Jagjaguwar US Vinilo y CD

Review: Romance with a capital 'R', as they say, ivory key doyen Gia Margaret returns with another spectacular and spellbinding collection of beautiful movements and pieces that sees her invoke a sense of peace, tranquility and solitude. Reflective arrangements that seem to straddle both a sense of loss, or at least melancholia, and acceptance and comfort in oneself. "I wanted to make music that was useful," Margaret says of the record. "Romantic Piano is curious, calming, patient and incredibly moving - but it doesn't overstay its welcome for more than a second." Running between fairytale like 'Sitting On The Piano' to the opiate, neo-pop of 'City Song', its a rare beast that can simultaneously feel tripped out and surreal, but also grounded in the world we are so luck to experience.

Review: New Zealand-born, Portland-based Ruban Nielson is well known for mixing up lo-fi, indie rock, psychedelic sounds and plenty of trippiness into unique and beguiling sound worlds. V is said to be the band's most definitive album yet and it was written between the dry freeways of Palm Springs in California and the much more lush coastlines of Hawai'i. As such it is drawn from a world of West Coast AOR, classic hits, weirdo pop and Hawaiian Hapa-haole music. This is the first double album in the artist's discography and it is well worth the extra playtime.

Review: Logic runs through the Unknown Mortal Orchestra back catalogue, even if that's just in terms of what the records are actually called. V, then, is album number five, a double-sized and long-awaited package that represents the first long form outing from Ruban Nielson and Co since 2018. In modern music, that's a hell of a long time. Rest assured, though, it seems like time was well spent honing crafts, polishing ideas, and coming out with 14 incredibly interesting and compelling songs.

In many ways V isn't a huge departure from IV, but - maybe because of that extended gap - you still can't shake the feeling this is you meeting the Orchestra for the first time. Packed full of surprises, running the gamut between blissed out, stargazing stuff, lo-fi funk steppers, and a kind of stoner pop-blues, it's love at first play. Again.

Review: Sharon Van Etten is an American singer-songwriter who dropped her sixth studio album We've Been Going About This All Wrong last year and captured plenty of the wrought emotions we all had during Covid. It showed she is very much on top of her game and the tenth anniversary edition of Tramp reminds us she has been for decades. This special version comes on limited edition heavyweight crimson splash vinyl and includes a new unreleased track. There is a reason this record was critically acclaimed at the time and has remained a fan favourite.

Review: St Louis' indie icon Angel Olsen has always hinted at her country leanings in her music, but on her sixth album she goes more wholeheartedly into the tradition of Americana. At the same time, the album's themes centre around Olsen's journey of discovery as she came out as queer in her mid-thirties, and this gets explored wholeheartedly in the video for the title track with its testing of gender norms. Co-produced with Jonathan Wilson and featuring Drew Erickson and Emily Elhaj on keys and bass respectively, it's a stunning step on for Olsen as she explores the roots of her sound and her world as it stands now.

Review: New Zealand psychedelic rock band Unknown Mortal Orchestra received plenty of acclaim for their second album, II, originally released in February 2013. Fusing lo-fi, indie rock, psychedelic sounds and plenty of trippy ideas, it take sin funky as you like guitar jams, drawn out and sun worshipping odes to a higher presence and raw, psyched out soul tracks. Tunes are packed with great detail and manage to strike a balance between light and dark, beauty and hostility. The often inward lyrics add another alluring element to this album, which won Best Alternative Album in the 2013 New Zealand Music Awards.

Review: Angel Olsen's Aisles is an 80s cover EP that has been put together after her last two emotionally wrought albums. It has some great moments like the brooding sounds of her versions of classics such as 'Forever Young' and 'The Safety Dance.' The artist says she heard the source material while in grocery stores and was inspired to just "have a little fun and be a little more spontaneous." Laura Branigan's Euro-disco anthem 'Gloria' is another standout as here it becomes a moody rework with slow tempos that draw you in deep, while there is a real tenderness to her take on Alphaville's 'Forever Young.'

Review: Indie and alternative rock have changed a lot since the mighty Jr. first hit us with grizzly riffs and Gen X tones. Nevertheless, this is a band that helped change the face of the Western guitar scene back in the late-1980s, and their influence and impact is still felt today. The whole reason the sound of this three piece is so familiar is it helped pave the way for much that has come since.

Sweep It Into Space might be the best reminder of that. Originally pegged for release last year, with Kurt Vile involved, sadly he fell ill and was unable to offer his talent, leaving the original Dinosaur Jr. lineup to do their thing. And do their thing they did. It's lo-fi but powerful, romantic but broken, high-energy but cool, gritty rock music for streets, skateparks and late-night bars and bonfires, and we never want it to end.

Review: Bullion is a virtuoso pop producer who brings a different perspective. His 80s tinged poptimism has won him a hardcore fan base. He draws on dusky yacht pop, synth pop, blue eyed soul and fantasy sounds for his inspiration and distils them all into his own unique outlook. Here he makes a classy debut for US indie label Jagjaguwar and sets sail on the lullaby like 'Heaven Is Over. 'Strike A Light' brims with more lush melodies and retro-future sounds with his own vocals drifting up top. A real standout is the closer, 'Loving Furlong,' which is intimate and sincere and shows his songwriting at its best.

Review: Sharon Van Etten is in a philosophical mood on her sixth album, We've Been Going About This All Wrong, offering up a series of songs concerned with considering "how we feel, mourn and reclaim our agency when we think the world may be falling apart". While her lyrical inspirations may be weighty, the American singer-songwriter has a knack of cloaking her deeply personal words - delivered emotively, as you'd expect - in beautiful arrangements. Some of these bristle with her trademark "dark drums" and breath-takingly poignant synth sounds, while others are sparse and stripped-back, with just an acoustic guitar backing Van Etten's voice. She's kept the album under wraps - refusing, surprisingly, to release any teaser singles - but it's definitely been worth the wait.