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  | | Ghosteen (gatefold 2xLP + MP3 download code)
Bad Seed Ltd Now you've stopped shouting "there's a new Nick Cave album" at everyone who walks past, comes near or might possibly be in earshot it's about time we dived into the contents of the legendary troubadour's 17th studio album. Be warned, though, what lies beneath is deep and immersive enough to drown in, and even the most effective divers wouldn't find a body. A suitably morose introduction, we think. Digressions aside, "Ghosteen" is a majestic, powerful, operatic experience that will change nobody's opinion of Cave and his band, The Bad Seeds. The works are just as innovative, poignant, graceful, melancholic, euphoric and inescapable as ever. Too many adjectives? We're making no apologies. Consider the title number, if that's not too obvious a focal point. Sparse yet grandiose, narrative driven but metaphorical, organic and earthy yet making incredible use of a theremin. Almost impossibly good, sit back and let it wash over your mind. | | | £23.25 |  | |   | |
 | | Pyroclasts (limited red vinyl LP with obi-strip)
Southern Lord US To describe "Pyroclasts" as an album would be misleading. It's certainly as commanding as any LP you'll hear this month, but running at just four tracks, and with the focus on mood rather than conventional ideas such as songcraft, it's really meant to be heard in one long, tripped-out listening session where each of the pieces meld into one huge overture. The result of a practice routine attendees of the Life Metal sessions at Electrical Audio took part in during mornings and evenings, it tells you everything there is to know when someone says "musical participants would gather and work through a 12 minute improvised modal drone", giving a chance for people to "greet each other and the space through the practice of sound immersion." Deep, guttural, distorted, expansive and riddled with discordant melodies, if you listen out for them, it stops short of white noise but guitars rarely make for such meditative scores. | | | £27.25 | | | | |
 | | Magdalene (limited gatefold red vinyl LP + insert)
Young Turks It has taken five years for FKA Twigs to follow up her astonishing first album, "LP1". With that kind of timeframe, you can't help but have high expectations for the finished product, expectations "Magdalene" more than meets from the off. An artist in the truest sense - with every step and stage in the recording process controlled by her - it's an accomplished comeback for a woman who in the last half decade has experienced both personal loss and major physical challenges. Don't expect more of the same, then, but instead a talent finding new purpose and new confidence following difficult times. With the ever-impressive Nicolas Jaar giving a helping hand, the result is a raw, honest record that's deeply personal, full of self-reflection and, ultimately, accepting and positive. Not to mention destined to be on repeat. Her position as one of the UK's most vital and compelling acts re-confirmed. | | | £15.25 | | | | |
 | | Ege Bamyasi (reissue) (limited heavyweight green vinyl LP + MP3 download code)
Mute This 1972 classic has been cited as a major influence by the likes of Beck, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and even Kanye West. The fourth album from the group, its release came at a time of growing exposure with lead single, '"Spoon", topping the German Top 10 and selling over 300,000 copies. It was this success that offered the opportunity to record the remainder of the album in their makeshift "Inner Space" home studio, an old former cinema. With bassist Holger Czukay on engineering and producing duties, several daily chess games between vocalist Damo Suzuki and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt, and a frantic recording process, Can delivered their piece de resistance - a dense, sprawling work of wild imagination, where their psychedelic adventuring intersected most perfectly with their pop sensibilities. | | | £17.50 | | | | |
 | | Spring Swells (turquoise vinyl 7" + booklet)
Daydream Library Appropriately titled, beguiling, cosmic-tipped, gritty stuff. No matter how long it has ever been since you got something new in from Thurston Moore it's always a pleasure, and a bold reminder of just how much the Sonic Youth hero still has to say. Not that he's particularly talkative on "Spring Swells", one of three simultaneous singles which together form a coherent body - the other two being "Three Graces: Alice Moki Jayne" and "Pollination". It's a single that's as much of an assault on the senses as it is a minutely detailed prog-rock symphony. Never really finding a groove, instead it bolts from the starting block before slamming the breaks on, transforming into a staccato whirlwind, spiralling, building, rolling and crashing through crescendos that never seem to release. Like the introduction to the most powerful gig you've never seen, it's the work of a bonafide master of arrangements, capable of conjuring genuine emotion from obscure noises. | | | £9.25 | | | | |
 | | Dream Girl (gatefold blue vinyl LP)
Play It Again Sam Been there, done that, got remnants of a t-shirt. Anna of the North has obviously lived. Or at least that's the impression from "Dream Girl", an album that kicks, grooves, lolls and soothes in equal measure. Clearly the product of some very real experiences, and that's just the instrumentals. It's a record that wears everything on sleeve, calling on influences and styles that don't always find themselves centre stage when it comes to matters of the heart. There's more than a hint of hip hop on "Used To Be", the jazz inflections are crystal clear on "Lonely Life", R&B nuances spread across "When R U Coming Home". Themes range from challenges faced after finding real freedom - lack of direction and deep questioning of purpose - to problems that come with co-dependence and communication. Or lack thereof. Whatever relationship inspired this wasn't the simplest, but the things we learn from rarely are. | | | £18.99 | | | | |
 | | In All Weather (clear vinyl LP + MP3 download code)
Rough Trade Fans of Josienne Clarke have been chomping at the bit to wrap their ears around this one for some time. The debut solo album from an award-winning career, the finished product is every bit as good as we hoped, offering that inherently sorrowful vocal delivery combined with pared back instrumentals that stop just short of being truly barren. It's a record about learning to stand on your own, irrespective of circumstances, and therefore a record about all that life is and can be. Reflective in nature, these are lamentations on mistakes made, the subsequent fallout, and eventual redemption by way of not hiding the scars, but using them to ensure history doesn't repeat itself. Joined by experimental pianist Elliot Galvin, jazz percussionist Dave Hamblett, harpist Mary Ann Kennedy and Sonny Johns on bass and guitar, it's tender, heart-wrenching and utterly mesmerising. | | | £15.50 | | | | |
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