Time Out London's 50 Best Albums of 2015

The Internet create a stunningly lush neo-soul romance with their third album. Led by slyly seductive vocalist/songwriter Syd tha Kyd and the warm, instinctive production of Matt Martians, the Los Angeles band performs suites brimming with incense and whispers. “Under Control” undulates on Patrick Paige’s plunging bass notes, while “Gabby” is marked by Steve Lacy’s staccato rhythm guitar. On “Just Sayin/I Tried,” Syd offers sharp words, proving that while she’s clearly a romantic, she’s not a woman to be trifled with.

Thanks to multiple hit singles—and no shortage of critical acclaim—2012’s *good kid, m.A.A.d city* propelled Kendrick Lamar into the hip-hop mainstream. His 2015 follow-up, *To Pimp a Butterfly*, served as a raised-fist rebuke to anyone who thought they had this Compton-born rapper figured out. Intertwining Afrocentric and Afrofuturist motifs with poetically personal themes and jazz-funk aesthetics, *To Pimp A Butterfly* expands beyond the gangsta rap preconceptions foisted upon Lamar’s earlier works. Even from the album’s first few seconds—which feature the sound of crackling vinyl and a faded Boris Gardiner soul sample—it’s clear *To Pimp a Butterfly* operates on an altogether different cosmic plane than its decidedly more commercial predecessor. The album’s Flying Lotus-produced opening track, “Wesley’s Theory,” includes a spoken-word invocation from musician Josef Leimberg and an appearance by Parliament-Funkadelic legend George Clinton—names that give *To Pimp a Butterfly* added atomic weight. Yet Lamar’s lustful and fantastical verses, which are as audacious as the squirmy Thundercat basslines underneath, never get lost in an album packed with huge names. Throughout *To Pimp a Butterfly*, Lamar goes beyond hip-hop success tropes: On “King Kunta,” he explores his newfound fame, alternating between anxiety and big-stepping braggadocio. On “The Blacker the Berry,” meanwhile, Lamar pointedly explores and expounds upon identity and racial dynamics, all the while reaching for a reckoning. And while “Alright” would become one of the rapper’s best-known tracks, it’s couched in harsh realities, and features an anthemic refrain delivered in a knowing, weary rasp that belies Lamar’s young age. He’s only 27, and yet he’s already seen too much. The cast assembled for this massive effort demonstrates not only Lamar’s reach, but also his vast vision. Producers Terrace Martin and Sounwave, both veterans of *good kid, m.A.A.d city*, are among the many names to work behind-the-boards here. But the album also includes turns from everyone from Snoop Dogg to SZA to Ambrose Akinmusire to Kamasi Washington—an intergenerational reunion of a musical diaspora. Their contributions—as well as the contributions of more than a dozen other players—give *To Pimp a Butterfly* a remarkable range: The contemplations of “Institutionalized” benefit greatly from guest vocalists Bilal and Anna Wise, as do the hood parables of “How Much A Dollar Cost,” which features James Fauntleroy and Ronald Isley. Meanwhile, Robert Glasper’s frenetic piano on “For Free? (Interlude)” and Pete Rock’s nimble scratches on “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” give *To Pimp a Butterfly* added energy.

Courtney Barnett\'s 2015 full-length debut established her immediately as a force in independent rock—although she\'d bristle at any sort of hype, as she sneers on the noise-pop gem \"Pedestrian at Best\": \"Put me on a pedestal and I\'ll only disappoint you/Tell me I\'m exceptional, I promise to exploit you.\" Warnings aside, her brittle riffing and deadpan lyrics—not to mention indelible hooks and nagging sense of unease with the world—helped put *Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit* into the upper echelon of 2010s indie rock. The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter stares at stained ceilings and checks out open houses as she reflects on love, death, and the quality of supermarket produce, making *Sometimes* a crowd-pleaser almost in spite of itself. Propulsive tracks like the hip-shaking \"Elevator Operator\" and the squalling \"Dead Fox\" pair Barnett\'s talked-sung delivery with grungy, hooky rave-ups that sound beamed in from a college radio station\'s 1995 top-ten list. Her singing style isn\'t conversational as much as it is like a one-sided phone call from a friend who spends a lot of time in her own head, figuring out the meaning of life in real time while trying to answer the question \"How are you?\"—and sounding captivating every step of the way. But Barnett can also command blissed-out songs that bury pithy social commentary beneath their distorted guitars—\"Small Poppies\" hides notes about power and cruelty within its wobbly chords, while the marvelous \"Depreston\" rolls thoughts on twentysomething thriftiness, half-glimpsed lives, and shifting ideas of \"home\" across its sun-bleached landscape. While the topics of conversation can be heavy, Barnett\'s keen ear for what makes a potent pop song and her inability to be satisfied with herself make *Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit* a fierce opening salvo.

On Florence + The Machine’s third album, their focus is clear from the cover art. While the group\'s first two albums featured frontwoman Florence Welch posed in a theatrical side profile with her eyes closed, this one finds her eyes open and staring straight into the camera. This sense of immediacy and alertness infuses the band’s most mature, cohesive album yet, starting with propulsive opener, “Ship to Wreck.” Lush arrangements combine a rock band, strings, and brass with Welch’s volcanic, soaring voice, serving high drama on tracks like the driving “What Kind of Man” and the transcendent “Mother.”

