Esquire's (UK) 50 Best Albums of 2017

Frontman Joe Newman describes his band’s third album as “a great landscape eliciting different emotional reactions.” It’s fabulously treacherous terrain, dotted with unpredictable twists, turns, and rabbit holes. Even the most immediate track—“Deadcrush,” simmering space-funk inspired by deceased objects of desire—is dazzlingly rich in ideas. The band’s ambition reaches towering peaks on “Pleader,” which samples Ely Cathedral’s choir *and* its heating system while snaking through gentle folk, dystopian discord, and symphonic majesty. A remarkable balance of invention and accessibility, *Relaxer* places alt-J in a lineage of great British rock innovators that stretches from Pink Floyd to Radiohead.

Angel Olsen has made great strides between the homespun folk of 2012’s *Half Way Home* and the bold, noir-ish indie rock of 2016’s *MY WOMAN*, a journey documented on the rarities collection *Phases*. Ranging from compilation tracks (the moody “Fly on Your Wall”) to studio outtakes (the *MY WOMAN*–era “Special”), hushed (“May as Well”) to howling (the Roy Orbison garage rock of “Sweet Dreams”), the music here is a testament not just to Olsen’s range but her evolution as a songwriter, all anchored by her fluttering—but powerful—voice.

How do you best describe Angel Olsen? From the lo-fi, sparse folk-melancholy of her 2010 EP, Strange Cacti, to the electrified, polished rock ‘n’ roll bursting from 2016’s beloved and acclaimed MY WOMAN, Olsen has refused to succumb to a single genre, expectation, or vision. Impossible to pin down, Olsen navigates the world with her remarkable, symphonic voice and a propensity for narrative, her music growing into whatever shape best fits to tell the story.  Phases is a collection of Olsen’s work culled from the past several years, including a number of never-before-released tracks. “Fly On Your Wall,” previously contributed to the Bandcamp-only, anti-Trump fundraiser Our First 100 Days, opens Phases, before seamlessly slipping into “Special,” a brand new song from the MY WOMAN recording sessions. Both “How Many Disasters” and “Sans” are first-time listens: home-recorded demos that have never been released, leaning heavily on Olsen’s arresting croon and lonesome guitar. The b-sides compilation is both a testament to Olsen’s enormous musical range and a tidy compilation of tracks that have previously been elusive in one way or another. Balancing tenacity and tenderness, Phases acts as a deep-dive for longtime fans, as well as a fitting introduction to Olsen’s sprawling sonics for the uninitiated.

Ariel Pink is one of those artists who doesn’t change their style so much as drill deeper into it with every album. Retreating from the studio sound of his recent breakthroughs into the murk of his early recordings (see 2004’s classic *The Doldrums*), *Dedicated to Bobby Jameson* is a strange, phantasmagoric experience, by turns creepy (“Santa’s in the Closet”), pretty (“Feels Like Heaven”), and something unsettlingly in-between (“Do Yourself a Favor”). As always, Pink loves a weird joke, but the prevailing mood is one of loss—of hearing something fade away in haunting real time.

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Shifting between speaker-rattling blasts of lush, goth-tinged techno and the propulsive throb of synth-pop at its darkest, Austra fills their third album with sharply politicized club bangers, along with ghostly ballads about the power of resistance in a tumultuous era. Whether the band is pounding out a menacing floor-filler like “Utopia” or reveling in keyboard-driven eeriness on “Freepower,” frontwoman Katie Stelmanis often swaps her trademark vocal fireworks for a hypnotic murmur, but her soaring, intense choruses will still take your breath away.

Contemplative, colorful electronica from the UK producer. On his sixth album, Simon Green explores the theme of migration through global sounds. His references are subtle, but not overly serious; he drifts from old-school Brandy samples (“Kerala”) to Moroccan Gnawa musicians (“Bambro Koyo Ganda”) with signature restraint (“Outlier”). There are a few high-profile guests along the way, including Nicole Miglis (Hundred Waters) and Nick Murphy (Chet Faker), but they’re not the main attraction—this LP is about the ride.

