That was clever. The original Wet Leg – singer Rhian Teasdale and guitarist Hester Chambers – instantly snagged global attention with a droll novelty single, launched with a knowing faux-rustic video, about a sexy piece of furniture. After scoring a chart-topping multi-genre debut album, the duo recruited three noisy, hirsute male musician-writers, toughened up, and metamorphosed into one of the hottest indie combos on the planet.  That evolution is crystallised in their second album, another smash and – in its flawlessness –  a 21st-century equivalent of the Human League’s epochal Read more ...

One of the founding partners of theartsdesk back in the day, author of the immersive Manu Chao biography, Clandestino, roving world music journalist, composer and "nomad pianist" Peter Culshaw released his previous set, Music from the Temple of Light, in 2023. Surrender to Love is spun from the same threads that were woven through that Temple of Light – mixing an ambient piano as a grounding for the music, with a range of Eastern and Middle Eastern instruments and voices, and a ruling spirit and approach that’s drawn from the Sufi wing of spirituality – a music and practice associated Read more ...

2025 was another year of flaunting for the ever impressive beast that is female-led pop domination. The now iconic line up of legends and future greats, and their growing class of inspired apprentices, have punctuated the year with defiance and celebration in the form of fantastic pop songs. The prevalence across festival stages, TikTok trends, and radio are telling of the power that this entity basks in but doesn’t take away from the deserved success of most of it. Lady Gaga’s Mayhem took the crown for me this year, it’s an all round well planned and polished album with a perfectly Read more ...

2025 was a somewhat scarce year for fans of punk, hardcore and metal, to be honest, it was a scarce year for most genres as a whole from what I can see looking up from the underground. Considering the mundane nature of 2025 for metal, there have been some astounding glimmers of effort, Deftones’ Private Music showed promise and nostalgia, with the punchy track Milk of The Madonna firmly staying in my listening rotation since it’s release. Motion City Soundtrack tapped us on the shoulder to say hello and pulled The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World out of their back pockets, in a Read more ...

For a beautiful treatment of Matsuo Bashō's celebrated haiku “A frog jumps in”, the dreamlike stream-of-consciousness of “I am a volcano”, the delightful, multilayered vocal harmonies in “Take this stone” and more, Cécile McLorin Salvant’s Oh Snap is my Album of the Year. A remarkable collection even by Salvant’s exalted standards, the sudden textural dropout and devastating climax of “What does blue mean to you?”, inspired by Toni Morrison’s Beloved, was a coup de théâtre.Christian McBride and his Grammy-winning big band’s powerhouse collection, Without Further Ado, Vol 1, offered Read more ...

A foreign-language release steeped in Catholicism isn’t exactly what you’d expect to top virtually every end-of-year album list. But Rosalía is famed for her uncompromising attitude to both genre and delivery. There’s the smallest soupçon of flamenco in here (see "La Rumba Del Perdón") but, largely, this is pop gone to the opera. If that sounds like hard work, fear not. For many artists, stating that the new album is an “emotional arc of feminine mystique, transformation and transcendence”, might be the kiss of pretentious death. But she strikes the right balance – she trusts in her Read more ...

Alabaster DePlume, aka Mancunian Gus Fairbairn, has been an antically charming performer, confounding unsuspecting crowds with tenderly comic philosophy, voice Tiny Tim-eccentric yet alive to mental fragility, and attuning listeners to the brave possibilities in their every breath. Operating at a quizzical angle to London’s jazz scene, he surfs his own, sui generis wavelength.Working with West Bank Palestinian musicians during the Gaza War had clearly changed DePlume in gigs in Brighton and Norway’s Moldejazz festival, and A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole. He sometimes found elevated Read more ...

For as long as I can remember – back when I was not yet a teenager, listening to Joan Baez first as a way to learn guitar – voices and lyrics have been the elements that have drawn me in. It’s the timbre, the grain of the voice. A voice that is always unique, instantly recognisable. That owes nothing to techno-wizardry. A voice that is at least as good live as it is on audio.Unliked Baez, Mary Chapin Carpenter doesn’t possess a conventionally great voice, but she certainly possesses a very beautiful one. The tone colour is warm and intimate; confessional even. She’s pitch-perfect, utterly Read more ...

Fantômas was the creation of French pulp novelists Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre, whose titular criminal genius made his first print appearance in 1911. An amoral sadist with a talent for disguise, Fantômas made his first film appearance two years later in a five-episode crime serial directed by Louis Feuillade. Feuillade’s sober, stripped-back adaptation was hugely influential and the template for subsequent attempts to put Fantômas on screen. Until the mid-1960s, that is, when André Hunebelle helmed three brightly coloured Fantômas romps which so enraged co-creator Allain that he Read more ...

Some albums announce themselves with a roar. Others arrive quietly, kind of casually strolling into your life when you weren’t looking. Returning to Myself did the latter. Brandi Carlile’s most recent record just appeared, like an old friend in the doorway with a bottle of wine and an understanding nod. It is my album of the year not because it is loud or revolutionary, but because it is steady, wise and exactly what I needed.The title track began life as a poem, scribbled alone in Aaron Dessner's studio after years of Carlile supporting other musical legends: Joni Mitchell, Elton John, Read more ...

“The wonderful Mirra exists in its own space.” Back in August, that was the conclusion of my review of Benedicte Maurseth’s then-new album. Living with this “stunningly intense,” “haunting, intense evocation of Norway’s uplands and its wildlife” hasn’t changed this impression. Moreover, over the ensuing months, the impact of this exceptional collection of eight interrelated compositions has increased. Benedicte Maurseth is Norwegian. Her main instrument is the Hardanger fiddle – with its second set of sympathetic, drone-generating, strings. This, together with Mirra’s concern with Read more ...

My musical year isn’t primarily made up of albums – there are so many other ways of enjoying “New Music” – not to mention the classical which I follow too. Bon Iver’s SABLE fABLE, offered delightful acoustic-driven sounds, that trod familiar ground, but the best of a wonderful album demonstrated how open he is to collaborations, in this case with artists such as vocalist Dijon, and producer Jim-E Stack, both of whom discoveries for me, and whose own work led me down so extraordinary sonic rabbit-holes. I have returned to this album a great deal, and the inventiveness and emotional power Read more ...