These very personal surges of sound swell in the ether, seeking out like-minded listeners. His “Audio Virus” – a collection of electronic hardware items that range from the esoteric to the obsolete – purrs like a living being. The hums and crackles it emits, a constant feature as one track slides into the next. Whilst that sounds cold and machine-like, the lunges of notes often reach heart-wrenching heights.

Although slightly more intricate, the artist’s second offering shows her boldly stepping further into the do-it-yourself territory where a sense of home plays a major role.

It’s no Paris 1919, and it’s no Vintage Violence either. You, as the listener, will be required to do some work. To call Mercy a slog would be dismissive and unduly harsh; challenging would be more appropriate. Given that we are in the presence of the 80-year-old godfather of avant-rock, you know that persistence will be its own reward eventually.

‘v2’ is narrower in its oscillations, but all the more incisive, with zither-like textures and guitar screams that morph into sharp pulses and tinnitus-evoking tones. ‘v3’ radiates with a sense of melancholy and loss, and makes for a fitting final manifestation of what is another triumph for Kali Malone.

The methodical way in which the album has been put together is surprisingly artful and induces touching moments of real beauty.

Belle and Sebastian exercise their songwriting powers by crossing the boundary between sophisticated indie-pop and straightforward happy-clappy numbers with mainstream radio hit potential (‘I Don’t Know What You See in Me’).

Paste is raw, emotional music whose kernel you will never locate – yet you may enjoy the wild goose chase.

SOS is twenty-three tracks long and sonically it sprawls all over the hood. From low to high, clipped to soaring, SZA’s vocals are icily superb and her overwrought writing is vivid throughout. These progressive, ambitious melodies act like stitching to hold together the patchwork of an exceptionally diverse approach to genre and production.

Like the curveball they are, Shake Chain zig just when you expect them to zag, proving that there is such a thing as a jaggy snake.

The eleven tracks here are life-affirming and motivational, from the evocative mother and daughter scaling a mountainous landscape on the cover, to the big beats that pervade This Is What We Do. The problem with the album as a listening experience is that it lacks a change of pace.

This ego-stripped project may not be to the liking of some of his original grime fans. But at this stage, Stormzy is aiming to break boundaries both materially and spiritually. He achieves both on this new album.

Profound Mysteries III is decidedly weirder and slower, allowing the band to explore the leftfield theatrics and grittiness intrinsic to the best side of their sound. Yet there are plenty of moments where bombastic pomp overshadows this restraint. ... All in all, a mixed bag.

With its slow-disco hi-hat and splashy snares, 'Ma bien aimée bye bye' sets a sedate groove that the rest of the album never quite picks up. There's no irresistible '80s soul-funk like 'Girlfriend', nor a sprightly dance-routine-friendly hit like 'Tilted'. Instead, the pace is usually and resolutely stately.

In contrast to the usual free improvisation idiom and its tendency to meander between abstract figures and skronking freakouts, the four pieces here – each of them around twenty minutes long – are locked into steady, slowly shifting rhythms that give the music a funky, cosy feeling ... A lovely, warm album.

It presents a suitably enchanting (and at just thirty-three minutes, bracingly concise) expansion of the musical paths that Weaver has followed over the last twelve years, ever since The Fallen By Watch Bird reinvented her as a sonic explorer as well as a folk singer.

It doesn’t take long for the opening ‘Perspex’ to draw you into Plaid’s blissed-out dimension.

Lyrically, Stumpwork triumphs over anything produced by their contemporaries, but that might have been to the detriment of the music, which bravely evades the instrumental vitality of their debut. But it is an album rooted in grief – specifically the grief that comes from losing a loved one – and with that knowledge, Stumpwork suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Svengali is a seductive and playful accumulation of influences, interspersed with short interludes or skits that Cakes has said are real messages from lovers.

Throughout these thirteen songs, Big Joanie leave no stone unturned sifting through fresh backdrops in which their ethos resonates. And for the larger part, they brandish vision and resourcefulness aplenty in this all-embracing quest.

Comradely Objects is, in Horse Lords’ telling, a more studio-assembled record than late-2020 predecessor The Common Task, but the result is less ‘digital’ in sound. ... Horse Lords’ interest in “rural American guitar and banjo styles” is a matter of record, but this deployment of them is a fine new horizon.

For the most part, Jarre has effectively dovetailed repetitive drum patterns, slow-rising, siren-like synths and processed voice on Oxymore – making this a pretty dancefloor friendly record. However, tracks like ‘Synthy Sisters’ and ‘Epica’ are not devoid of their monotonous moments that seem to tune out in comparison with his penchant for the agile textures of musique concrète.

A case can be made for the transitional albums, like 2011’s at ease with itself Suck It And See. The Car, however – in which a songwriter matures and finds an unexpected emotional range – is sure ultimately to be ranked in the band’s very top tier.