New music from Simon Green aka Bonobo is always an event, but when it heralds the arrival of a whole new album (his first since 2013’s “The North Borders”), it’s really something to get excited about. The masterful, magisterial “Migration” is Green’s sixth album and it’s a record which cements his place in the very highest echelons of electronic music and beyond. Lead track ‘Kerala’ was the first track Green recorded for the new record, putting together a rough version of it on the tour bus while DJing across the States in 2014. It’s both a classic piece of Bonobo music and a development, all arpeggiated, twisted, layered strings and shuffling dancefloor rhythm. The music gradually builds until his introduction of a sample from RnB singer Brandy, itself cut up and dealt with as a further texture, with the whole sitting in a sweet spot of uplifting euphoria that he’s so adept at finding. The hypnotic video (also released today), has been directed by Bison (Jon Hopkins/London Grammar/ Rosie Lowe). It compliments the shuffling arpeggios and beats perfectly by creating staggered loop effects where the lead Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace/Inside No. 9) battles through a mysterious, distorted reality with a meteor flying overhead. In particular, there is a theme on the upcoming album of migration, eruditely put by Green as “The study of people and spaces,” he expands, “It’s interesting how one person will take an influence from one part of the world and move with that influence and affect another part of the world. Over time, the identities of places evolve.” Indeed there is a “transitory nature” to the album, not only through its themes, but also through its guests and found sounds. Michael Milosh, from the LA group Rhye, for instance, is originally from Canada and recorded his affecting vocal on ‘Break Apart' in a hotel room in Berlin. Green, meanwhile built the structure of the track during a transatlantic flight. Nick Murphy (formerly known as Chet Faker), on the other hand, is from Australia, but a shared love of disco brought the pair together for the hugely emotive ‘No Reason’. Nicole Miglis of Hundred Waters, originally from Florida, delivers a superbly understated vocal for the glistening textures of ‘Surface’, while Moroccan band Innov Gnawa, based in New York, provide the vocals, on ‘Bambro Koyo Ganda’. Additionally, Green has used a sampler (“but not in a big boomer, wearing a cagoule kind of way.”) and woven found sounds such as an elevator in Hong Kong airport, rain in Seattle, a tumble dryer in Atlanta and a fan boat engine in New Orleans into his intricate sonics. Bonobo’s DJ shows cannot be underestimated in importance to the overall feel of “Migration”, his much loved Output DJ residencies in New York and his global ‘Outlier’ club curated series were where he road-tested tracks. The landscape of his new home in California has provided the artwork of the record, designed by Neil Krug (Boards of Canada/Lana Del Ray). All the desert locations pictured “are close to where I now live,” Green explains. “Part of the writing process was to drive up to these places and live with the tracks as I was making them. This was a new part of the world to me, where the landscape is quite alien and Martian.” The album cover art has been gradually appearing in London and Los Angeles as giant murals, and have been fully unveiled today. A contemporary of artists such as Four Tet, Jon Hopkins and Caribou, Bonobo also counts among his famous fans the likes of Wiz Khalifa, Skrillex, Disclosure, Diplo and Warpaint. His 2013 album “The North Borders” went Top 30 in the UK and was number 1 in the electronic charts in both the US and UK. In support of that record, the 12-piece band Green runs played 175 shows worldwide, including a sold out show at Alexandra Palace. Bonobo has built a large, loyal and engaged global fanbase: over half a million album sales and over one hundred and fifty million streams on Spotify point to the levels of success achieved by this quiet, self-effacing man. It might be difficult to imagine it, but “Migration” will take his beautiful, emotive, intricate music to an even bigger audience. “My own personal idea of identity has played into this record and the theme of migration,” Green explains. “Is home where you are or where you are from, when you move around?” The personal, it seems, can also be universal.

Following his acclaimed debut album Suzi Ecto, Call Super returns with LP number two, the equally arresting Arpo. Another mesmerising environment of restless beauty that refuses to conform to much else beyond his own work, it affirms Call Super's place as one of the most remarkable electronic musicians working today. Arpo refines and then traipses further afield than anything else in his discography - Pitchfork (8/10) Arpo feels like a real album, with a distinct narrative and recurring themes. Most of all, it’s a captivating and original listen, from an artist who sounds like no one else - XLR8R (8.5/10) Album of the Year - DJ Mag 8/10 Pitchfork 9/10 DJ Mag 4/05 The Guardian 8/10 Crack 8/10 Mixmag 8.5/10 XLR8R Bleep - Album of the week Norman Records - Album of the week Guardian Newspaper - 'Outstanding after-hours techno'

Josh Tillman’s third album as Father John Misty is a wry and passionate complaint against nearly everything under the sun: Politics, religion, entertainment, war—even Father John Misty can’t escape Father John Misty’s gimlet eye. But even the wordiest, most cynically self-aware songs here (“Leaving L.A.,” “When the God of Love Returns There’ll Be Hell to Pay”) are executed with angelic beauty, a contrast that puts Tillman in a league with spiritual predecessors like Randy Newman or Harry Nilsson. A performer as savvy as Tillman knows you can’t sell the apocalypse without making it sound pretty.

