass and the songs are solid. A treat from another age. Millie also appears on the new compilation Spring Originals, with the straight dancefloor soul of “Don’t Send Nobody Else” and the Jim Burgess mix of disco number “We Got to Hit it Off”. Last year the Spring Revisited album let a host of remixers loose on the Seventies New York sounds of Spring Records. This new two-disc set showcases the original songs, untampered, and includes a relentless, percussive, unreleased Fatback Band extended mix of “Night Fever”. Others on board include Garland Green, Joe Simon, The Joneses and Street People. It’s an energized set of retro clubland hip-wrigglers that comes with extensive liner notes by Frank Tope.
Cult of Dom Keller Unholy Drum (Fuzz Club): Nottingham’s underground psyche unit Cult of Dom Keller have been around for well over a decade and have pumped out a bunch of wigged-out music. This is their seventh album. Unlike supposed fans of psychedelia like wotsiname out of Tame Impala, these guys clearly dig and flag up the real stuff, from Spacemen 3 to The Electic Prunes, the murky lysergic gems that define the musical term. In fact, Unholy Drum is relatively poppy, by their standards, slow rolling and freaky, its filled with reverbed hum'n'buzz that’s spliced with tunes and baroque pop, but enough songs like the squealing deranged “Leaders With Hooves” to ensure those who want their third eye blown open will be satisfied. Comes in info inner sleeve on off-white transparent vinyl. Good to have ‘em back.
Abigail Lapell Shadow Child (Outside Music) + Ella Layton Could It Be You? (Ella Clayton) + E.R. Thorpe Human Love (Vicious Charm): Three female, songwriters in the traditional mould, each of whom raise the well-worn form. The seventh album from Toronto’s Abigail Lapell is devoted to child-birth and parenthood. Musicians often come unstuck focusing in this area. It seems to limit their horizons and, more damagingly, to bring out saccharine sentiment. Lapell mostly bypasses such concerns, her breathy voice wrapping itself around lyrically chewy numbers such as “Little Cannibal” over a backing suitably laidback, acoustic and gentle. Comes on blobby purple vinyl. London singer Ella Clayton has a voice to conjure with, a rich soulful vehicle that leans into husky American jazz-pop singers of half a century ago. Placing such an instrument within strummy campfire balladry, indie-lite and American flavours works well. Her second album has quiet poignancy. Comes on pale green vinyl. The palette chosen by Nottingham’s Emma (AKA E.R.) Thorpe is hazy baroque pop, low key and swirling. Following a string of singles and EPs, her debut album, produced by Crazy Ps’ Jim Baron, has a spooked quality, thoughtful songs calmly delivered with quiet conviction, given to impressive cinematic outbursts. Something’s brewing here. Comes in photo/info inner sleeve.
Peter Gabriel Live at WOMAD 1982 (Real World): Despite Brexit making it so much more difficult to bring over artists from around the World, the WOMAD festival continues to be a hippydelic showcase for global sounds, a bringing together of international humanity around music. Pete Gabriel was at the heart of its beginnings (along with theartsdesk’s own Mark Kidel), and this reissued two-record set on gatefold (three sides music, one side etched) captures his performance from the festival. He was, at this point, that rare thing, a charting artist making esoteric music. These nine songs, including biggies “Biko” and “Shock the Money”, fuse abstract prog funk, percussive Eighties synthesizer, and his immediately recognizable vocals escapades. It’s an energized snapshot.
AND WHILE WE’RE HERE…
- The debut album from rising Brit jazz guitarist Julien Durand’s Dreamscapes outfit is called Tales of a Wanderer, and appears on their own Dreamscapes label. It wanders woozy territories, vocal and instrumental, where jazz fusion blends into ambient electronica and psychedelic Seventies soul (hints of Charles Stepney and the like). It sometimes takes bold, heady flight (as on “Maddy”) but is more often to stoned in the atmospheric undergrowth. Comes in die-cut lyric/info inner sleeve.