Following the ecstatic response to their early EPs, Wolf Alice unveil a debut full-length that bristles with \'90s alt-rock fury, disarming pop melodies, and experimental textures. *My Love Is Cool* includes those EPs’ strongest moments (the sugary squall of “Fluffy” and the glimmering crescendos of “Bros”) and expands on their promise. While talented frontwoman Ellie Rowsell coos and belts on the towering lullaby “Your Loves Whore,” she adds ferocious vocal layering throughout the shoegazing screech of “Lisbon.”

Sufjan Stevens has taken creative detours into textured electro-pop, orchestral suites, and holiday music, but *Carrie & Lowell* returns to the feathery indie folk of his quietly brilliant early-’00s albums, like *Michigan* and *Seven Swans*. Using delicate fingerpicking and breathy vocals, songs like “Eugene,” “The Only Thing,” and the Simon & Garfunkel-influenced “No Shade in the Shadow of The Cross” are gorgeous reflections on childhood. When Stevens whispers in multi-tracked harmony over the album’s title track—an impressionistic portrait of his mother and stepfather that glows with nostalgic details—he delivers a haunting centerpiece.

Following his scintillating debut under the Father John Misty moniker—2012’s *Fear Fun*—journeyman singer/songwriter Josh Tillman delivers his most inspired and candid album yet. Filled with gorgeous melodies and grandiose production, *I Love You, Honeybear* finds Tillman applying his immense lyrical gifts to questions of love and intimacy. “Chateau Lobby 4 (In C for Two Virgins)” is a radiant folk tune, burnished by gilded string arrangements and mariachi horn flourishes. Elsewhere, Tillman pushes his remarkable singing voice to new heights on the album’s powerful centerpiece, “When You’re Smiling and Astride Me,” a soulful serenade of epic proportions. “I’d never try to change you,” he sings, clearly moved. “As if I could, and if I were to, what’s the part that I’d miss most?”

*A word about the refurbished deluxe edition 2xLP* With the new repressing of the deluxe, tri-colored vinyl that is now available again for purchase, we ask just one favor that will also serve as your only and final warning: The deluxe, pop-up-art-displaying jacket WILL warp the new vinyl if said vinyl is inserted back into the jacket sleeves and inserted into your record shelf. To prevent this, we ask that you keep the new LPs outside the deluxe jacket, in the separate white jackets that they ship in. Think of these 2 parts of the same deluxe package as “neighbors, not roommates” on your shelf, and your records will remain unwarped for many years to come (assuming you don’t leave them out in extreme temperatures or expose them to other forces of nature that would normally cause a record to warp…)! *The LP is cut at 45 rpm. Please adjust your turntable speed accordingly!* “I Love You, Honeybear is a concept album about a guy named Josh Tillman who spends quite a bit of time banging his head against walls, cultivating weak ties with strangers and generally avoiding intimacy at all costs. This all serves to fuel a version of himself that his self-loathing narcissism can deal with. We see him engaging in all manner of regrettable behavior. “In a parking lot somewhere he meets Emma, who inspires in him a vision of a life wherein being truly seen is not synonymous with shame, but possibly true liberation and sublime, unfettered creativity. These ambitions are initially thwarted as jealousy, self-destruction and other charming human character traits emerge. Josh Tillman confesses as much all throughout. “The album progresses, sometimes chronologically, sometimes not, between two polarities: the first of which is the belief that the best love can be is finding someone who is miserable in the same way you are and the end point being that love isn’t for anyone who isn’t interested in finding a companion to undertake total transformation with. I won’t give away the ending, but sex, violence, profanity and excavations of the male psyche abound. “My ambition, aside from making an indulgent, soulful, and epic sound worthy of the subject matter, was to address the sensuality of fear, the terrifying force of love, the unutterable pleasures of true intimacy, and the destruction of emotional and intellectual prisons in my own voice. Blammo. “This material demanded a new way of being made, and it took a lot of time before the process revealed itself. The massive, deranged shmaltz I heard in my head, and knew had to be the sound of this record, originated a few years ago while Emma and I were hallucinating in Joshua Tree; the same week I wrote the title track. I chased that sound for the entire year and half we were recording. The means by which it was achieved bore a striking resemblance to the travails, abandon and transformation of learning how to love and be loved; see and be seen. There: I said it. Blammo.” -Josh Tillman (A.K.A. Father John Misty) All LP versions are 45 rpm. All purchases come with digital downloads.

*Art Angels*’ opening trio of songs present a handy summation of Claire Boucher’s singular appeal. The operatic “Laughing and Not Being Normal” opens before making way for “California”. Ostensibly an irresistible country-twanged foot-tapper and easily the catchiest thing she’s recorded, its lyrics unload a bleak commentary on her industry’s treatment of female stars. Next up: the strident “Scream” featuring Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes and plenty of actual howling. Whether discordant and urgent (“Flesh without Blood”, “Kill V. Maim”) or dazzlingly beautiful (“Easily”, “Pin”), *Art Angels* is a Catherine wheel of ferocious pop invention and Grimes’ grandest achievement.

Drake surprised everyone at the beginning of 2015 when he dropped *If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late*, an impressive 17-track release that combines the contemplative and confrontational with plenty of cavernous production from longtime collaborator Noah “40” Shebib. While Drizzy joins mentor Lil Wayne in questioning the loyalty of old friends on the woozy, Wondagurl-produced “Used To,” “Energy” is the cold-blooded highlight—on which he snarls, “I got enemies.” Later, amid the electrifying barbs of “6PM in New York,” Drake considers his own mortality and legacy: “28 at midnight. I wonder what’s next for me.”

