Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Gracie Abrams's The Secret of Us gets served up as a special edition here and it marks her most expansive album yet. This ambitious project shows her growth as both a songwriter and vocalist and adds in already assured fan favourites like 'That's So True' and 'I Love You, I'm Sorry (Live From Vevo).' The record finds Abrams collaborating once again with Aaron Dessner and she also worked with her best friend Audrey Hobert on several tracks. Together they reflect the urgency of recounting a meaningful night to a close friend with live experiences over the past year shaping its narrative and sound. A nuanced pop album with plenty to explore.

Review: Already the winner of a Brit Award (Adele was voted the 'Critics Choice' - the most exciting new British artist expected to 'make it big' in 2008),
'19' is Adele's debut album. Citing influences as diverse as Etta James, Jill Scott, Bjork, Dusty Springfield, Billy Bragg, Billie Holiday, Jeff Buckley,
The Cure and Peggy Lee, Adele also recently completed her first solo UK tour, having toured previously with the likes of Jack Penate, Jamie T,
Raul Midon, Amos Lee and Devendra Banhart. '19' contains both her debut track 'Hometown Glory' and her smash single 'Chasing Pavements'.
Blues tinged and melancholic, Adele describes 'Chasing Pavements' as 'It's me being hopeful for a relationship that's very much over. The sort
of relationship you hate when you're in it, but miss when you're not'. A hymn to lost love and regret, 'Chasing Pavements' follows Adele's first
limited edition single 'Hometown Glory', which introduced her to the world to much critical acclaim, with NME calling it 'totally, absolutely beautiful',
Q Magazine calling her 'The voice of next year' and The Sunday Times saying 'A Star Is Born'

Review: British-Bahrani composer and trumpeter Yazz Ahmed has long been one of the most unique artists within the UK jazz scene, frequently producing music that draws on the Arabic side of her heritage (she even went as far as commissioning a unique 'quarter-tone' flugelhorn in order to play 'blue notes' not found in Western jazz and classical music). Even so, A Paradise In The Hold - her first studio album for nearly six years - is a startling concoction. Drawing influence from ambient, dub and electronica as well as jazz and Arabic music, it features Ahmed's first compositions for voice. Frequently haunting, immersive, and quietly exotic, the album sits in a unique sonic space that's never less than beguiling and intoxicating. Award nominations await!

Review: Jazzman has excavated another jazz "holy grail" here - one of the few albums ever recorded by San Francisco-based pianist (and local hero) Al Tanner. It was initially released back in 1967 by the obscure, but arguably significant, Touche label, and while popular within Californian jazz circles, garnered little exposure or sales elsewhere. It remains a fantastic album, with Tanner being joined by drummer William 'Smiley' Winters, bassist Edgar Williams, saxophonist Roy Henderson, and flautist/trumpeter George Alexander to attractively dance through a range of pleasingly breezy, musically detailed modal workouts. It's a genuinely impressive album all told, so praise must be given to Jazzman for unearthing and reissuing it.

Review: Emerging from Germany's psychedelic and progressive rock underground in the late 1960s, Amon Duul was a freewheeling collective named in honour of the "art commune" in Berlin in which they not only came together, but also recorded their turn-of-the-seventies albums - most notably the 1972 double album Disaster Luud Noma. Here reissued in fully remastered form, the album is highly significant - and not just because it is now counted as one of the earliest expressions of what would become known as krautrock. Built on dense, layered percussion and rhythms beaten out by multiple drummers, its' hard-to-pigeonhole sound drew on fuzzy psychedelic rock, twisted jazz-rock and the collective's own radical experimentation. It remains an utterly insane record, but a brilliant one at that.

Review: This set from the Future Sound of London's psychedelic rock-inspired Amorphous Androgynous project is extremely hard to pin down, thanks in no small part to its' boundary-blurring format. Officially a set of remixes of one song - 'We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal' - the album is formatted as a seamless, mixtape style musical journey in which recurring musical themes (think melodies, choral vocals, lyrical phrases and orchestral arrangements) slip in and out of ambient soundscapes, dub-influenced electronic beats, psych-rock workouts, crackly samples, field recordings and Lord knows what else. It features a stunningly epic cast of guest musicians, producers, remixes and obscure psychedelic bands, with the result being a brilliant collaborative work that sounds a little like a 21st century rock opera.

Review: Japanese folk singer-songwriter Ichiko Aoaba has built up quite a catalogue of albums and singles since making her debut 15 years ago, subtly expanding on her sparse acoustic sound via the use of effects, strings and other instrumentation associated with the British folk revival of the 1960s. On Luminescent Creatures, her first studio album for five years, she continues this quiet expansion of her trademark style, underpinning her gorgeously sweet and emotive, intricately arranged lead vocals with a mix of acoustic guitar, strings, piano, field recordings and traditional Japanese instruments. The results are breathtakingly beautiful and deliciously dreamy, with highlights including 'Flag', the inspired 'Luciferine' and the haunting swell of 'SONAR'.

Review: Back in 2002, the Detroit Electronic Musical Festival concluded with something rather special: a rare live performance from the Aux Men - an expanded and upgraded version of legendary Motor City electro outfit Aux88. This must-have CD presents that performance, complete with the original introduction from Eddie Fowlkes and DJ Bone, from start to finish. Full of spacey synth sounds, heavy beats, weighty bass, it's effectively a whirlwind trip through the history of both electro and Detroit's contribution to electronic music history. Thus, we get killer versions of 'Planet Rock', 'Shari-Vari', YMO's 'Computer Games', tons of Kraftwerk classics, a breathtaking interpretation of Art of Noise's 'Moments in Love' and rip-roaring takes on foundational tunes by Cybotron and Funkadelic..

