Notable vinyl releases out this Friday - 28 March (2025)

Fifty-three years since he delivered the bolt-from-the-blue of Roxy Music’s debut LP as his calling card, Ferry’s latest project is just as startlingly unexpected an arrival. On the one hand, Loose Talk is his first album of new music since 2014’s Avonmore. On the other, little here, from the sounds and shapes of that music, to the uses it gets put to, resembles any previous Bryan Ferry album. Then again – on the third hand – it’s also a piece that is deeply rooted in his past half-century of work. “A conversation between two artists,” is how Amelia Barratt, one of the artists involved, describes Loose Talk. “Something we’ve created together that neither could do on our own,” adds Bryans Ferry, her interlocutor in the creative exchange. “And, for me, it seems to have opened up a whole new chapter for my work.”

Cactus Lee is Texas music at it's core, a blend of Austin nightclub vibes, and dusty dancefloor energy. A project helmed by prolific Austin songwriter Kevin Dehan, Cactus Lee reflects a deep love for Texas country songwriters, interwoven with the bold spirit of outlaw and outsider influences. With a sound that is at once childlike, dreamy, and sharply witty-reminiscent of icons like John Prine and Tom T. Hall-Cactus Lee has carved a distinctive niche in the music world since it's inception in 2019. Over six albums, including two releases in 2023, a live album, and multiple EPs, Dehan's songwriting and self-recorded efforts on a four-track have been the foundation of a constantly evolving project.On the new self-titled album, Cactus Lee, the songs delve into themes of love, loss, family, and self-discovery, offering fleeting snapshots of characters and moments steeped in an inviting Texas charm. Opening track "Rabbit" introduces a love-struck yet elusive protagonist, brought to life through Bukka Allen's accordion and Adam Amram's infectious rhythm. "Sister" is a tender promise of better times and shared moments, perfect for open roads and breezy days. With it's saxophone and steel guitar interplay, "Roll Maggie" explores the gamble of love as a thrilling game of chance. "Got A Heart Like Rainwater Blues" celebrates the unyielding bonds of a family on the run, infused with a bluesy resilience. "Lorelei" paints an enigmatic portrait of a captivating figure, set to the sway of doo-wop harmonies. "The Fiddler" captures the hypnotic magic of a dance floor, anchored by a haunting viola solo. Closing the album, "Twenty Dollars" is a deeply personal ode to Dehan's daughter, Jolene, encapsulating her strength and beauty with heartfelt simplicity.Through evocative lyrics and thoughtfully textured instrumentation, Cactus Lee's self-titled album reaffirms Kevin Dehan's ability to distill the essence of Texas twang into songs that resonate far beyond the Lone Star State.

Lonely People with Power follows the band's 2021 album Infinite Granite and is the band's first release on Roadrunner Records. The album was produced by Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who also produced Infinite Granite. The lead single from the album is "Magnolia," accompanied by a music video directed by Sean Stout and Chelsea Jade.

"That’s the Price of Loving Me" is the third solo album by Dean Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean & Britta), and his first album with producer Kramer since 1990’s "This Is Our Music." Recorded in Los Angeles with Britta Phillips on bass and vocals, Anthony LaMarca (The War on Drugs) and Roger Brogan on drums. The upcoming record includes eight new Wareham compositions plus covers of Nico and Mayo Thompson. Dean Wareham will be touring Europe and the USA in April and May 2025.