From what one can hear on the new Dungen album, sobriety can be trippy. Perhaps, sonically the record is less cohesive than previous albums of the adventurous quartet. Still, it feels great to dig this album as it is not straightforward either.

Ultimately, a record is never going to change the world, but FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE might finally put an end to the fallacy of Eno as the “non-musician”.

Building Something Beautiful For Me is a gentler listen by comparison [to 2019's For You and I], with some anger still there – just distilled into something more gleaming and triumphant.

It’s the Arkestra’s second outing without their titular leader, who relocated to Saturn twenty-seven years ago, and like 2020’s Swirling, this does justice to his remarkable legacy and is a fine addition to an unfathomably vast discography.

This commitment to inducing a full-body response, not merely the tap of a foot at a bus stop, has a lambent ferocity that Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam doubles down on.

Tough Baby is dedicated to the idea that if you cut out the middleman and leave a group of people to their own devices – giving them uninhibited, creative freedom – it can yield profound results, and in the case of Crack Cloud, timely masterpieces rooted in hope rather than despair.

The album has everything you expect from Suede: Brett Anderson’s astonishing voice, those pulsing baselines, the violins, the rangy impossible guitars, and the powerful drums. But it’s also a more mainstream record than they have made in years. Without losing what is wonderfully difficult about their music, they are bringing us what they are best at and offering something for people new to the band.

There’s a lot to unpick here. The Mars Volta may well be one to grow on you. This is a record that can make you think a thousand things at once. But if you’re willing to sit and savour the taste before digesting, you’ll understand why it took so long to ferment.

Gurnsey here bounces back with a project nostalgic of the late 80s and early 90s club scene – a very characteristic return for a most uncharacteristic artist.

Sarah Davachi is delving deep into the intervals between these states, to the place where emotion dwells, and is holding us down there until we can feel it roaring through our lungs. Just don’t forget to breathe.

Despite the wallowing, there is a fundamental Hot Chippyness to the music that, though appropriately reflective of the record’s moribund themes, is still, in its own sometimes quiet, sometimes propulsive way, utterly gorgeous.

Although Souvenirs is a daring record, there is a feeling that the Pale Blue Eyes’ fantastic spacecraft is suspended in the air before the real take-off. Perhaps, they are about to define the direction for the creative journey. Would be great to see them reaching for upper regions of space.

Escapology is eccentric, full of twists and turns, screechy, glitchy and ambitious – undoubtedly a rare breed. After you complete the final mission, you are finally immersed in the artificial soundscape of closer ‘T-Divine’. The closing credits roll in. You have managed to escape and survive. Ultimately though, the listening experience does not transport me into a hyperstitional future. I feel more catapulted into an alternative past, which was polluted with fragments and ideas from the future we are inhabiting at the moment.

It’s not just a mongrel mesh of genres. It’s stretching and cracking them into new shapes, creating something fresh, hyperactive, and utterly pop.

Mint Chip is full of misdirection but never feels contrived. ... Their songs are tightly composed, danceable streams of consciousness.

Oneida prove once again that they can change course anytime they want, and the journey will remain exciting.

Despite the variety of genres and diversity of contributions, Thyrsis of Etna has a distinct sonic flavour. There is attention to balance. Each track has a cocoon-like sound that soothes and sedates a listener. ... Regardless of the names and history, the music has enough to keep one intrigued – or at least entertained.

If arguably too one-note to constitute a stone-cold triumph, the album serves as a charming side-bar to two stellar careers. It is a collaboration that soars without ever quite getting so close to the sun that its wings start to melt.

This is a solid pop album and Nayeon’s charms shine. Her voice, visuals, and sweet attitude deliver a feel-good tracklist full of fluffiness and catchy hooks, but it’s also clear that her own colour still waits to be found.

NOT TiGHT is a solid showcase of the pair’s considerable chemistry.

Riderless Horse is quietly redemptive rather than world-razingly cathartic, and despite all the mental and emotional hardship she’s survived, Nastasia remains even-handed and philosophical.

There’s a cohesion and a vigour to Tick Tick Tick that may make it Mallinder’s finest and most enjoyable record in at least ten years (take a bow Hey Rube’s criminally slept on Can You Hear Me Mutha recorded with Fila Brazillia’s Steve Cobby in 2012).

Yes, it really does nod towards Sound of Music and backs this cleverly with an illuminating barrage of steely industrial noise. Of course, the album will only truly explode into life when it surges into the live arena. A lavish and unique operatic gothic party that promises, as ever, to be a scream.

Life on the whole feels a little more erratic than usual for many of us and in under 45 minutes, Wu-Lu manages to skilfully capture this.

Her debut album The Spoils felt like a spell thrown into a mirror of static, and more than a decade later, her newest album trembles with a similar sense of rupturing enchantment.