Review: New albums from Aussie fusionists the Avalanches don't come around that often, so the appearance of We Will Always Love you four years after its predecessor, Wildflower, is genuinely big news (it previously took them 16 years to record the follow-up to their acclaimed 2000 debut, Since I Left You). Somewhat predictably, they've hit the mark once more, supplementing their usual dense sample collages and multi-coloured, genre-bending compositions (a little psychedelia, Balearica and synth-pop here, a dash of dream pop, future R&B and synth-pop there) with vocals and musical contributions from a dizzying cast-list of like-minded guests (think Neneh Cherry, Johnny Marr, Jamie XX, Blood Orange, Tricky, Cornelius and Kelly Moran). Hard to pin down but royally entertaining from start to finish, We Will Always Love You is a triumph.

Review: Los Angeles based ambient husband and wife duo, awakened souls join with Reunion Island native, From Overseas to create Keep The Orange Sun. After hearing each other's individual music, a deeper conversation started about shared musical influences and inspiration leading to the creation of this album. Keep The Orange Sun guides the listener on a thoughtfully curated path. Starting with the certainty of life's changes (Certainty of Tides) to arising self-doubt (Release/Adapt) and celebrating immersion in the present moment as the gateway to deeper connection with nature and one's life (Keep The Orange Sun). The instrumentation present in each track channels elements of electronic, shoegaze & ambient with each artist's distinct musical fingerprint highlighted.

Review: Reportedly inspired by its' creator's thoughts about the impact of humans on the earth (and specifically the sentient life we share the planet with), Alexander Gluck's second album as Aware is an undeniably bittersweet affair. He's already proved adept at crafting atmospheric ambient pieces underscored by exceptional sound design, and Requiem For a Dying Animal takes this up a notch - not only by wresting every last drop of emotional weight from his chords, melodies and musical motifs, but also thanks to a subtle air of neo-classical grandiosity. The four cuts on show - with the near 18-minute closing cut offering a genuinely breath-taking conclusion - combine to create one evocative, slowly-shifting piece smothered in experimental sounds and tweaked field recordings.

Review: Albert Ayler was a trailblazing avant-garde saxophonist lost far too soon, and not long before his death he performed an iconic pair of performances at Fondation Maeght in Saint Paul de Vence outside Nice. While excerpts from the performances have been previously released, this is the first time they appear in their entirety, alongside each other as a testament to a truly powerful force in jazz. This four-CD edition comes with an extensive 100-page booklet loaded with essays and quotes from authorities and contemporary music luminaries of all sorts, making it a standout document for all serious jazz lovers to cherish.

Review: On the latest instalment in their essential Jazz is Dead series, musical polymaths Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad have joined forces with Katalyst, a Los Angeles-based collective of musicians whose work is inspired by their 1960s Californian predecessors Afrikan People's Arkestra and Union of God Musicians Ascension Association. What's an offer is undeniably impressive and, at genuinely life-affirming, with the assembled cast doing a superb job of joining the dots between spiritual jazz, soul-jazz, horizontal jazz-funk and deeper, more sun-kissed flavours. Highlights are plentiful and include, though are no way limited to, the breezy 'Juneteenth', the languid dancefloor shuffle and sustained electric piano motifs of 'The Avenues' and the morning-fresh wonder that is 'Daybreak'.

Review: Since launching five years ago, Groove Culture has established itself as an essential outlet for groovy, musically rich club cuts that frequently blur the boundaries between disco, deep house, soulful house, jazz-funk and nu-boogie. It's this hybrid, party-hearty sound that founders Micky More and Andy Tee slickly showcase across this two-disc, fifth anniversary mix. It's funky, hip-shaking fare from start to finish, with some of the many highlights including the pair's sax-sporting remix of Jestofunk's 'Say It Again', the rousing horns and Dave Lee style disco/house fusion grooves of their Angela Johnson collaboration 'Time', the string-drenched disco-house swell of Serge Funk's 'Can't Get Enough' and the Idris Muhammad-sampling joy of 'Subway' by Right To Life.

Review: Wind Rust is the debut collaboration between zake (Zach Frizzell) and Almost Silent (Guy Teixeira). True to their signature sounds, it's a melange of ambient drone with elements of weather, erosion and decay. Teixeira used the Lyra-8 synth to generate natural, living sound textures while Frizzell deconstructed his stems through random selection creating a unique, evolving soundscape. The four tracks feature tactile, organic elements, like 'Thence' with its powerful string and field recording interplay and 'Dross' where synth harmonies build and vanish. Closing track 'Quell' crescendos with chaotic intensity. In capturing the essence of nature's unpredictable forces, Wind Rust makes for an arresting listen.

Review: US ambient maestro zake and vocalist Angela Winter exchanged ideas for a whole year in the course of putting together this, this debut collaboration. It comes as a numbered CD with a download code and is, according to zake, "the perfect orchestration between two individuals at the right moment." We agree as it beautifully navigates a realm between the terrestrial and cosmic with organic drones and ethereal vocals fort and centre. The likes of 'Terminal Sleep' contrasts dynamic drones with introspective moments while 'Advent' offers harmonic pulses and sculpted vocals as Winter's instinctive responses to everyday sounds enrich the album's allure. A perfect soundtrack to quiet introspection, Mid Sky is another gem in a long line of them from this label.