- Tesdeschi Trucks Band are an American blues rock juggernaut that came together when singer-guitarist Susan Tedeschi and guitar prodigy Derek Trucks, who’d married in 2001, decided in 2010 to roll their successful bands into a single unit, which became, for a while, even more successful. Their latest is Future Soul on Fantasy Records, and sees them spread their wings into southern soul territory alongside their usual raunchy rockin’. For me, one to catch live rather than on record. Comes on gatefold.
- Swiss indie-electropop artist Daniela Weinmann has recorded for a while as Odd Beholder. Her latest album is Honest Work on Sinnbus Records which is notable for its witty lyrical assessment of the times we live in, the trivial annoyances which add up, in their small ways, to micro-oppressions. It’s all set to bubbly likeable tunes. Comes with a large poster, featuring Weinmann and her hip flask in an arid office environment, with lyrics and info on the back.
- Over in Brasil there’s a movement to call their language Brasiliano, rather than Portuguese, as it’s so different, rich in terminology derived from the population’s African and indigenous heritage. For his latest album, named for the term, vibrant musical explorer Lucas Santtana features a range of guest appearances, designed to highlight the issue, ranging from famed heavyweight Gilberto Gil to the Tupi-Guarani singer Tainara Takua. On No Format Records, it comes on white vinyl in info inner sleeve.
- Every time I see mention in press releases of music being initially formed during COVID lockdown I want to drill out my eyes. All these years later, I’m heartily sick of this strand of well-trodden woe. BUT, but, but, while this is the case with the latest album from Texas-raised, Nashville-based singer-songwriter Diana Darby, happily it doesn’t take anything from a quietly gorgeous set. The album’s called Otterson and is on the delightfully named Delmore Recording Society label. Darby’s whispery voice fronts muted yet tuneful, singer-songwriterly numbers that have an warm, opiated vibe somewhere between downtempo Velvet Underground and Bright Eyes at their most maudlin. Lovely stuff. Comes on lyric/info inner sleeve.
- Rob Zombie is the US equivalent of Eighties Brit rocker Zodiac Mindwarp (for those who recall him). Which is to say he's a musician who can clearly see the kitsch horror film fun of heavy rock for what it is. Unlike Mindwarp, he’s had a hugely successful career, extending into film-making. His latest album is The Great Satan on Nuclear Blast, which combines a surprising amount of groove with wanging guitars and schlocky lyrics, from the breakbeat terrace chant of “Sir Lord Acid Wolfman” to “(I’m a) Rock”N”Roller”), which bears comparison to Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction’s most famous moment, “Prime Mover”. Comes on gatefold with a 28-page booklet rife with its own mythology.
- The latest collection from compulsive compiler Bob Stanley is Wednesday Morning 6am: Radio Hits from the Small Hours 1970-1983 on Ace Records. Stanley seems, lately, to be exploring his mellowest side and, on this set, he reaches peak retro easy listening. It’s a celebration of music one would hear on BBC Radio 2 long ago, “a parallel world of hits”, as it’s described here. I know this territory well as my grandma always had Radio 2 on during this era. I can see the appeal, in principle; well-constructed, sentimentalist story-songs emanating wistful longing. As I boy I was sometimes carried away by this stuff. So I dived in intrigued. There are minor gems - the maudlin country of Hoyt Axton’s “Evangelina”, Dolly Parton’s “The Bargain Store” and Stella Parton’s “The Danger of a Stranger”, the silly post-Beatles joyfulness of singing taxi driver Matt Munro’s “We’re Gonna Change the World”, the weirdly likeable yacht rock dance groove of Suzi Quatro & Chris Norman’s “Stumblin’ In” – but much of it steps well over the line into glutinous blandness. Also, all piled up like this, it’s just too much, like guzzling a can of golden syrup instead of a few drops on your porridge. The package is, as ever, with Ace and Stanley, put together with care and attention, on gatefold double with plenty of notes, images and details.
