Albums

Lemoncello is one of those records that has a binding sound all the way whilst boasting an incredible range of tones, moods, and textures within each individual song…an ethereal, harmonious, ever-shifting sheen of a topcoat gliding across a tense, grinding underbelly of distortion and vibration.

Locust Land, Bill MacKay’s third solo outing for Drag City, is his most diverse yet, but also his most harmonious and satisfying, which is high praise, considering the quality of his past releases.

On Hex, Jon McKiel absorbs and repurposes a whole host of genres, but the overall sound – a trippy, fuzzy-edged pop – is strangely consistent, while the songs come from the realm of dreams, their edges softened by sleep but their message sharp and bright.

On her long awaited third solo album Wanderer, Ruth Moody’s striking vocals sketch out true life moments with a warm intimacy that stays with you long after the album’s end.

Convention has never been a preoccupation of either Jennifer Walshe or Tony Conrad, and In the Merry Month of May is unusual even by the standards of contemporary experimental music. It works as a showcase for two genuine greats improvising with fearless abandon.

Quintela is the debut album of Galician piper, teacher, composer and improviser Carme López. Building a nuanced world from minimal organic ingredients, it exists within and beyond the Galician piping tradition – reimagined through contemporary, avant-garde and feminist lenses.

Myriam Gendron’s art, for all its surface simplicity, harbours a wealth of emotional and aesthetic complexities which, when taken together, form a wholly unique sound. Mayday is the most moving and persuasive example of that sound to date.

Soundway return with another great compilation, Ghana Special 2: Electronic Highlife & Afro Sounds In The Diaspora, shining the spotlight on the innovative and creative Ghanaian burger highlife of the 80s.

For ‘Anniversary’, Abigail Lapell celebrates commitment and growing old together…with music and songs such as these, let’s hope her albums turn into an annual event.

Josienne Clarke’s ‘Parenthesis, I’ is an affirmation that out of the deepest darkness sometimes comes the brightest light…to paraphrase her lyric, Clarke spins her alchemy, she gives us hope.

Massachusetts duo Mark Mandeville & Raianne Richards return with Making Promises, their fourth studio album, once more steeped in their close harmony folksy Americana with several stripped-back acoustic songs inspired by their marriage in 2021. 

Billed as an auditory journey into tinnitus, Lola de la Mata’s ‘Oceans on Azimuth’ is a unique and challenging piece of art. While never an easy listen, it somehow manages to become welcoming and even comforting.