Proof serves as a nostalgia trip for long-time fans of the septet and a summary introduction for the curious. With thirty old songs, three completely new tracks, and eleven new versions of well-loved classics, this album marks a satisfying closure to their first nine years as a group.

Despite the high quality of the arrangements, the orchestration and the recording as a whole, it is a bit too much at once. A case of less would have been more.

This is the pop we need; considered, vital, comforting, spiritual.

What you will find is an artist keen on experimenting with mood and form. Much of the music probably makes greater sense alongside the dance project, but as a standalone piece of work it offers welcome insight into another side of Hadreas’ artistic temperament.

It’s a wonderfully dexterous and developed body of work that gives more of itself with each listen.

Although the stylistic variations across the two LPs make it seem as though there is more music here than could reasonably be expected to be contained within eleven tracks, much of it is highly accessible, addictive even.

The resulting music is stunning, perhaps a little more difficult to get a handle on than Amaryllis, but offering an invigorating glimpse into new territory for Halvorson. Though more abstract than its companion volume, Belladonna’s instrumentation tugs at the heartstrings aplenty.

A wonderful balance of melody and ferocity, their tunes tap into a wide-eyed joy at the heart of their rage. Serrated guitar noise and complex vocal parts mix with an adrenaline-rush rhythm section in concentrated blasts. It goes straight to your head.

The dark alchemy of Waterslide – named after one of the art-pieces Margolin painted during lockdown – ultimately flows from the manner in which it slithers under the skin even as it engages with that part of your monkey brain that enjoys a zinging pop song. ... As with much else here, the moment is beautiful and ugly and extraordinary.

Ghosted is a record which depends on its cumulative effect. And in doing so, it reveals there’s the potential to find endless movement in even the most rigid structures.

Air feels like a swan song for a gorgeous world in peril.

It opens with a piano motif that could’ve come straight from Chris Martin’s candle-scented fingers. The matching vocals are so annoyingly whispered, they practically qualify as ASMR. Halfway through, the song changes tack and starts courting the modern market for anxiety pop. ... More specifically, it makes you think, “Does this sound like a needy Mercury Rev, a ham-fisted Grandaddy, or Wings without the easy-going self-awareness?

All the pieces constitute a splendid array of transnational collaboration, a brilliant collage of ideas.

When It Comes is a very balanced record that shows the artist standing on solid ground, in comfort with herself, and ready for a further creative take-off. A soothing and pleasant listen.

One of the purest, most ferocious, most generous albums I’ve heard. A simple offering, and an outright masterpiece of emptiness and full-to-bursting-ness at the same time.

This album is too much of a piece to be picking out favourites, yet it is also one whose subtleties really reveal themselves on subsequent listens. Go on, dive in. Soak up the heat, discover what’s hidden underneath the overgrown foliage. You know you want to.

Characteristically, she doesn’t offer up any concrete solutions on Everything Perfect is Already Here. Instead, by listening to her music, and how she weighs every element with equal care, we’re able to stop and begin to find gratitude for the moments we might have once ignored, however fleeting they may be.

Ultimately, Midnight Rocker is a worthy, maybe even essential, addition to both Horace Andy and Adrian Sherwood’s massive catalogues. It’s not perfect, but there’s a strange vitality in its imperfection, and that energy, that vitality – whatever it is – is incredibly compelling.

Funny, weird, irreverent, a bit messy in places, Wet Leg’s debut feels like a rollicking night out at your local indie disco compacted into thirty-six brisk and breezy minutes. Across a dozen by turns funny and fraught tracks, the highs and lows of twenty-something life are captured with zinging joie de vivre.

An important component to the Paraorchestra’s practice is melding analogue, digital, and assistive instruments. The results, as heard across these eight ambitious compositions, are completely spellbinding. ...

Despite this slightly bathetic penultimate track, however, Whatever The Weather is an excellent, and at times thrilling, exposition of a particular side of James’ music-making, a strange and alien concoction that reels you into its jellied depths.

There’s no clever foreshadowing here, and the real-time emotions make the death of the relationship so much more powerful. Both she and we got something terrific out of it.

All the material contained within is new, and very good. The bands are in fine form, building on their former forms.

The approach behind Two Ribbons is omnivorous, forming a vibrant kaleidoscope that fluidly twists between genres. ... Despite its more gentle touch, the album’s spirit remains restless, transmogrifying.

It is certainly a dizzyingly contagious collection of songs that benefit from main man Dan Bejar’s scattergun technique of song selection. Not for him, the smooth transition from song to song, building neatly to a gentle climax. It is in his blood to unhinge the casual listener and provide a shifting backdrop for his lively lyricism.

With less decay and bleed coming from the guitars, Sonancy benefits from a greater degree of separation in its instrumentation. Consequently, every track gets to breath. There’s little stifling claustrophobia at play here and much like the psychedelic experience, the music reaches and stretches out for a greater truth and space.