- Rosier are a Québécois band who major in the terrain where indie meets folk music. Their second album is Elle Veille Encore on Steeplejack Music (although, arguably, it’s their fifth as they recorded three under the moniker Les Poules à Colin, a name presumably dropped as Colin Savoie-Levac is the sole male member and the four female members maybe found the in-joke wearing thin, being called “Colin’s Hens”). In lyric/info inner sleeve, it’s a smeary set of dreamy folk-pop, a warm hot chocolate of a record.
- Welsh Nineties alt-rockers Mclusky indulged in a Fall-like surrealism and offbeat humour although, in their case, there was spiky warmth to it. Since their reformation around a decade ago, they’ve fired out an album and now a tasty six-tracker arrives, I Sure Am Getting Sick of This Bowling Alley, on Ipecac Records. It's as approachable as Mclusky get, while still rife with caustic guitar and shouty bits, but songs such as “Hi! We’re on Strike” have a unlikely catchiness, and the closing “That Was My Brain on Elves’ sees them turn off the amplification for a moment.
- The second album from rising Brit jazz drummer Luke Bainbridge is a playful affair. It’s called Petstep and is on the curiously name Crossing Styx Records (are they heading for the realms of the dead?). Accompanied by bass (Huw V Williams), Vibraphone (Ralph Wyld) and Trombone (Kieran McLeod), he whips up an array of flavours, from the clumsy punk-rap of “Spillage in the Village” (the sole vocal cut) to the 10-miniute ambience of “Hair of the Dog”, with all manner of funkin’ in between. Comes in lyric inner sleeve with an extended blurb by Bainbridge.
- About 20 years ago I was sort of into Eugene McGuinness. Which is to say his debut album and the EP that preceded it would occasionally hit the stereo. He combined singer-songwriterly feel with a lathering of orchestral Sixties pop and down-to-earth lyrics. He still does. His latest, Eugene McGuiness versus The Universe on Mellowtone Records, comes on gatefold, and is chocka with ambitious, polished songs that rely on pop craft rather than me-me-me whining.
- Warp Records perennials Seefeel return with the very techno-titled SOL.HZ [X] album. They’re a band who’ve blurred the defining lines of what "a band" actually is, during their three-and-a-half decades of existence (OK, with a break between 1996 and 2008). They went well beyond post-rock’s usual parameters and into a zone of electronica, in line with Warp’s most esoteric. I enjoyed their last album, the bassbin-destroying Teuton dub of Everything². This new one is more opaque and noodly, floating about in a soundtracky sort of way, kind of industrial ambience. It’s interesting in places…
- Over the last 20 years Danish musician Hannah Schneider has achieved profile in her homeland for her combination of classical seriousness, electronica and pop melodics. In This Room, her sixth album, which appears on Midnight Confession Records, melds small ensemble orchestral instrumentation with gloopy electro-glitching, her voice softly laid over the top, resulting in forlorn, intelligently wrought 3.00 AM cyber-blues. The curious should check out “Membrane” to start. Comes in photo/lyric/info inner sleeve.
- Ukrainian black metaller Këkht Aräkh does not take the usual route. The one-man project of Dmitry Marchenko, his third albu, Morning Star on Sacred Bones Records, eschews placing thrash to the fore. Instead, the pummelling racket is pushed to the back of the mix, with his whispered vocals and tuneful clanging guitar floating amid deliberately murky portastudio production. The result is indie-goth music with hints of shoegaze. It reaches outside the usual niche inhabited by those who travel the corpse paint path.
- A solid four-tracker for the deep house and backroom boogie crew arrives via the Sun & Sound Detroit label, a multigenerational label created by Michigan dance music player Todd Johnson and his daughter Carmen. It’s entitled Ease and opens with Glenn Underground’s organ-laced pulser “Dive”, followed by the vocal soul-house of “Never Forget (That Feelin’)” by Coflo & Sillygirlcarmen (the latter is Johnson junior). The B-side contains the slightly tougher and spacier “Saturday at Northland” by Jon Dixon, before closing with the squelchy sample-fuelled electro-funk of “I Got Music” by Kevin Reynolds.