After a run of four increasingly ambitious albums in just half a decade you’d perhaps forgive English singer/songwriter Laura Marling a dip in scope and upward trajectory on her fifth record. Not a bit of it. If anything *Short Movie* pushes further, with Marling unafraid to add blockbusting production to her exquisite bare-bones folk (witness the countryfied sass of “Strange” and the rumbling, stadium-ready thunder of “False Hope”). It’s the title track however—an existential epiphany reconfigured as a thrillingly profane call to arms—that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with her best work.

A wondrous debut from the house producer of indie-pop romantics The xx, *In Colour* is the sound of dance music heard at helicopter height: beautiful, distant, and surprising at every turn. Whether summoning old-school drum ’n’ bass (“Gosh”) or dancehall-inflected pop (the Young Thug and Popcaan double feature “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)”), the mood here is consummately relaxed, more like a spring morning than a busy night. Laced throughout the thump and sparkle are fragments of recorded conversation and the ambience of city streets—details that make the music feel as though it has a life of its own.

Elaenia is a dazzling score which puts Shepherd in the spotlight as a composer who has produced an album that bridges the gap between his rapturous dance music and formative classical roots that draws upon everything Shepherd has done to date. Growing up in Manchester - he started out as a chorister at an early age - Shepherd eventually arrived in London for university, where he spent the next five years engineering Elaenia, all the while DJing in cities across the globe and working towards his PhD in neuroscience. An album that draws inspiration from classical, jazz, electronic music, soul and even Brazilian popular music, Elaenia - named after the bird of the same name - is the epitome of the forward-thinking Floating Points vision in 2015. Musically, the mesmerising ebbs and flows of Elaenia span moments of light and dark; rigidity and freedom; elegance and chaos. The lush, euphoric enlightenment of ‘Silhouettes (I, II & III)’ - a three-part composition that acts as a testament to those early days Shepherd spent playing in various ensembles, complete with an immensely tight rhythm section that ends up providing a cathartic, blissful release. Elsewhere, Shepherd’s knack for masterful late night sets bare fruition to the hypnotic, electronic pulse of ‘Argenté’, which leads into final track 'Peroration Six' - a track with one of the biggest tension-and-release moments in music this year. Shepherd - the ensemblist, the producer and scientist - even built a harmonograph from scratch to create the artwork for Elaenia, the end result created by using it and 2 fibre optic cables of 0.5 and 1.5mm diameters, which were connected to light sources responding to bass drum and white noise percussive sounds from the album track ‘For Marmish’. Like his contemporaries Caribou and Four Tet, Shepherd has nurtured the Floating Points name into one renowned for ambitious and forward-thinking DJ sets, having performed all over the world at events and clubs such as Output NYC, Trouw, Sonar, Unit in Tokyo, Panorama Bar and, of course, Nuits Sonores (which lent its name to his seminal track from summer 2014) as well as the much missed Plastic People, where he held a residency for five years. Elaenia also features a huge variety of contributors, including drums from Tom Skinner and Leo Taylor plus vocals from Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne, Layla Rutherford and Shepherd himself. Elsewhere there's Susumu Mukai taking up bass, Qian Wu and Edward Benton sporting violins, Matthew Kettle on the viola, Alex Reeve on guitar and Joe Zeitlin on the cello.

After a 12-year break between studio albums, Blur remain as intrepid and inventive as they’ve ever been. *The Magic Whip* finds the Britpop icons reuniting with a collection that\' s both wonderfully familiar and endlessly surprising. “Lonesome Street” kicks off with the ecstatic crunch of guitar and then takes on new colors and textures, with psychedelic synth flourishes and kooky harmonies. While the gleefully distorted “I Broadcast” buzzes and roars, the melancholy sway of “New World Towers” and the serpentine soul of “My Terracotta Heart” leave a haunting afterglow.

The most ambitious jazz album to arrive in ages, Los Angeles saxophonist/composer Kamasi Washington\'s debut clocks in at 174 minutes—with never a dull moment. While his flawless 10-piece band already packs a wallop, thanks to their doubled basses and drums, Washington embellishes them with a string section and angelic choir. Like his luminous playing on Kendrick Lamar’s *To Pimp a Butterfly*, Washington solos with power and grace here. Versions of \"Cherokee\" and Terence Blanchard\'s \"Malcolm\'s Theme\" nod to jazz tradition, but it\'s originals like \"Change of the Guard\" that signal his truly epic aspirations.

The story begins with a man on high. He is an old man, a warrior, and the guardian to the gates of a city. Two miles below his mountainous perch, he observes a dojo, where a group of young men train night and day. Eventually, the old man expects a challenger to emerge. He hopes for the day of his destruction, for this is the cycle of life. Finally the doors fly open and three young men burst forth to challenge the old master. The first man is quick, but not strong enough. The second is quick, and strong, but not wise enough. The third stands tall, and overtakes the master. The Changing of the Guard has at long last been achieved. But then the old man wakes up. He looks down at the dojo and realizes he’s been daydreaming. The dojo below exists, but everyone in training is yet a child. By the time they grow old enough to challenge the old man, he has disappeared. This is, in essence, both a true story and a carefully constructed musical daydream, one that will further unfold in May of 2015, in a brazen release from young Los Angeles jazz giant, composer, and bandleader Kamasi Washington. The Epic is unlike anything jazz has seen, and not just because it emanates from the... more credits released October 2, 2015 Recorded at King Size Sound Labs. Engineered by Tony Austin, Chris Constable and Brian Rosemeyer. Mixed by Benjamin Tierney. Mastered by Stephen Marcussen at Marcussen Mastering.