What we're witnessing here isn’t radical reinvention (which is hugely overrated anyhow), but the continued refinement and mastery of a specific milieu, and the judicious introduction of new elements and a new collaborator in Arve Henriksen.

The highs here hedonistically bounce around big beats, and the ease in which Rosalía can rap coolly about her status and influence is just as easy as you get wrapped up in it. ... Sadly, Rosalía does not find a way to organise her many ideas well. The tracklist’s brisk changes in energy and awkward hard endings deny any chance of momentum-building.

Although occasionally straying a bit too close to generic Afro-rock, the group still manage to keep it all on the right side of the classic sungura sound before mixing it up a bit on the final track.

There’s no obvious world-building or self-contained story to give Frank the pomp and circumstance you might expect from a major breakthrough rap record in 2022, but he doesn’t need one. The subtlety and detail of his songwriting does that on its own. The world is his for the taking.

[Jenny Hval's] most straightforward record to the date, full of colourful and warm sounds – as well as one of her finest pop tunes.

A good album, but one better suited to a former time.

His third album may not perform the economic miracles of the second, but it’s a powerful addition to Stromae’s canon and a beautiful gift to the world.

The songs have all benefitted from these unexpected levels of time and space to add additional material and occasional re-writing. Pulling from the twin pressures of studio time and commercial schedule combined to give the songs a sense of gentle completeness.

In its fullness and emptiness, all at once, Limbs is an album that dares the listener not to fall for it. Keeley Forsyth is a world builder and Limbs is an outstanding record.

Pretty much the whole way through, without pausing for breath, Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In sounds like a carnival band decided to make a covers album of 90s industrial rock classics. I don’t reckon this is an influence they’re especially punting for. However, happily or not, it’s where they land. This is a thrilling mosh, though it can get annoying.

The central two of the six tracks are a bit of a cruise by comparison. .. Machine-fed streaks of looping refrains and rippling electronics make for a pleasing melange, no doubt, but it’s the surrounding four tracks which really vindicate the horizon-opening technocultural paradigm which apparently informed the album’s concept.

There is a presence conjured up by Trupa Trupa’s music. And it seems to have made itself more manifest on B Flat A.

The intensity is stunning and continued across the remaining nine cuts, but shaped into divergent designs.

It conjures up a wistfulness for times you don't even necessarily want to revisit. Beneath all the complex layering of instruments, the whirlwind of sounds and styles, it’s these simple and powerful feelings that cut through.

The overall mood then is distinctly chill and pleasingly psychedelic. There’s enough space echo going on here to tranquillise a horse. Like cLOUDDEAD or Donuts, Few Good Things is one of the great bedroom hip hop records.

Yeule sits in a coterie of future thinkers making eclectic pop music, and since the scene has become a cultural firecracker in the last few years, many artists are seeing praise for work that rests on its recent success. Glitch Princess moves the goalposts once again.

If you’re new to her, this is an ideal introduction to Hausswolff’s dense but sinuous music. But for true believers, it’s a blessed sacrament for the overwhelming of the ordinary world.

In Free Fall often feels like floating, but it never really makes the crash-landing you’d expect from gravity’s pull. Rather, it stays in the atmosphere, lingering on the feeling of uncertainty of a jump, right before your feet touch the ground.

Wilds feels like a homecoming for a band that was doing the 60s-influenced, boot-fair futurist thing long before it was cool. What a treat to have them back.

With Archive Material, Silverbacks bring so much fun, personality, and excellent musicianship across their songs. It’s a record that, once again, confirms a bright future ahead.

CAPRISONGS is light on its feet and more accessible than her tricksier electronic work but, whether she's delivering dancehall, hip-house, afrobeat or drill, almost all of these are songs which could only have twigs' name on them – take the glitchy, snatched vocals on 'ride the dragon' or the elegiac harp at the end of 'lightbeamers', mixed among the sub-bass and the hi-hats. CAPRISONGS is a testament to twigs' voice.

There’s so much passion under the surface that Blumberg presents that some form of purging is not only needed, it’s inevitable.

Shout Out! To Freedom.... is a joy to listen to, packed as it is with warm tones, a boat-load of guest-stars, and an eclectic sound which dips between dub, rap, and house.

It’s a beautiful and inspiring suite of music, by turns both lyrical and aggressive, evocative of the elements in their many different forms. ... Great artistry which is significantly more than the sum of its parts.

Each track is a varying assemblage of satisfying discordance. The layering of sounds one atop the other creates a latter-day Latourian compost heap of experience. ... The quiet confidence of Jenkins’ brevity and his refreshing lightness of touch makes for a sharp, welcome intervention that balances the broad and gestural with close attention to the fine print.