- Earache Records have a solid pedigree in the very hardest end of metal so it’s a surprise when the new album from The Karma Effect, their third, hits the decks. It’s called Cruel Intentions and is very much a pastiche of 1970s Aerosmith, right down to vocalist Henry Gottelier channelling Steve Tyler (with hints of Rod Stewart). I’ve never come across them before although I have come across numerous bands who sound like them. Not my thing, but they do it with silk-scarf-in-back-pocket aplomb.
- Swiss dark wave pop quartet Lone Assembly have a second album out, Knots & Chains on Irascible Records. Their catchy, over-theattrical sound blends the goth revivalism of acts such as O. Children with synth-pop that’s closer in scope to Eighties outfits such as B-Movie or even early Tears For Fears, all with singer Raphaël Bressler’s arch vocals at the front. Comes in gatefold on transparent vinyl blotched with salt’n’pepper splats and a large double-sided black’n’white poster of the band and some art.
- I’m all for a bit of minimalism and repetition but the new album from Swedish guitar explorer Anton Toorell, Solos II on Thanatosis Producktion Records, while not unpleasant as background fare, does not hypnotise. It is more in the vein of calming ambience, shimmering revolving guitar patterns redolent of mid-20th century American modern classical.
- The 1981 album The Wild the Willing and the Innocent by English heavy rockers UFO receives a tastily remastered triple gatefold repackaging from Chrysalis Records, with discs two and three containing a Hammersmith Odeon concert from the same year. The band started in 1968 but achieved most of their British success in the Eighties. Their music is meat’n’potatoes metal-adjacent rockin’, mainly notable now for the wouldn’t-happen-in-2026 lyrics, such as these from the title track: “I'm looking for a wild rose/In the heat of the night waiting for a show/And the wild, the willing and the innocent/Are down, down in the jungle tonight/As the jackal tracks every step you make/Watching, waiting for the one chance to bite.” Different times and all that!
- While The Boxer Rebellion’s slick post-Travis ‘00s indie isn’t attuned to theartsdesk on Vinyl’s palate, they can write a song; just check out “Last of a Dying Breed” on their new album, The Second I’m Asleep (on Absentee Records). One could imagine it ringing around stadiums. This band, however, were kicked in the teeth before they’d even really begun, 20 years ago when their label collapsed as they were on the cusp of exploding. Such moments can never be retrieved. The music industry’s a bastard but band leader Nathan Nicholson has the grit needed to stay the course. This is the band’s seventh album. He has built and held a fan base. Respect is due but I won’t be listening.
- American duo Sunn O))) have pushed boundaries. Their drone-themed music has crossed into other genre spaces. They've popularized out-there music at a festival level. They have also put out a deluge of music in their quarter century existence. Some, including theartsdesk on Vinyl, would argue that, unless they flip the script, their work on record is done and that they’re best consumed in a live environment where their splurges of long-note post-metal sonics have an almost physical dimension. A new Sunn 0))) album is, therefore, mainly of interest only to the band’s full-time acolytes. What pours from the speakers is, in essence, a continuation of what’s come before. Their new eponymous album does what Sunn 0))) fans require of it and arrives on double in gatefold via Sub Pop.
- London singer Carmy Love is currently building her solo career and the latest building block is a 7” single. The A-side is “You Gotta Understand” which kicks off with a Beatles-rip guitar line, then blossoms into a Northern soul stomper which resonates with elements of other golden oldies I can’t quite place. B-side “Thinking of Leaving”, on the other hand, is a waltzing end-of-the night ballad that smells of Memphis in 1966. Both are convincing slivers of retro on FYND Records.
- A couple of years ago Elmiene was one Britain’s most hyped new artists but he’s taken his time to release a debut album. It’s called Sounds for Someone and is on Polydor. He majors in Prince-dipped R&B, slow jams with quirk, and touch of early Frank Ocean wobbliness. Smooth but boasting mildly head-whooshing production, it’s late night music for offbeat lovers. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
- I was momentarily taken aback when an album by Conscious Pilot arrived as, decades ago, a friend’s brother recorded electronic music under this unlikely name. This lot, though, are a new Glasgow band and their debut album, Human Poultry on DevilDuck Records, snaps out of the speakers with enthused indie-punk snark, a set of fast-paced songs that comment of 21st century life with pithy urgency and moshpit heft.