When Panda Bear met the Grim Reaper, they jammed. Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear, a.k.a. one-fourth of the founding members of Animal Collective, has had a far-from-quiet few years since the release of his fourth solo record, 2011’s Tomboy. Since the breakout success of 2007’s universally-adored Person Pitch, each new Panda Bear release is a highly anticipated event, and with a high-profile Daft Punk collaboration later, that’s more the case than ever. But if the title of his fifth solo album as Panda Bear seems to portend certain doom, think again. Taking his inspiration from ‘70s dub duo albums like King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown and Augustus Pablo Meets Lee Perry & the Wailers Band, Panda Bear prefers to frame his latest work as less of a battle and more a collaboration. “I see it [as] more comic-booky, a little more lighthearted,” he says. “Like Alien Vs. Predator.” Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper finds our hero leaving the airy minimalism of Tomboy and unpacking his sonic toolbox again, rearranging the multitude of his disparate influences into the ever-morphing concoction he refers to as “the soup.” Old school hip-hop textures and production techniques meld with the intuitive, cyclical melodies he has become known for, for a sound that is at once dense and playful. The slithering beat of “Boys Latin” is topped with a campfire-ready chant that wouldn’t be out of place on an early Animal Collective record; on album centerpiece “Mr. Noah”, a pulsing swamp of buzzes and squeals blossoms into a rousing, immediately infectious chorus. “Tropic of Cancer” punctuates the album with a head-turning horn intro and an ethereal harp sample taken from, of all places, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite. He experiments with balladry even further on “Lonely Wanderer,” a dreamy piano haze laced with a foreboding synth growl. Noah has taken the effortless pop sensibilities he showed the world he was uniquely adept with last year’s Daft Punk collaboration, and gone back to the laboratory with them, twisting them into something darker and more tactile. It’s a layered, at times wholly unidentifiable soundscape, and so it may come as a surprise that Panda Bear utilized readymade sample packs throughout almost the entire record. “I got into the idea of taking something that felt kind of common — the opposite of unique — and trying to translate that into something that felt impossible,” he says. Breaking with his previous practice of largely creating each album in a fixed environment, Noah says the recording process was “really disparate, I was all over the place.” The textures for the album came together everywhere from El Paso, Texas, to a garage by the beach near his home in Lisbon, Portugal, where he has lived with his family since 2004. In a relationship that already proved fruitful on Tomboy, Panda Bear partnered again with Pete “Sonic Boom” Kember, this time in a more top-to-bottom production role. “He brings stuff to the table that I wouldn’t think of,” says Noah. “You not only go to [new] places, but you figure out things about yourself that you wouldn’t have otherwise.” Ultimately its dynamism, not death, Panda Bear is tackling. “Some of the songs address a big change, or a big transformation,” he says. “Meeting the Grim Reaper in that context I liked a whole lot.” Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper signifies a pivotal point for an artist who has proven he can continue to evolve while remaining at the top of his game. “It’s sort of marking change — not necessarily an absolute death, but the ending of something, and hopefully the beginning of something else.” Over the last year, Panda Bear has been touring with what is his most developed live show yet, featuring eye-popping, candy-colored visuals by frequent Animal Collective collaborator Danny Perez, ever complimenting his vivid sonic palette. Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper comes to hyper-real life in this live context, melding the emotional melodicism of the album with the dizzyingly affective light and video show, creating a deeply connective fan experience. Panda Bear meets the Grim Reaper in these live shows, and we are all witness.

A powerful fusion of Cuban/African folk music, downtempo, soul and R&B, Ibeyi’s sound is like no other—groovy, haunting and organic. Of Cuban descent, the twins exploded onto the French music scene, their eponymous debut album and mesmerising hit singles “River”, “Mama Says” and “Oya” already establishing them as a lasting phenomenon of World music. Discover their potent compositions right here.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s third album filters the warped, psychedelic strangeness of 2011’s *Unknown Mortal Orchestra* and 2013’s *II* through the novelistic side of soul artists like Prince and Stevie Wonder. Named in part after multi-instrumentalist mastermind Ruban Nielson’s difficult foray into polyamory, *Multi-Love* explores huge themes (trust, love, family) with vintage synthesizers and analog haze, flirting with disco (“Can’t Keep Checking My Phone”), funk (“Necessary Evil”), and soft rock along the way.

The threads of our past never unravel, they hover like invisible webs, occasionally glistening due to a sly angle of the sun. On 'Multi-Love', Unknown Mortal Orchestra frontman and multi-instrumentalist Ruban Nielson reflects on relationships: airy, humid longing, loss, the geometry of desire that occurs when three people align. Where Nielson addressed the pain of being alone on II, 'Multi-Love' takes on the complications of being together. 'Multi-Love' adds dimensions to the band's already kaleidoscopic approach, with Nielson exploring a newfound appreciation for synthesizers. The new songs channel the spirit of psych innovators without ignoring the last 40 years of music, forming a flowing, cohesive whole that reflects restless creativity. Cosmic escapes and disco rhythms speak to developing new vocabulary, while Nielson's vocals reach powerful new heights. "It felt good to be rebelling against the typical view of what an artist is today, a curator," he says. "It's more about being someone who makes things happen in concrete ways. Building old synthesizers and bringing them back to life, creating sounds that aren't quite like anyone else's. I think that’s much more subversive." While legions of artists show fidelity to the roots of psychedelia, Unknown Mortal Orchestra shares the rare quality that makes the genre's touchstones so vital: constant exploration.