'Pure Comedy', Father John Misty’s third album, is a complex, often-sardonic, and, equally often, touching meditation on the confounding folly of modern humanity. Father John Misty is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Josh Tillman. Tillman has released two widely acclaimed albums – 'Fear Fun' (2012) and 'I Love You, Honeybear' (2015) – and the recent “Real Love Baby” single as Father John Misty, and recently contributed to songs by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Kid Cudi. While we could say a lot about 'Pure Comedy' – including that it is a bold, important album in the tradition of American songwriting greats like Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, and Leonard Cohen – we think it’s best to let its creator describe it himself. Take it away, Mr. Tillman: 'Pure Comedy' is the story of a species born with a half-formed brain. The species’ only hope for survival, finding itself on a cruel, unpredictable rock surrounded by other species who seem far more adept at this whole thing (and to whom they are delicious), is the reliance on other, slightly older, half-formed brains. This reliance takes on a few different names as their story unfolds, like “love,” “culture,” “family,” etc. Over time, and as their brains prove to be remarkably good at inventing meaning where there is none, the species becomes the purveyor of increasingly bizarre and sophisticated ironies. These ironies are designed to help cope with the species’ loathsome vulnerability and to try and reconcile how disproportionate their imagination is to the monotony of their existence. Something like that. 'Pure Comedy' was recorded in 2016 at the legendary United Studios (Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Beck) in Hollywood, CA. It was produced by Father John Misty and Jonathan Wilson, with engineering by Misty’s longtime sound-person Trevor Spencer and orchestral arrangements by renowned composer/double-bassist Gavin Bryars (known for extensive solo work, and work with Brian Eno, Tom Waits, Derek Bailey).

Released within two weeks of his 2017 self-titled project, *HNDRXX* is a master statement of soulful, sly R&B from the Atlanta rapper. If *FUTURE* echoed the spontaneity and double-time flow of his now-classic mixtapes, the follow-up is stacked with anthems that are calibrated for a massive mainstream audience. Two marquee cameos—The Weeknd and Rihanna—add extra star power, but highlights like “Damage,” “Incredible,” and “Fresh Air” are all about Future’s brilliant mix of brutal honestly and unchecked hedonism.

Bolstered by a notoriously great *Letterman* performance, Future Islands’ 2014 effort *Singles* was a breakthrough for the synth-pop romantics. *The Far Field* dives further into their sound, combining the expressiveness of soul with the leanness of post-punk and New Wave, underlined by immediate songwriting and the strong, vulnerable voice of Samuel T. Herring. “I don’t believe anymore/I won’t grieve anymore,” he croons on the standout “Cave.” “’Cause what was gold/Is gone and cold.”

‘Dark Days + Canapés’ is Ghostpoet's most defining album to date. A stunning and stimulating return, 'Dark Days + Canapés’ is a record that captures the sense of unease felt by so many in recent times. After receiving recognition for the beat-driven arrangements of his first two albums, third album 'Shedding Skin' initiated a more alt-rock sound that saw Ghostpoet Mercury nominated for a second time. New album ‘Dark Days + Canapés’, produced by Leo Abrahams, best known for his work with Brian Eno and Jon Hopkins, delves even further into a fuller, guitar driven sound. When commenting on the first track from the album, ‘Immigrant Boogie’, Ghostpoet aka Obaro Ejimiwe explains; “I’m usually more comfortable writing in ambiguous terms, but this time around I felt there were specific stories that needed telling.” Serendipity and experimentalism were embraced in the studio and several original ideas evolved or were supplanted by something unexpected. On 'Freakshow’ the addition of manic laughter from a gospel choir, who had turned up to sing on a different track, compounds the crazed nature of the song, whilst ‘Blind As A Bat...’, influenced by Talk Talk’s ‘Laughing Stock’, saw string players invited to improvise with fragments of their performance sampled and overlaid to build something less structured, more wayward and reflective of the state of mind of the protagonist. Typically self-effacing, Obaro says; “there’s a sort of life-force that Leo and the other musicians brought to this record, and that was crucial. I want people to listen to the songs and be able to say, ‘So Isn’t just me then? Phew.”

Uncertain times and an unruly squad of new collaborators set the table for the most dazzling Gorillaz album yet. It’s a white-knuckle joyride that sees Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s virtual band dart down fresh electronic avenues—tracks are darker, lyrics explicitly politicized and the collaborators more inspired. Arming “Let Me Out” with Mavis Staples and Pusha T provides an electrifying highlight, Savages’ Jehnny Beth lends a fluorescent rallying cry to “We Got the Power”, while Benjamin Clementine is a legitimately haunting presence on the hymnal “Hallelujah Money”.