- Kris Dane is a Belgian songwriter whose been around for a while but recently moved to rural Lincolnshire and recorded an eponymous album (on MBE/PIAS). He regards it as a new beginning. His airy, affected voice is an acquired taste but, eventually, it's a varied set with appeal, encompassing electronically enhanced material, Dylan-esque blues and baroque pop. Comes in gatefold in info inner sleeve.
- Belgian-Cameroonian Joram Kunde Boumkwo, who goes by his middle name, fires out his third album, Late Bloomer, via Bruges label W.E.R.F. It’s one of those noodling jazz-funk affairs that draws from American producers such as J Dilla and Thundercat, as in, it has a wibbly broken beats edge. It’s super low key, with smooth rap elements thrownin, and easy going jazz instrumentation, although "WEIGHDOWN”, featuring Tennishu (of Virginia alt-funkers Butcher Brown) is spikier. It’s not my bag but if you like the more chilled Tru Thoughts records, you might go for it. Comes in photo/info inner sleeve.
- Los Angeles rockers Militarie Gun are not to my taste, either, but those who like punk-tinged energy injected into their anthemic-alt rock, with the emphasis firmly on the latter, may enjoy their second album, God Save the Gun on Loma Vista Records. Comes on black-specked navy vinyl in lyric inner sleeve with 12” x 24” poster with the band on one side and the title on the other. If you like Foo Fighters, you might dig this.
- Morton Marten, Norwegian hip hop producer of long standing, only struck out on his own relatively recently. He records as Les Imprimés and his second album now arrives via New York’s modern soul and funk imprint Big Crown. It’s called Fading Forward and is downtempo showcasing his breathy soul voice over sound-beds which borrow from hip hop but also drift slightly into the fringes of bedroom indie and electronica. A soul record, with just a tint of quirk.
- I like the idea of digging the cult American singer-songwriter Laura Nyro, whose career ran from the late-Sixties until her death in 1997. I've tried in the past but failed. I hoped the arrived of a newly released set, Live in San Francisco 28th April 1994, might prove a gateway. Such is not the case. She’s kind of Joni Mitchell adjacent but on solo piano and premised on a tricksier jazz underpinning – but I still can’t crack it. For those who can, this one’s recorded with clarity and comes on double on transparent vinyl.
- While he executes it with aplomb, Gareth Donkin mines a seam that’s not at all to theartsdesk on Vinyl’s taste; that whole Kenny Loggins/Hall & Oates yacht rock soul thing. His second album is Extraordinary on the drink sum wtr label (lack of caps intentional). Comes in lyric/info inner sleeve on off-orange vinyl imitative of the air-brushed sun on the cover.
READ CHUNKY REVIEWS OF THESE ALBUMS ELSEWHERE ON THEARTSDESK
Kieron Tyler reviews Kraftwerk’s Radioactivity, which arrives on vinyl as a 50thanniversary picture disc, in his weekly Reissues column here.
I give Tomora’s Come Closer a score of 5/5 in my review here.
Joe Muggs gives Ringo Starr’s Long, Long Road a score of 4/5 in his review here.
Guy Oddy gives Flea’s Honora, which arrives on vinyl in gatefold double, a score of 4/5 in his review here.
I give Department of Biology by David Cronenberg’s Wife a score of 4/5 in my review here.
Tom Carr gives Foo Fighters’ Your Favorite Toy a score of 3/5 in his review here.
I give Ladytron’s Paradises, which arrives on vinyl in gatefold double, a score of 3/5 in my review here.
Guy Oddy gives Savage Imperial Death March by The Melvins with Napalm Death a score of 3/5 in his review here.
- We welcome any and all vinyl for review. Please hit thomash.green@theartsdesk.com for a postal address
- Read more vinyl reviews on theartsdesk
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