group for her debut album on the highly credible indie Merge Records and her third under the name Waxahatchee. Bred in Alabama and currently living in Philly to avoid the distracting rents of Brooklyn, Crutchfield sings with the unselfconscious joy that comes with succeeding on your own terms, even when she’s confessing to feelings of worthlessness (“The Dirt,” “<“). She’s part indie pop and part concise troubadour, with a band that supports and never gets in the way. Lyrics feel dreamlike and other times quite sincere and concerned, but the minimalist approach feels freeing.

*What a Time to Be Alive* captures Drake and Future at the height of their powers. Recorded in six days, their interplay is respectful as it is complementary, matching Drake’s inward-facing narratives with Future’s personal demon-slaying. Club anthems like “Jumpman,” “Digital Dash,” and “Diamonds Dancing” fulfill the rap nerd fantasy of two superheroes trading lyrical blows in the octagon.

As epitomised by a title track referencing his haemorrhoids, the former Czars frontman has lost none of his candor or humor on this third solo album. His melodic skill remains intact too and, after the electro-pop of 2013’s *Pale Green Ghosts*, Grant investigates robotic funk (“Snug Slacks”), taut techno (“Disappointing”) and sumptuous FM rock (“Down Here”) while skewering ex-lovers and contemplating personal crises. Even on his most upbeat record yet, it’s an ability to amuse, shock and discomfit–sometimes in just one verse–that makes Grant such a compelling songwriter.

It’s been the most spectacular of journeys, from a place in time when John Grant feared he’d never make music again, to winning awards, accolades and Top 20 chart positions, and collaborating with Sinead O’Connor, Goldfrapp, Elton John and Hercules & Love Affair. The fact he subsequently won a Best International Male Solo Artist nomination at the 2014 BRITS alongside Justin Timberlake, Eminem, Bruno Mars and Drake, seemed like some fantasy dreamt up in a moment of outrageous hubris. Just months later, the BBC’s request for a session with a symphony orchestra followed by Grant taking the Royal Northern Sinfonia on a UK tour, confirmed that it was simply the latest spectacular chapter in his personal and artistic renaissance. Now comes Grant’s third album, the invitingly titled Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, a veritable tour de force that further refines and entwines his two principal strands of musical DNA, namely the sumptuous tempered ballad and the taut, fizzing electronic pop song. There are newer musical accomplishments across its panoply of towering sound, like the title track’s new steely demeanour, while the ominous drama of “Black Blizzard” echoes both John Carpenter and Bernard ‘Black Devil Disco Club’ Fevre’s beautiful and icy synthscapes. The contagious, gleeful “You And Him” marries buzzing rock with a squelchy electronic undertow, while orchestral drama swathes the bad-dreamy “Global Warming” and the album’s gorgeously aching widescreen finale “Geraldine”. Grey Tickles, Black Pressure was recorded in Dallas with producer John Congleton (St Vincent, Franz Ferdinand, Swans) - coincidentally the same state of Texas where Grant nailed his 2010 solo debut Queen Of Denmark in the company of Denton’s wondrous Midlake. After that landmark return, which MOJO made its album of 2010, 2013’s Pale Green Ghosts was made in Icelandic capital Reykjavik (where Grant, a native of Buchanan, Michigan, later raised in Parker, Colorado, has lived ever since), which entered the UK Top 20 in its first week and ended up as Rough Trade Shop’s Album of the Year 2013, The Guardian’s No.2 and in MOJO and Uncut’s Top Five). Such recognition, iced by years of sell-out shows across Europe and a recent US tour as special invited guest of the legendary Pixies, should allow the notoriously self-critical and insecure Grant the passing thought that Grey Tickles, Black Pressure will deservedly cement his reputation as the most disarmingly honest, caustic, profound and funny diarist of the human condition in the persistently testing, even tragic, era that is the 21st century. “I do think the album’s great, and I’m really proud of it,” he says. “I wanted to get moodier and angrier on this record, but I probably had a lot more fun making it.” He cites “amazing” session keyboardist Bobby Sparks, “who really funked things up,” as part of that fun; likewise a month of Dallas sunshine “after a brutal dark winter in Iceland. And there was a lot of laughter.” That said, fun isn’t the first ingredient you’d expect when you know the root of the album title. “‘Grey tickles’ is the literal translation from Icelandic for ‘mid-life crisis’, while ‘black pressure’ is the direct translation from Turkish for ‘nightmare’,” Grant explains, an unusually gifted linguist (he’s fluent in German, Russian and now tackling Icelandic). Nevertheless, there are plenty of positive streaks in Grey Tickles, Black Pressure. Grant is in fabulous voice throughout and has moved on from the specific subject matter that shaped both previous albums (though the concept of love always figures into the mix) “Disappointing” – featuring vocal guest Tracey Thorn – is an exuberant tribute to new love, against which Grant’s favourite Saturday Night Live comediennes, Russian artists and “ballet dancers with or without tights” pale in comparison. The album’s other two guests are vocalist Amanda Palmer and former Banshee’s drummer Budgie. Petur Hallgrimsson (guitar) and Jakob Smari Magnusson (bass) from Grant’s live band, and returning arranger Fiona Brice, complete what was a particularly happy studio family. Even the album’s creative process was a triumph against adversity. Having had to include new material for the orchestral tour, John Congleton then asked that Grant turn up in Dallas with all the new material written. In spite of being exceedingly untalented in the art of time management AND the dark, brutal Icelandic winter which always takes a toll, “I got everything written in time,” he says, “and then it was all recorded and mixed in a month - which for me is insane, because I always want more time and I’m such an over-thinker. I intentionally put myself into that situation because I wanted to challenge myself, as I’ve done with every album.” But the end result is indeed a moody, angry record, laced with levering humour and wounded pathos, yet as dark as Reykjavik in February. It starts and ends with spoken word snippets called, simply, “Intro” and “Outro”, both taken from the same Biblical quote (from 1 Corinthians 13) regarding the divinity of love that young John was taught in church. In between are 12 songs that document the reality of love on planet Earth, corrupted by “pain, misunderstandings, jealousy, objectification and expectations,” as Grant puts it. Love corrupted is explored by the likes of the dreamy AOR-gasm “Down Here”, with its “oceans of longing, guessing games and no guarantees”, according to Grant. The funky Crisco-disco of “Snug Slacks” rails against those beautiful people – “the modern celebrity” he says - who so unnerve him, forcing him “to have developed such a very high tolerance for inappropriate behaviour” of the lyric. But there is hatred too. “You And Him” rails against those who’d crush all before them, from the profiteering US food and tobacco industries to property developers and those thugs who perpetuate prejudice and bigotry. The title track posits that “children who have cancer” means we mustn’t indulge in self-pity. However, he notes, we must grin and bare it while waiting for death to take everything we’ve fought so hard to gain. The twisting electro-rhythmic “Voodoo Doll” is a counterbalance, “for a friend who is far away in the throes of depression, I make a voodoo doll and do good things to it, even though things invariably gets messy!” If only Grant had such a benefactor when young, blushing uncontrollably with shame, an awful memory brought to life in the simmering cauldron of “Magma Arrives”. The album’s last two songs are among its finest. “No More Tangles” fights against co-dependency “with narcissistic queers,” he sings, through the metaphor of hair care products. “It’s about not apologizing for who you are and not putting up with unnecessary bullshit from people who do not care about you”. “Although my story is no more or less important than anyone else’s, at least at this point I can admit to being a human who deserves to be happy no more or less than anyone else.” But in “Geraldine” (as in the late Geraldine Paige, “one of freakiest, strongest, coolest actresses I’ve come across”), Grant’s latest actor-inspired song (following “Sigourney Weaver” and “Ernest Borgine”) is Grant’s chance to ask her if she too had to “put up with this shit” that life dishes out. Ongoing health issues (not least of which is handling his HIV Positive status), still processing, “decades of brainwashing,” he says from a traumatic childhood, Grant still manages to keep fighting the good fight, and writing his way out of trouble with another fantastic record. “I want to continue to challenge myself,” he says. “To keep collaborating, to get the sound or the direction that will take me where I need to go. To keep taking the bull by the horns.”

