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Music

Loraine James – Black Excellence (Stay On It)

Loraine James’s new album Building Something Beautiful For Me lands today and fucking hell it is amazing. I never really clicked with last year’s Reflection, but loved her ambient album as Whatever The Weather from earlier this year. Building… seems to sit somewhere between these ambient and club spaces and comes across almost like a work in progress, with tracks stopping abruptly or changing tone midway through. There are so many highlights picking a single track was very tough, but I went for Black Excellent (Stay On It) due to the simplicity of its construction – pretty much just a single, undulating synthline throughout – resolved perfectly by the bleak beauty of its final third.

https://clark.bandcamp.com/album/05-10

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Clark – Autumn Linn

Celestial ambient wanderings from Clark that should appeal to anyone who enjoyed last year’s Playground In A Lake. Taken from a compilation of new tracks, unreleased archive material and rarities, collected by the artist to release alongside the remastered reissue of his 2006 LP Body Riddle.

https://clark.bandcamp.com/album/05-10

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Music

Om Unit – Camo

Taken from the Bristol-based producer’s latest collection Acid Dub Studies II, Camo clocks in at just two-and-a-half minutes, but squeezes in a hell of a lot of influences, from its reggae-ish rhythm and stabs through plaintive ambient pads, skittering techno-evoking hats and squelchy electro bassline. Which sounds like it could be a bit of a mess, but definitely isn’t.

https://omunit.bandcamp.com/album/acid-dub-studies-ii

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Music

St. Paul & The Broken Bones – Minotaur 

St. Paul and The Broken Bones is led by singer Paul Janeway (front).

Here’s one that completely passed me by, from all the way back in January. In a week in which pretty much everyone is – quite rightly – singing the praises of Gabriels’ incredible new album, I’m listening to an album which is similarly built around another extraordinary vocal performance, but that flew mostly under the radar, at least of many of the main music reviewers. The album, The Alien Coast, is unclassifiable in parts, but is at its most satisfying when it settles into its soul-forward groove, a la the stunning Minotaur.

https://atorecords-ffm.com/thealiencoast

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Music

Avantdale Bowling Club – Without You

Blending jazz, hip-hop and some enjoyably throwback production styles (vinyl rewinds ftw!), the second album from Tom Scott’s Avantdale Bowling Club project TREES comes in like a breath of cool breeze blown all the way from New Zealand. Without You is typically laid back, with warm keys and plucked basslines rolling up lyrics like “Feeding you dreams of big, honeybees / Licking fuzz from your buds, but you never heard the buzz”.

https://avantdalebowlingclub.bandcamp.com/album/avantdale-bowling-club

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Music

Lowly – Keep Up The Good Work

Lowly are back! The wonderful Danish quintet have announced a new album Keep Up The Good Work will be landing 17 February, with the title track out today. Their last album Hifalutin was massively under appreciated so hopefully this new one will see them finally getting their dues.

https://ffm.to/keepupthegoodwork

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Music

Nilüfer Yanya – Rid Of Me

This summer I saw Nilüfer Yanya play to a more than half empty tent at Glastonbury, which is a shame because she was great. The previous day they had to close to entire field this tent was in as half a billion people turned up to hear Mel C play bangers from her eight (eight!) solo albums, and maybe Wannabe. And that’s how music works people! Yanya’s album PAINLESS is one of the best of the year, and this is her second single since, covering PJ Harvey’s Rid Of Me to enjoyably nihilistic effect.

https://niluferyanya.com

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Music

Beth Orton – Unwritten

I still strongly associate Beth Orton with the 90s. She’s released at least half a dozen albums since Trailer Park, but for me she will always be the soundtrack to hanging out in my friend’s kitchen, having dinner with his parents, waiting until we could go out and take drugs and listen to trance. I’ve not listened to a single album of hers since, but her latest Weather Alive was getting such amazing reviews, here we are. And it’s incredible from start to finish, culminating in the exquisitely devastating Unwritten, and arrives just in time to perfectly soundtrack the bleakness of winter ahead.

https://bethortonofficial.com

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Music

Rex Kalibur – Benign Abyss

Get lost in the digital waves…

https://soundcloud.com/rex-kalibur

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Music

Cate Le Bon – Typical Love

Cate Le Bon’s Pompeii is one of the finest albums of 2022 so far, and Typical Love is the first new material the Welsh artist has put out since its release. Following in a similarly idiosyncratic vein as her previous work, it’s another low-key, art-pop gem, and is the product of “a rare jam session with dearest genius friend, Stella Mozgawa”. Sparse and restrained with haunting brass, it’s reminiscent of Talking Heads in some of their odder moments.

https://catelebon.ffm.to/typicallove.OYD