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Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn – Crimson

Earlier this month Dawn Richards teamed up with multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Spencer Zahn on Pigments: an extraordinarily good album that explores themes including “the power of self-expression through living art, through motion”. A hypnotic mix of classical, jazz, soul and electronica, it flits between being deeply meditative and intensely rousing, often within a single song, before segueing seamlessly into the next . A truly impressive body of work.

https://lnk.to/Pigments

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Nosaj Thing feat. serpentwithfeet – Woodland

Nosaj Thing has just released the best album of his career. Or my favourite at least, which is my little self-obsessed world amounts to the same thing. Continua sees him lean harder into collaboration than ever before, and with a very impressive range of artists; serpentwithfeet, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Toro Y Moi not least among them. Picking a focus track is a tough ask as the album flows so beautifully – with a consistent tone and feel yet with enough variation to avoid coming across as one note – but here’s the incredible Woodland with the aforementioned serpentwithfeet to hit you right in the feels.

https://nosajthing.bandcamp.com/album/continua

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Alice Boman – Honey

Alice Boman’s new album The Space Between is an extremely relaxing way to start your day. Stripped back and subdued and sitting somewhere between folk and very chilled electronic pop, Bowman has cited Brian Eno, Thom Yorke and Angel Olsen (amongst others) as artists who influenced the LP, which should give you a pretty decent idea of what to expect. Honey actually out a couple of months ago, but it’s the album opener and my favourite, so here it is.

https://www.aliceboman.com

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Quinton Barnes – Fuck On U

Quinton Barnes’s fantastic new album For The Love Of Drugs landed last week, and while my overall takeaway from the LP is that Quinton has bascially had enough of everyone’s shit, there are a few gentler, borderline romantic moments, of which Fuck On U is arguably the strongest. Boasting the crunchy synth lines that characterise much of the album’s production paired with some truly gorgeous piano, it sees QB showing his vulnerable side to powerful effect.

https://quintonbarnes.bandcamp.com/album/for-the-love-of-drugs-2

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Music

System Olympia – Give Me

I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a track more than this in the last few months. Just listen those pads! Ridiculous. Taken from her new “mini-album” (EP?) Racing Heart, which is also great.

https://systemolympia.bandcamp.com

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Music

NNAMDÏ – Anti

NNAMDÏ’s head-spinning new album Please Take A Seat takes great delight in wrong-footing you. Relatively straightforward rap one second, it will turn sharply into chaotic electronics or jaunty pop before throwing in the kind of guitar riffs more at home in 80s stadium rock. I’m not sure it always works, but it is highly ambitious and enjoyably eccentric. Anti is one of the more straightforwardly enjoyable moments, but it’s really worth checking out in its entirety to get the full effect of its undeniable power.

https://nnamdi.secretlyca.co/please-have-a-seat

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Rival Consoles – Vision of Self

The new album from Rival Consoles is a bit of a mixed bag, but Visions of Self is undeniably great. I like the less polished-sounding tracks a lot more than the “epic” “bangers”; sometimes it’s as if he’s trying just a lit bit too hard to pull on the heartstrings, but this is nicely subdued. Must try less hard!

https://idol-io.link/NowIs

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Lucrecia Dalt – Dicen

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If Mondays generally make you feel tense and anxious, I’d suggest maybe skipping this one; and maybe the entire album from which it is taken. Lucrecia Dalt’s new album ¡Ay! does have contain some lovely melodies and lighter moments, but most of them are buried beneath twitchy, sketchy layers; rattling off-kilter percussion; warped, half-whispered vocals. It’s undeniably beautiful, but in a slightly panic-inducing way. And this weird video – despite it focussing on someone gently floating in water – is pretty much the opposite of relaxing.

https://lucreciadalt.bandcamp.com/album/ay

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Moonlight Scorpio x Nyrus x Equanimous – New Beginnings

Bouncy, shimmering electro-pop-meets-soul from a trio of US collaborators. Shiny, chill vibes for a gloomy Thursday.

https://equanimous.bandcamp.com/track/new-beginnings

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Music

Apollo Brown & Philmore Green – Time Goes

Apollo Brown continues to stake a claim as one of the most consistent and prolific beatmakers out there. Time Goes is taken from his forthcoming collaborative album with Chicago MC Philmore Greene, a project which lands in November and promises to explore “the complete idea of introspection”. Yes, please!

https://orcd.co/costofliving