When the biggest stars in our universe begin to burn up and collapse they release neon gas. When electricity is passed through neon gas it glows. When it’s captured within glass we can use it to make coloured light. When that glass is shaped into the outline of a naked girl it can be hung outside a strip club. In this meeting of the celestial and the profane, the epic and the particular, lies Jaga’s new album Starfire. In December 2012, Jaga’s main songwriter, Lars Horntveth, left Norway and moved to Los Angeles. There, on the other side of the world, inspired by the space around him, the size of the sky above him, the endless light flashing past as he drove round the city at night, he began composing the new suite of works which would become Starfire. Periodically he was joined by other members of the 8-piece band who would lay down their contributions in his apartment/studio before returning home to Norway. When the basics of the album were in place, he went back to Oslo to finish the record in the professional studios that the band had built and furnished over the years. The result is a revelation — in itself no mean feat for a band with a twenty year history. After the more heavily scored work of One Armed Bandit and Live with the Britten Sinfonia, Starfire moves to a more experimental studio-led approach - "The idea was that we thought about the songs as both the original song and a remix in one" - morphing each song into a variety of sonic directions. With an increase in the use of electronics and the guitar work of Marcus Forsgren given new prominence, it’s probably the least straightforwardly “jazz” of their records. Instead, all the elements which have made them such an important band—the way their technical chops combine with the kind of mutual sympathy which comes from growing up together—are here melded into an utterly unique sound on what could turn out to be the group’s crowning achievement. Centering around the Horntveth siblings (Lars, Martin and Line) the eight piece band Jaga formed in 1994, when Lars was still only fourteen. In their two decades of existence they've released five studio albums, one live album, five EPs (CD and vinyl), one live DVD and now a box set. Five of those eight original members are still in the group and all this has contributed to the group’s deep mutual understanding. Add in a guest like Leon Dewan, who plays his own Swarmatron on ‘Shinkansen’ and Lars’ increasing use of a Pocket Piano synth as a tool for composition and you get the basis of a more hard-edged, electronic sound, perfectly melded with live musicianship. Starfire is a beautiful, visceral, utterly exhilarating piece of work that keeps spiralling up and away, structurally complex, musically rigorous, but without ever losing touch with a certain earthy sensuality and human sympathy. It could just be Jaga’s masterpiece.