On *Painted Ruins*, Grizzly Bear continue to revel in the dynamic between relaxed and urgent. Breathy vocals, arrangements that move from stripped-down and subdued to grand and cathartic—it\'s all there. But they’ve also found a new groove. “Wasted Acres” is bathed in lush, buzzing atmospheres, but its almost loungey swing fits like a worn-in pair of jeans. The intricate drumming that propels “Three Rings” also falls right in the pocket. But those newfound comforts are most apparent in the thrumming bass of the New Wave-kissed “Mourning Sound” and on \"Glass Hillside,” where the band channels Steely Dan’s jazzier moments.

Gucci built his reputation on Paul Bunyan-like excesses and exploits. When he emerged from prison in 2016, however, he was fit and sober, and here he collaborates with superproducer Metro Boomin’ to capitalize on his clarity. Metro’s beats are like 8-bit nightmares—smeary and demented. Gucci mixes menace with whimsy and humor—“I’m too rich to give a sh\*t ‘bout anyone but me,” he deadpans on “5 Million Intro”; on “Finesse the Plug,” he manages to rhyme “spiteful,” “rifle,” “white folks,” and “tight rope.”

Since his release from prison in 2016, Gucci Mane has worked tirelessly to reengage the fan base he built via his sizable mixtape catalog. The front end of his career is defined by his conquering of Southern street rap during a time that will likely be considered the genre\'s golden age. *Mr. Davis*, Gucci’s third album in 12 months, finds the rapper hitting his stride once again, recording over uniquely bombastic backdrops from longtime collaborators Mike WiLL Made-It and Zaytoven. Featured guests like Rae Sremmurd, Big Sean, and ScHoolboy Q turn in inspired verses, clearly relishing the chance to rap alongside one of their influences.

Lean in close, HAIM has something important to say. On their second album, the sister trio—Alana, Danielle, and Este—explore sounds and eras while deepening their emotional connection. “Want You Back,” “Little of Your Love,” “Found It in Silence,” and “Ready for You” will resonate with fans of the first LP—all sweet melodies, catchy rock and pop hooks, and gonna-work-it-out feels. HAIM also unfurl swashes of vintage ‘80s/‘90s pop (“Nothing\'s Wrong” and “You Never Knew”) and confessional showstoppers (“Night So Long”) that, when combined with their crush-note lyrics, consistently hit the sweet spot.

In the two years since *To Pimp a Butterfly*, we’ve hung on Kendrick Lamar\'s every word—whether he’s destroying rivals on a cameo, performing the #blacklivesmatter anthem *on top of a police car* at the BET Awards, or hanging out with Obama. So when *DAMN.* opens with a seemingly innocuous line—\"So I was taking a walk the other day…”—we\'re all ears. The gunshot that abruptly ends the track is a signal: *DAMN.* is a grab-you-by-the-throat declaration that’s as blunt, complex, and unflinching as the name suggests. If *Butterfly* was jazz-inflected, soul-funk vibrance, *DAMN.* is visceral, spare, and straight to the point, whether he’s boasting about \"royalty inside my DNA” on the trunk-rattling \"DNA.\" or lamenting an anonymous, violent death on the soul-infused “FEAR.” No topic is too big to tackle, and the songs are as bold as their all-caps names: “PRIDE.” “LOYALTY.” “LOVE.” \"LUST.” “GOD.” When he repeats the opening line to close the album, that simple walk has become a profound journey—further proof that no one commands the conversation like Kendrick Lamar.

For the most part, Lana Del Rey’s fifth album is quintessentially her: gloomy, glamorous, and smitten with California. But a newfound lightness might surprise longtime fans. Each song on *Lust* feels like a postcard from a dream: She fantasizes about 1969 (“Coachella - Woodstock In My Mind”), outruns paparazzi on the Pacific Coast Highway (“13 Beaches”), and dances on the H of the Hollywood sign (“Lust for Life” feat. The Weeknd). She even duets with Stevie Nicks, the queen of bittersweet rock. On “Get Free,” she makes a vow to shift her mindset: \"Now I do, I want to move/Out of the black, into the blue.”

