Notable vinyl releases out this Friday - 24 January (2025)

A sense of rootedness is at the heart of Anna B Savage’s third record You & I Are Earth, a record that is as much about healing as it is an unbowed sense of curiosity, and, more simply, “a love letter to a man and to Ireland.” You and I are Earth transports in a different way, carried by a lingering sense of calm, a clear progression from Savage's earlier work: “When she wrote her first record, it felt difficult because she was trying to understand something she didn't really understand. By the second record, she had undergone therapy and come to terms with herself. Following on from her critically acclaimed records A Common Turn and in|FLUX, You & I Are Earth manages to convey a sense of intimacy, while also being open-ended.

The last place you’ll find Benjamin Booker is where he was yesterday. Following two critically acclaimed albums marked by his signature fuzzy americana-inspired garage rock and soul sound, world tours, and opening slots with the likes of Jack White, Tame Impala, and Neil Young… he disappeared. “I wanted to get to this sound, but I didn’t know how. At some point I decided I’m going to find it or die trying.” He spent years tinkering in a loft near Skid Row in Los Angeles before ending up across the globe in Perth, Australia. Trading stems via email, Booker crafted his third album with LA underground hip-hop mastermind Kenny Segal. The new album, Lower, mixes experimental hip hop, dream and noise pop, and singer-songwriter music into something that is entirely his own. Through the changes, Booker’s lyrical exploration of pain and longing have been persistent. Lower is Booker's 3rd studio album, and first official release since 2017's critically-acclaimed Witness.

From the frayed loop of San Diego's white belt '90s scene, Boilermaker provided a subtle counterpoint to the Gravity-obsessed post-hardcore landscape. They called it Leucadia-core, a hybrid of major chord riffs, emotive yelps, angular bass chug, and pounding rhythms, building and releasing with the Swami tides. Not Enough Time To Get Anything Halfway Done compiles the trio of Terrin Durfey, Tim Semple, and Richard Sanderson complete discography-three albums, singles, and rarities-into a 41-song/ 4xLP box set, with annotation and illustration in the accompanying 24-page book. Surfs down. Hang zero.

FKA twigs releases her highly-anticipated third studio album, EUSEXUA via Young Recordings. Eusexua is a state of being. A feeling of momentary transcendence often evoked by art, music, sex, and unity. Eusexua can be followed by a state of bliss and feelings of limitless possibility. Also used to refer to: ‘The pinnacle of Human Experience’. It is united through any moment in which we are fully embodying ourselves, present in the moment, disconnected from technology, synthesized with those around us. It was moments of Eusexua that birthed EUSEXUA the album, as twigs cites her late nights in the underground techno scene of Prague.  

Larkin Poe’s new album Bloom sees the dynamic sister duo venturing further along on their evolving musical journey with a collection of songs that resonate with introspection, authenticity, and a profound connection to their roots in American music. Produced and largely co-written by Megan, Rebecca, and Tyler Bryant, the album marks a significant evolution for Larkin Poe, reflecting a synergy that extends beyond mere musical partnership. Already hailed for the sincerity of their songcraft, the Lovell sisters now place an even greater spotlight on their gift for storytelling, delving deep into personal narratives with universal themes of self-acceptance and individuality against a backdrop of contemporary blues and rock influences. With their distinctive blend of masterful instrumentation and soulful harmonies, each track unfolds like a chapter, with lyrics that wind deeper and deeper towards the heart of Larkin Poe.

The arrival of a new Mogwai album - their eleventh - is cause for great celebration. The album's title, The Bad Fire, is a working-class Glaswegian term for Hell. It reflects the difficult time that members of the band were going through. New to the studio was American producer John Congleton, known for his work with Explosions In The Sky, Sigur Rós, John Grant and pretty much everyone in between. Congleton's work can be heard on the album's three singles. The album opener "God Gets You Back" sounds like Daft Punk being hunted by My Bloody Valentine, while "Fanzine Made Of Flesh" sounds like a victory parade for a baby yeti; and "Lion Rumpus" does actually sound like a lion rumpus. The music of Mogwai is a difficult thing to describe, but an easy thing to experience. At punishing volume, it can annihilate your body, leaving you as little more than a head which should by rights fall helplessly to the ground. Yet the music contains an updraft, a sense of beauty encased in the onslaught. This holds you up, suspended and empowered, reminding you that paradise is your birthright. This is especially true of The Bad Fire. It may have been created in dark conditions, but all that is transcended by the act of four musicians working together here, now, in the moment - the only place where Mogwai exist.

Sam Amidon is a singer and multi-instrumentalist (banjo, guitar, fiddle). New album, Salt River finds Amidon reinterpreting and regenerating 10 familiar pieces of music that he has collected together over time, ranging from traditional English shanty Golden Willow Tree to Lou Reed's Big Sky. It was recorded in collaboration with saxophonist and producer Sam Gendel. Sam has released 7 acclaimed albums plus collaborated with The National, Bon Iver, Beth Orton, Marc Ribot & The Blind Boys of Alabama.

Whichever way we choose to describe it, that 20-year-old signature sound makes a warm return on Tunng's eighth studio album, Love You All Over Again, a winning amalgam of texture and melody, disconcerting imagery and shapeshifting production, predicated, Lindsay reveals, on a conscious reacquainting with the band's first principles. I went back to the first two albums just to listen to how we fused genres - things like Davy Graham, Pentangle and the Wicker Man soundtrack, all of which I was discovering back then, together with Expanding Records [the Shoreditch-based repository of soi-disant 'beautiful electronic music'], whose studio space we shared. That was all going into the early records. Over the years, Tunng's sound has varied and twisted, but at the root there is always a flavour of what Sam and I made on that first album. Rather than searching for a new avenue we went back to what we used to do, which, after all this time, felt like it was a new avenue... Love You All Over Again is our way of coming full circle. And what a circle it's been, one that has embraced global touring, chart-grazing singles (like live favourites 'Jenny Again' from 2006, the following year's 'Bullets' and 2010's 'Hustle'), a jaw-dropping live collaboration with Tuareg desert blues combo Tinariwen (including two memorable Glastonbury performances in 2009 and 2010), and a catalogue of restlessly innovative albums for the Full Time Hobby label, beginning with folktronica exemplars Comments of the Inner Chorus in 2006 and Good Arrows in 2007. Subsequent longplayers would expand the Tunng palette, exploring more of a live band feel and embracing broader leftfield pop and psychedelic flavours, helping cement widespread acclaim and a loyal international audience in the process.