Skewed, idiosyncratic synth-pop from Berlin-based Jaakko Eino Kalevi.

Architect showcases a huge breadth in Christopher’s songwriting abilities. Lead singles ‘Say’ and ‘For’ are characterized by their gentleness and warmth, while ‘Garden’ (released as a single with the album) is bright, sunny, irrepressible. On the other side, ‘By’ and ‘Novices’ draw more overtly from Christopher’s interest in electronic music and modern composition. He references The Knife and Arvo Pärt as willingly as Burt Bacharach and The Carpenters. Add to that shades of Talk Talk, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, The Ink Spots and the classical and choral compositions of Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Fauré, and a picture of the record collection that informs Christopher’s music starts to become clear.

These ten songs of Fresh Blood are guides for times of joy, agony and the middle distance where we most often linger. It is a bracing, beguiling record and a bold advance for White - a record that feels like the brilliant bloom to the striking bud of 2012's Big Inner.

This thrilling Congolese band mixes old, new, and spacey.

After releasing 4 mixtapes + 5 EPs, today sees the release of A CURIOUS TALE OF TRIALS + PERSONS, the highly anticipated debut album from the 21 year old Hip Hop phenomenon known as Little Simz. Released on her own independent label (AGE 101: MUSIC) the conceptual 10 track debut album (featuring the anthemic cuts "WINGS" + "DEAD BODY"), which focuses on the subject of fame and it's effects, features production from her SPACE AGE + AGE 101: MUSIC affiliates Josh Arcé and OTG, alongside Prezident Jeff, DEEZY, Tiffany Gouché, Sigurd, IAMNOBODI and The Hics (who are also the only featured artists on the LP). The Award-winning North London born rapper + musician who has made her mark on a global scale with a series of critically acclaimed mixtapes and EPs, earning her global accolade as she soon became tipped to watch by the likes of VEVO, Red Bull, The Independent, BBC, The Guardian amongst many, landing her nominations for a bevy of awards including BET, MOBO and WORLDWIDE AWARDS (where she scooped up the Breakthrough Artist Of The Year trophy), public support from hip hop legends and peers alike. “I’m in the best place in life right now. I finished my album, A Curious Tale Of Trials + Persons, I've signed to myself and got my own label - AGE 101: Music and I'm a very fortunate position where I'm able to put the album out on my own terms. This is an album without singles, it's a complete body of work, a concept album. It's time for me to show and prove and I'm more than ready to make my mark” - Little Simz.

The peerless indie trio’s first LP in a decade is 33 minutes of pure, lean, honest-to-goodness rock. Corin Tucker is in full command of her howitzer of a voice on standouts like “Surface Envy.” Carrie Brownstein’s haughty punk sneer leads the glorious “A New Wave.” Janet Weiss’ masterful drumming navigates the songwriting’s hairpin tonal shifts, from the glittering “Hey Darling” to the turbulent album closer, “Fade.\" *No Cities to Love* is an electrifying step forward for one of the great American rock bands.

“We sound possessed on these songs,” says guitarist/vocalist Carrie Brownstein about Sleater-Kinney’s eighth studio album, No Cities to Love. “Willing it all–the entire weight of the band and what it means to us–back into existence.” The new record is the first in 10 years from the acclaimed trio–Brownstein, vocalist/guitarist Corin Tucker, and drummer Janet Weiss–who came crashing out of the ’90s Pacific Northwest riot grrrl scene, setting a new bar for punk’s political insight and emotional impact. Formed in Olympia, WA in 1994, Sleater-Kinney were hailed as “America’s best rock band” by Greil Marcus in Time Magazine, and put out seven searing albums in 10 years before going on indefinite hiatus in 2006. But the new album isn’t about reminiscing, it’s about reinvention–the ignition of an unparalleled chemistry to create new sounds and tell new stories. “I always considered Corin and Carrie to be musical soulmates in the tradition of the greats,” says Weiss, whose drums fuel the fire of Tucker and Brownstein’s vocal and guitar interplay. “Something about taking a break brought them closer, desperate to reach together again for their true expression.” The result is a record that grapples with love, power and redemption without restraint. “The three of us want the same thing,” says Weiss. “We want the songs to be daunting.” Produced by long-time Sleater-Kinney collaborator John Goodmanson, who helmed many of the band’s earlier albums including 1997 breakout set Dig Me Out, No Cities to Love is indeed formidable from the first beat. Lead track “Price Tag” is a pounding anthem about greed and the human cost of capitalism, establishing both the album’s melodic drive and its themes of power and powerlessness–giving voice, as Tucker says, to those who “struggle to be heard against the dominant culture or status quo.” “Bury Our Friends” has Tucker and Brownstein joining vocal forces, locking arms to defeat a pressing fear of insignificance. It’s also emblematic of the band’s give and take, and commitment to working and reworking each song until it’s as strong as it can be. “‘Bury Our Friends’ was written in the 11th hour,” says Tucker. “Carrie had her great chime-y guitar riff, but we had gone around in circles with how to make that part into a cohesive song. I think Carrie finally cracked the chorus idea and yelled, ‘Sing with me!’” “A New Wave” similarly went through many iterations during the writing process, with five or six potential choruses, before crystallizing. It enters with an insistent guitar riff, and a battle between acceptance and defiance–“Every day I throw a little party,” howls Brownstein, “but a fit would be more fitting.” The album’s meditative title track was inspired by the trend of atomic tourism and its function as a metaphor for someone enthralled and impressed by power. “That form of power, that presence, is not only destructive it’s also hollowed-out, past its prime,” says Brownstein. “The character in that song has made a ritual out of seeking structures and people in which to find strength, yet they keep coming up empty.” Sleater-Kinney’s decade apart made room for family and other fruitful collaborations, as well as an understanding of what the band’s singular chemistry demands. “Creativity is about where you want your blood to flow, because in order to do something meaningful and powerful there has to be life inside of it,” says Brownstein. “Sleater-Kinney isn’t something you can do half-assed or half-heartedly. We have to really want it. This band requires a certain desperation, a direness. We have to be willing to push because the entity that is this band will push right back.” “The core of this record is our relationship to each other, to the music, and how all of us still felt strongly enough about those to sweat it out in the basement and to try and reinvent our band,” adds Tucker. With No Cities to Love, “we went for the jugular.” –Evie Nagy