Intended as an examination of 21st-century femininity and masculinity, Laura Marling’s sixth album drills into her friendships and relationships with absorbing intimacy. Musically, it’s one of her finest records too. She consistently finds a captivating balance between immediacy, nuance, and adventure—whether she’s plucking cascading acoustic melodies on “Nouel” or creating a suspenseful union of hushed electronic beats, filmic strings and snaking electric guitar on “Don’t Pass Me By.”

Little Dragon love to surprise. Their 2014 LP *Nabuma Rubberband* featured ominous New Wave synthesizers, nods to Japanese game shows, and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. That you never know what to expect from the four-piece is part of their appeal, but it can also create distance; it’s hard to get invested in a band that’s still finding itself. But on their fifth album, the Swedish outfit seems to have settled into their sound, a breathy mix of ‘80s dance-pop and downtempo ’90s R&B stirred together with artsy flair. It’s fluid, flirty, and awesomely escapist, like a blissed-out stroll through strobe-lit clubs. For polished pop, check out “Celebrate (Feat. Agge).” And for proof they haven’t lost their edge, listen to the spacey, seven-minute “Gravity.”

Singer Hannah Reid is still beset by the troubling complexities of love and relationships on London Grammar’s second album. That’s good news for the rest of us because anguish and sorrow are premium fuels for a pure, versatile voice that soars and plummets with rare melancholic grace. The trio’s music remains haunted and hymnal, minimal yet efficient, softly accenting Reid’s emotion and allowing itself to rise to gorgeous, euphoric swells on the slow-burning “Hell to the Liars” and the gently blissful electro-pop of “Oh Woman Oh Man”.

Four years after Lorde illuminated suburban teendom with *Pure Heroine*, she captures the dizzying agony of adolescence on *Melodrama*. “Everyone has that first proper year of adulthood,” she told Beats 1. “I think I had that year.” She chronicles her experiences in these insightful odes to self-discovery that find her battling loneliness (“Sober”), conquering heartbreak (“Writer in the Dark”), embracing complexity (“Hard Feelings/Loveless”), and letting herself lose control. “Every night I live and die,” she sings on “Perfect Places,” an emotionally charged song about escaping reality. “I’m 19 and I\'m on fire.\"

2014’s 'Too Bright' showcased Mike Hadreas stepping out saucily onto a bigger stage, expressing, with the production help of Portishead’s Adrian Utley, emotions arranged all along the slippery continuum from rage to irony to love. Here in 13 new ferocious and sophisticated tracks, Mike Hadreas and his collaborators blow through church music, makeout music, an array of the gothier radio popular formats, rhythm and blues, art pop, krautrock, queer soul, the RCA Studio B sound, and then also collect some of the sounds that only exist inside Freddy Krueger. Tremolo on the electric keys. Nightclubbing. Daywalking. Kate Bushing, Peter Greenawaying, Springsteening, Syreetaing. No Shape was produced by Blake Mills, the man behind Alabama Shakes’ Grammy Award winning album. He added precision and expansion. Some things are pretty and some are blasted beyond recognition. Records like this, records that make you feel like you’re 15 and just seeing the truth for the first time, are excessively rare. They’re here to remind you that you’re divine.

