Shirley Collins' Heart's Ease makes it apparent these songs do not belong to her as they are ownerless. Collins is the conveyor of their power while ensuring the music maintains cultural importance.
Arriving less than a year after Drift Code, Rustin Man consolidates a rich vein of form with the sepia-toned Clockdust, an autumnal record rendered generous and exquisite by each song's emotional weight.
With the help of some celebrity friends, Anna Calvi tinkers with her past and creates an alternate version of her last album.
Recorded in France, by musicians resident in Berlin, Spinning Coin's Hyacinth still sounds like it was made in Glasgow. In 1981.
Mystic Familiar keeps Dan Deacon's signature musical appeal while utilizing a few new tools. The album delivers on the camaraderie and musicianship you expect from the Baltimore producer.
Richard Dawson's 2020 is a coruscating state-of-the-nation piece as Britain faces up to its muddled identity at the end of a tumultuous decade.
New, minimalistic takes from his successful 2018 album Yawn bring you far closer to Bill Ryder-Jones' songwriting and performance. Yawny Yawn re-creates a dynamic sonic landscape with a unique instrumental consistency.
How do you navigate the personal murk of every day, or in the political climate that hates you? Blood Orange's Angel's Pulse is a "mixtape" that sounds like how it might feel to live underwater.
In channeling greats like Fleetwood Mac, Todd Rundgren, and Neil Young, Night Moves' Can You Really Find Me is equally nostalgic and new.
Electropop's Hot Chip prove once again with A Bathfull of Ecstasy that they one of the most consistently excellent working bands.
The reissue of Protomartyr's first album No Passion All Technique offers early signs of the band they would become on subsequent albums.
The songs on Avey Tare's Cows on Hourglass Pond emerged from a need for material for a live show, but you wouldn't assume that when sucked in by their soothing, intricate surrealism. Tare speaks about his creative process, the technical forces driving the record, and where he's at lyrically.
With Portishead's Beth Gibbons as the soprano, Henryk Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is hoisted into modernity and emblematic of the contemporary political and social turbulence.
Esteemed Scottish folk singer-songwriter James Yorkston heads into midlife with The Route to the Harmonium, and no has affection for what he sees.
On Rustin Man's Drift Code, each track fits as a piece of the whole puzzle while also housing its own personality via surprisingly resourceful tones and constructions.
Bill Ryder-Jones creates a dynamic sonic landscape for a personal invitation and dialogue just on the precipice of sleep with his latest album, Yawn.
With her new record, Aviary, Julia Holter expands her scope to include elements of free improvisation, neo-classical leanings, and folk-induced hallucinations, thereby producing a substantial work of art.
As an artist who boldly blurs the line between avant-garde aesthetics and pop accessibility, Julia Holter's new album comes at us as a statement, and one that speaks to the power of her artistic journey.
Key to the creative success of Out of Touch, the newest release from Finnish musician Jaakko Eino Kalevi, is an ephemeral and invaluable element of surprise.
Dave Longstreth returns with the poppiest album yet from his project Dirty Projectors. Lamp Lit Prose offers big hooks as well as plenty of nervy rhythms and typical sonic left turns, resulting in a soundscape that's both exhilarating and exhausting.
Cat Power's ability to centralize her self-worth and artistic integrity imbues Wanderer with a sanguine and empowering assurance.
Villagers' music is pleasant and easy to listen to without being simple, and has catchy melodies that don't reach the level of massive pop hooks.
Anna Calvi's Hunter is a liberating, balls-to-the-wall rock and roll album that tears blind masculinity to shreds while redefining feminine power and desire.
Baltimore's resident oddball experimental quartet Animal Collective add a new dimension to their sound - for a good cause - on Tangerine Reef.
Devotion lacks the clarity and urgency of Tirzah's earlier work.
With Singularity, electronic composer Jon Hopkins uncovers a joyful sense of connection at the center of all things. "The idea of singularity is the idea that every atom in the universe exists in the same place, this infinitely small point," he says.
Flasher play hook-filled rock songs, influenced by everything from post-punk to new wave via shoegaze and indie dream pop on new album, Constant Image.
Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor finally gives in to his pop instincts on his new record, working with an outside producer and then telling us why Rubbermaid bins remind him of Star Wars.
Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is an intriguing musical shift from Arctic Monkeys' wildly popular and massively dominating AM, but rooted in their style and progressive growth as musicians and performers.
The indie rock statesman Stephen Malkmus hones his sleight-of-hand rock on a fiery collection of songs for Sparkle Hard.
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