“Don’t remove my pain / It is my chance to heal.” Delivered in a wounded cry of desperation, this lyric—from standout track “Notget”—is emblematic of Björk’s profoundly vulnerable ninth studio album. Given sonic texture by her lush string arrangements and the skittering beats of co-producer Arca, *Vulnicura* was written in response to the dissolution of Björk’s longtime relationship with artist Matthew Barney. Following the cosmically conceptual *Biophilia* (2011), it’s disarming yet reassuring to hear the Icelandic icon’s stratospheric voice wailing bluntly about recognizable human emotions. In the vibrant album closer “Quicksand,” she sings of finding new life through heartache: “The steam from this pit / Will form a cloud / For her to live on.”

A decade on from *Ruby Blue*’s avant-jazz and eight years after the glistening disco of *Overpowered*, Ireland’s abiding electropop queen stylishly retakes her throne on this sumptuous, ever-shifting third solo album. Murphy (alongside Moloko collaborator and new co-writer Eddie Stevens) isn’t afraid to hurl new ideas into an already-brimming pot, as evidenced by the spaghetti western drama of “Exile” and the escalating synth-funk atmospherics on “Exploitation”. There’s always cohesion to match the fearless sonic questing, though. And at the heart of it all–with that breathy, brittle falsetto–is Murphy’s matchless delivery.

Roisin's first album in 8 years, Hairless Toys is a career defining tour de force. Tipping its hat to the dark disco of European house music, Casablanca Records and Grace Jones, while seamlessly taking in the freedom and organic spirit of jazz, country and gospel. Hairless Toys is a Mercury Prize shortlisted album.

The band teams up again with Jamie Grier, who mixed and mastered their first LP, this time placing Grier in the recording chair at Glasgow’s Green Door Studios, while mastering duties fall to Alan Douches (Japandroids, We Were Promised Jetpacks). The album is full of the same timeless spark that drove the debut, propelled by Billy Easter’s toothsome bass lines and Rachel Aggs’ jagged yet rubbery guitar. All three band members lend their voices to Why Choose, pushing and pulling between Aggs’ knife hilt yelps and drummer Andrew Milk’s steadied responses, giving heft to the anxious energy of tracks like “Straight Lines” and brevity to the detached cool of “Passing Through” and “Private Party.” The band has shown unflagging support for local indie shops in their native UK, delivering (and quickly selling out of) their debut personally in shops all over London. They’ve recently completed tours with Merchandise and fellow UK post-punk unit Golden Teacher. Upcoming legs with Joanna Gruesome, Ought and Shannon and The Clams round out their fall with the addition of a stopover at CMJ to usher in the sophomore release properly in the live setting here in the States.

Dance music has undergone a seismic shift in the last decade. So how do synth-pop pioneers New Order respond on their first LP since 2005? For \"Restless,\" they go straight back to their roots. It\'s a shimmering pop opus of ringing guitars, a \'60s radio chorus, and those familiar atmospheric synths from original keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who returns on *Music Complete*. But she\'s not the only old friend here: keep an ear out for vocals from Iggy Pop and some production tricks from The Chemical Brothers\' Tom Rowlands.

The long awaited album will be New Order’s first full studio release since 2005’s Waiting For The Siren’s Call, and their debut for Mute. Music Complete finds the group revitalised, and where the group has previously pushed toward electronics or guitars, here the two are in balance. Music Complete also marks a return to the studio for Gillian Gilbert, this is her first album with New Order since 2001’s Get Ready.

The London-based producer broadens modern R&B’s possibilities on a questing debut. Opener “Remembrance (Part I)”’s collision of 16th-century poetry and twitchy alt-funk establishes the range and ambition of his ideas before he seeds wub-wub bass into gentle folk on “Midas Palm” and coaxes the sexually-frustrated funk of “Honeydripper“ into electronica and jazz. Such eclecticism can be disconcerting but Royce Junior’s old-school belief in vivid melodies and soulful vocals ensures *The Ashen Tang* is consistently engaging.

*Are You Satisfied?* is a raucous ruckus. The excitable duo of Isaac Holman and Laurie Vincent—drums and guitar/voice, respectively—pogo along the third rail dividing primitive blues-rock and boom-box punk. They’d much rather search for solutions to apathy than give in to it. Their desperation is evident on “Do Something” and “Cheer Up London,” which opens with a gobby laugh that could have erupted from John Lydon. But it isn’t all societal worries—they zero in on relationship woes on “She Wants Me Now” and “Sockets,” where wounds are vigorously salted, not licked.