“Portico Quartet stake claims to territory occupied by Radiohead, Cinematic Orchestra and Efterklang”. The Guardian ***** Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet has always been an impossible band to pin down. Sending out echoes of jazz, electronica, ambient music and minimalism, the group created their own singular, cinematic sound over the course of three studio albums, from their 2007 breakthrough ‘Knee-Deep in the North Sea’, and 2010 John Leckie produced ‘Isla’, to the self titled record ‘Portico Quartet’ in 2012. Now rebooted as Portico Quartet after a brief spell as the three-piece Portico, the group are set to release their fourth studio album Art In The Age Of Automation this August on Manchester’s forward thinking indy jazz and electronica label Gondwana Records. It’s an eagerly anticipated return, with the band teasing both a return to their mesmeric signature sound and fresh new sonic departures in their new music. So much so that their four-night run at Archspace E8 (June 22-25) sold out in less than an hour as fans from around the world scrambled for tickets to hear the return of Portico Quartet. Recorded at Fish Factory Studios in London at the beginning of the year and mixed at Vox studios, Berlin, Art In The Age Of Automation finds the band building on the sound world they first explored with their eponymous 2012 release Portico Quartet, mixing the cinematic minimalism, that first made their name, with electronic and ambient textures alongside a welcome return for Jack’s ethereal saxophone and Duncan’s unique mixture of live and electronic drums as well of course as the band’s signature sound, the chiming other worldy tones of the hang drum. It’s hard music to define, as Jack acknowledges. “Our sound falls between many genres, jazz, electronic music even minimalism in places, but naturally it’s an amalgamation of everything we’ve listened to”. And as you would expect from a band that have evolved with each recording, this is no barren retread of the past, instead it represents another step forward sonically and musically in the band’s ongoing evolution, as Jack explains. “We’ve really gone into detail with the sounds and production, building dense layers and textures but retaining a live, organic feel to it. We wanted to use acoustic instruments but find ways in which they could interact with more modern production techniques and technologies to create something that was identifiably us but sounded fresh and exciting, futuristic even.” Its an ethos that also informs the album’s title and the distinctive artwork by Duncan Bellamy (under his Veils Project identity) that adorns the album’s cover “The artwork came about when I started to explore the idea of scanning moving images. The resulting image is exactly that - a film playing on a tablet whilst the scan is in action. So the image is something created by the scanner itself, and in this way it establishes a relationship with the title of the album”. And it’s the mix between the human and the electronic that makes the music on AITAOA so fresh and exciting as Portico Quartet one again evolve their music into the future. The album opens with insistent, catchy Endless, which references the classic Portico Quartet sound, but expands outwards into a hypnotic, blissful collage of strings, hangs, electronics, saxophones and Bellamy’s unique drumming. It’s a sound that permeates the whole record, feeling both familiarly Portico Quartet, but transformed into something bold and new, sounding somehow bigger than ever but even more detailed. Elsewhere Rushing draws on the bands love of minimalist music, a repeated piano motif merges with a contorted vocal sample that twists its way through juxtaposed spaces to reach an uplifting resolve. Meanwhile the title track offers a moment of down-tempo respite: the hang drum is joined by a full horns and string section, culminating in a orchestral outro where cellos and violins blend with saxophones and hang drum to form a densely layered blanket of sound. The sound of strings are prevalent on much of the record, and as Jack explains they add an extra layer of humanity to the music “It’s exciting working with a string section and to hear the ideas you sketch on a computer being played on acoustic instruments, then being able to direct them in a way in which is just not possible on a computer, it brings a real emotional depth and nuance to the record”. On A Luminous Beam an infectious drum grove drives the piece while synths, flutes and strings are layered with the saxophone floating freely over the top. Beyond Dialogue is classic Portico Quartet, exploiting the ethereal, otherworldly timbre of the hang drums and Jack’s saxophone to create a hypnotic track that references minimalism and ambient music to create something beautiful and new. Current History has nods towards more electronic and urban music as drum machines underpin a collage of hang drums and saxophones. The album finishes on the aptly tilted Lines Glow, the saxophone weaving its melody over an organ and string section culminating in an epic, euphoric moment of release. It’s a fittingly uplifting way to end an album that announces the return of one of the UK’s most singular, and influential bands, one that a decade from their founding are still pushing the boundaries of their music into the future and still sound like nothing you ever heard before. All prices shown are “NET of VAT” (Value Added Tax). VAT will be calculated and added at the checkout. You will be charged the appropriate rate which will vary depending on the country. This release was uploaded at 24 bit / 48 kHz and available in FLAC, WAV, AIFF or MP3 and available in FLAC, WAV, AIFF or MP3.

*Prisoner* continues to refine the sound that Ryan Adams first explored with his 2014 self-titled album: a sure-handed mix of *Tunnel of Love*-era Springsteen, ‘80s college rock, and soft-focus synths. A track like “Anything I Say to You Now” illustrates how perfectly this formula suits him; a Smiths-esque jangle of guitars gives sentimental depth to his plain-spoken refrain, “Anything I say to you now is just a lie.” As he works through the rest of the emotional wreckage, highlights like \"Shiver and Shake” prove that Adams’ poignancy as a songwriter can still bring us to our knees.

The album that finally reveals a superstar. Sampha Sisay spent his nascent career becoming music’s collaborator à la mode—his CV includes impeccable work with the likes of Solange, Drake, and Jessie Ware—and *Process* fully justifies his considered approach to unveiling a debut full-length. It’s a stunning album that sees the Londoner inject raw, gorgeous emotion into each of his mini-epics. His electronic R&B sounds dialed in from another dimension on transformative opener “Plastic 100°C,” and “Incomplete Kisses” is an anthem for the broken-hearted that retains a smoothness almost exclusive to this very special talent. “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” meanwhile, makes a solid case for being 2017’s most beautiful song.

Some bands take a few years to regroup for their next move; dream-pop pioneers Slowdive took 22, a return all the more bittersweet given how many bands their sound has influenced since. Combining the atmospherics of ambient music with rock ’n’ roll’s low center of gravity, *Slowdive* sounds as vital as anything the band recorded in the early ‘90s, whether it’s the foggy, countryish inflections of “No Longer Making Time” or the propulsive “Star Roving.”

“It felt like we were in a movie that had a totally implausible ending...” Slowdive’s second act as a live blockbuster has already been rapturously received around the world. Highlights thus far include a festival-conquering, sea-of-devotees Primavera Sound performance, of which Pitchfork noted: “The beauty of their crystalline sound is almost hard to believe, every note in its perfect place.” “It was just nice to realise that there was a decent amount of interest in it,” says principal songwriter Neil Halstead. The UK shoegaze pioneers have now channelled such seemingly impossible belief into a fourth studio opus which belies his characteristic modesty. Self-titled with quiet confidence, Slowdive’s stargazing alchemy is set to further entrance the faithful while beguiling a legion of fresh ears. Deftly swerving what co-vocalist/guitarist Rachel Goswell terms “a trip down memory lane”, these eight new tracks are simultaneously expansive and the sonic pathfinders’ most direct material to date. Birthed at the band’s talismanic Oxfordshire haunt The Courtyard – “It felt like home,” enthuses guitarist Christian Savill – their diamantine melodies were mixed to a suitably hypnotic sheen at Los Angeles’ famed Sunset Sound facility by Chris Coady (perhaps best known for his work with Beach House, one of countless contemporary acts to have followed in Slowdive’s wake). “It’s poppier than I thought it was going to be,” notes Halstead, who was the primary architect of 1995‘s previous full-length transmission Pygmalion. This time out the group dynamic was all-important. “When you’re in a band and you do three records, there’s a continuous flow and a development. For us, that flow re-started with us playing live again and that has continued into the record.” Drummer and loop conductor Simon Scott enhanced the likes of ‘Slomo’ and ‘Falling Ashes’ with abstract textures conjured via his laptop’s signal processing software. A fecund period of experimentation with “40-minute iPhone jams” allowed the unit to then amplify the core of their chemistry. “Neil is such a gifted songwriter, so the songs won. He has these sparks of melodies, like ‘Sugar For The Pill’ and ‘Star Roving’, which are really special. But the new record still has a toe in that Pygmalion sound. In the future, things could get very interesting indeed.” This open-channel approach to creativity is reflected by Slowdive’s impressively wide field of influence, from indie-rock avatars to ambient voyagers – see the tribute album of cover versions released by Berlin electronic label Morr Music. As befits such evocative visionaries, you can also hear Slowdive through the silver screen: New Queer Cinema trailblazer Gregg Araki has featured them on the soundtracks to no less than four of his films. “When I moved to America in 2008 I was working in an organic grocery store,” recalls Christian. “Kids started coming in and asking if it was true I had played in Slowdive. That’s when I started thinking, ‘OK, this is weird!’” Neil Halstead: “We were always ambitious. Not in terms of trying to sell records, but in terms of making interesting records. Maybe, if you try and make interesting records, they’re still interesting in a few years time. I don’t know where we’d have gone if we had carried straight on. Now we’ve picked up a different momentum. It’s intriguing to see where it goes next.” The world has finally caught up with Slowdive. This movie could run and run...

Pushing past the GRAMMY®-winning art rock of 2014’s *St. Vincent*, *Masseduction* finds Annie Clark teaming up with Jack Antonoff (as well as Kendrick Lamar collaborator Sounwave) for a pop masterpiece that radiates and revels in paradox—vibrant yet melancholy, cunning yet honest, friendly yet confrontational, deeply personal yet strangely inscrutable. She moves from synthetic highs to towering power-ballad comedowns (“Pills”), from the East Coast (the unforgettable “New York”) to “Los Ageless,” where, amid a bramble of strings and woozy electronics, she admits, “I try to write you a love song/But it comes out a lament.”

Temples’ second album brings increased purpose to the heady psychedelia of their debut, *Sun Structures*. Synths add playful menace to the dynamic grooves of “Certainty” and “Mystery of Pop,” and whether the quartet dabble in freak-folk (“Oh the Saviour”) or motorik glam (“Roman God-Like Man”), insistent melodies are always sewn in. With its euphoric chorus, the widescreen “Strange or Be Forgotten” could have been written to fill arenas. On this evidence, that wouldn’t be presumptuous.

Temples’ 2014 debut ‘Sun Structures’ arrived with sky in its hair and the endorsements of Noel Gallagher and Johnny Marr ringing in its ears, putting the Kettering quartet at the forefront of an exciting new wave of British psych. Yet whereas the artists they were most obviously indebted to – think early Bowie and Pink Floyd, Nazz and T. Rex – employed subversive humour and acid-fried absurdity, Temples themselves were masters of surface-level psychedelia: less a state of mind, more a feat of engineering. - Barry Nicolson NME.com

Described by frontman Wayne Coyne as “Syd Barrett meets A$AP Rocky and they get trapped in a fairy tale from the future,” *Oczy Mlody*—Polish for “eyes of the young”—is a set of viscous, synth-driven nocturnes that extends the band’s recent run of moody experimentation. While “Galaxy I Sink” recalls the despair of 2013’s *The Terror*, the prismatic pop of “We a Family” sounds relatively unburdened, thanks in part to an appearance by friend and collaborator Miley Cyrus.

While evolving from the feral roar of 2007 debut *Strange House* toward the saucer-eyed dance rock of 2014’s *Luminous*, The Horrors have often sculpted sharp pop tunes. Their fifth album fully embraces those melodic instincts while exploring the possibilities offered by mixing psychedelia, rock, and synth-pop with their gothic otherness. The results are disparate and gripping, from “Machine”’s grinding urgency to the woozy swagger of “Press Enter to Exit.” Finale “Something to Remember Me By” is the towering peak of their most assured album to date, evoking Balearic-period New Order with its yearning fusion of house and synth-pop.

Nearly 20 years into the band\'s career, The National have reached a status attained only by the likes of Radiohead: a progressive, uncompromising band with genuinely broad appeal. Produced by multi-instrumentalist Aaron Dessner in his upstate New York studio (with co-production from guitarist Bryce Dessner and singer Matt Berninger), *Sleep Well Beast* captures the band at their moody, majestic best, from the propulsive “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” to “Guilty Party,” where Berninger’s portraits of failing marriage come to a sad, gorgeous, and surprisingly subtle head.

Sleep Well Beast was produced by member Aaron Dessner with co-production by Bryce Dessner and Matt Berninger. The album was mixed by Peter Katis and recorded at Aaron Dessner’s Hudson Valley, New York studio, Long Pond, with additional sessions having taken place in Berlin, Paris and Los Angeles.

The Shins’ music has always had a Swiss watch-like quality to it: Seamless from the outside, hypnotically intricate when you open it up. *Heartworms*, their first LP in five years, bridges the electronic textures of 2012’s *Port of Morrow* with the jangly, cerebral pop of *Chutes Too Narrow*, touching on psychedelia (“Painting a Hole”), country (“Mildenhall”), and synth-pop (“Cherry Hearts”). It\'s the band’s most adventurous album yet.

On his first album in seven years, James Lavelle assembles a characteristically wide cast of collaborators, but *The Road, Pt. 1* is as moody and introspective as his rock-electronic hybrids have ever sounded. Mark Lanegan’s gravelly baritone lends sorrowful weight to the theatrical strings of “Looking for the Rain,” while “Cowboys or Indians” demonstrates Lavelle’s fondness for fusion, toggling between acoustic folk and nervous trip-hop. The dark clouds grow a silver lining on “Stole Enough,” a bittersweet song for piano and gospel chorus.

Few things have moved Kanye West to action like the blowback he received upon removing Vic Mensa from 2015 *Pablo* standout “Wolves.” They’d premiered it (alongside Sia) during an SNL performance, an introduction to Mensa that many apparently cherished. Kanye would bring Mensa back via another edit, but it would take his guest’s debut album for the world to really know who he is. The Autobiography covers Mensa’s upbringing in Chicago’s violent South Side (“Memories on 47th St.”), his struggles with drug use and infidelity (“Wings”), and his most pronounced legacy to date, Mensa’s Black Lives Matter activism (“We Could Be Free”). The alt-rock-tinged “Rage”—which Mensa once claimed was a favorite of Beyoncé\'s—and “Omg (feat. Pusha T)” appear as bonus tracks.

“WE IN YEAR 3230 WIT IT,” Vince Staples tweeted of his second album. “THIS THE FUTURE.” In fact, he’s in multiple time zones here. Delivered in his fluent, poetic flow, the lyrical references reach back to 16th-century composer Louis Bourgeois, while “BagBak” captures the stark contrasts of Staples’ present (“I pray for new McLarens/Pray the police don’t come blow me down because of my complexion.”) With trap hi-hats sprayed across ’70s funk basslines (“745”) and Bon Iver fused into UK garage beats (“Crabs in a Bucket”), the future is as bold as it is bright.