Dan's Boogie is a breakthrough album for Destroyer, both in the sense that it makes moves that no Destroyer album to this point has made, and in the sense that, to record it, Bejar had to burst through a series of intentional and unintentional barriers to write the songs. Initially challenging himself to not write songs so the ideas would well up inside of him until they breached containment, the months following the completion of LABYRINTHITIS turned into one year then two, at which point Bejar gave himself a New Year's resolution to play the piano every day for an hour. That lasted about four days, but the songs Bejar credits as coming from that resolution-"Cataract Time," "Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World," "Bologna," and "Dan's Boogie" among them-are all-timer Destroyer songs across the vast spectrum Bejar and his collaborators have established for themselves: spectacle-laden pop epics, personal piano ballads, and smouldering works of mood that blur the lines between song and novel and cinema, each brimming with the urgency of a state secret in the mind of a tortured spy. Lead single "Bologna" is the most radical frame for this energy, as it's the first time Bejar wrote a song where he imagined himself as a supporting character. Taking lead is Fiver's Simone Schmidt, whose voice-tough and expressive, piercing through the murk of the scene-is a siren's call that haunts the album. The gravity of their voice pulls Dan's Boogie into order around a sense of impending doom, the way a fatale's promise of the unusual and the ecstatic dooms the principal character of an erotic thriller. "Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World" is a delicious bit of contradiction, a peppy song that came out of the havoc Bejar was intentionally wreaking on himself-it's holiday cheeriness making the angst of it's lyrics go down smoothly until the song veers off the road. "We are now entering a new phase," Bejar intones, introducing layers of guitar and synthesizer that considerably darken the palette as he alternates between singing and speaking. The lyrics and vocals are improvised, invented as Bejar recorded the demo in his garage-a manic stream-of-consciousness and simultaneously exquisite display of his songwriting mastery.Contradiction informs much of Dan's Boogie, the fog swirling around Bejar illuminated by the friction between competing truths and tastes, as when his interest in jazzy ballads runs aground on producer and bassist John Collins' interest in bands like Led Zeppelin and Scritti Politti. When Bejar told Collins that he was thinking of Sammy Davis Jr., the title track bloomed into being, Bejar adopting a Rat Pack swagger with almost delusional glee against a dreamy soundscape of soaring guitars, lush horns, jazz drumming, spaced-out synths, and, perhaps truest to how Bejar sees himself, plinking lounge piano. In terms of shaping sound, the centerpiece of Dan's Boogie may be "Cataract Time," an eight-minute epic that ranks as some of the heaviest lyrics Bejar has ever written, and one of Destroyer's most musically intricate compositions. Borne aloft on an easygoing groove, Bejar's lyrics-"a reckoning, a dressing down" as he describes them-are transfigured, their melancholy tasting almost counterintuitively like hope. It's an intimate song that puts away Destroyer's usual urban fable milieu in exchange for bracing interiority, but it's lilting groove can see a future, one that Bejar and his band are eager to meet.It is, to use Bejar's phrase, the kind of song you make when you're up against it, when it seems as if the world is crashing down upon you. And therein lies the album's most radical shift: Where previous Destroyer albums were locked in combat with the world, Dan's Boogie dances with it, it's nine reveries coalescing into one long hustle. Dan Bejar's eye may be on the exits, but he's not leaving anytime soon.

Antigone is a chilling look at our already-alternate reality, coming from inside Eiko Isibashi’s own head. Her band brings a wide array of sounds and moods, shading pop, funk and jazz, ambient, electronic and musique concrète in a bittersweet latticework. Interlocking her new songs in seamless long-play flow with the compositional ambitions of her acclaimed soundtrack work (and with the presence of Jim O'Rourke on keyboards and at the mixing desk), Eiko’s expressions are epic and intimate. 2025 will never be the same!

When beginning work on the second girlpuppy album, Sweetness, Becca Harvey realized the record-making process itself would be almost as important as the final product. On her first album of alt-pop anthems-2022's gorgeous, folk-infused When I'm Alone-the 25-year-old Atlanta-based singer-songwriter often felt like she was working in the shadow of her collaborators, writing words to their melodies and deferring to their creative impulses. Made on the other side of a relationship where she often felt marginalized, Sweetness felt like the right project for Harvey to rethink her creative approach and work solely from her own lyrical and melodic ideas. The result of this process was a darker, more texturally expansive record than it's predecessor, full of heart-rending songs about pushing back against self-blame and doubt. From it's heavy-duty sonics to it's naturally flowing melodies to it's emotionally generous lyrics, every element of Sweetness exudes confidence, capturing Harvey relishing raw creativity and trusting her inclinations. The record takes place within that moment all artists wait for: when their "voice" becomes so clear, they realize they can just open their mouth and start speaking in it. Freed from the nagging insecurity that she couldn't be a songwriter without playing an instrument-she cites The National's Matt Berninger as an inspiration-Harvey began Sweetness by recording full-length acapella voice memos. To find a backdrop for the vocals, Harvey delved into her diverse, lifelong set of musical reference points, from the country and Top 40 pop she grew up on in small-town Georgia to the later favorites that expanded her idea of what songwriting could achieve: Elliott Smith, Lana Del Rey, Yo La Tengo, and more. With the help of Asheville-based producer/co-writer Alex Farrar and additional co-writers Tom Sinclair and Holden Fincher, Harvey pinpointed a sweet spot between shoegaze, dream-pop, and pop-rock anthems from the turn of the millennium. The arrangements are sometimes nostalgic and always viscerally satisfying in their trajectories, powered by chunky sheens of distorted guitar in the choruses, drums played as hard as pop-punk hits from her youth ("Since April," "For You Too"), and poison-sweet hooks invested with both defiance and desire. Harvey's friends from throughout the indie rock world helped fill out these arrangements: Horse Jumper of Love's Dimitri Giannopoulos, The War on Drugs' Dave Hartley, Beach Fossils's Tommy Davidson, and more.Lyrically, Harvey is witty and unsparing throughout Sweetness, taking inspiration from the break-up lyricists she reveres, from Leonard Cohen to Avril Lavigne. Her memory is acute, accounting for nooks and crannies of romantic relationships history that lesser songwriters might skip over. "I Just Do!" is told in an elegantly scrambled montage that we don't need to know the frame narrative to understand, capturing that dopamine-filled urge to drop out of existence just to stay in bed with someone a little bit longer. An urgent, '90s-pop snare pattern kicks in when Harvey recalls: "I love it when I make your friends laugh/I love how much they love you/And all the fun that you guys have." These songs sparkle with details like this, mini-scenes that help create a 360-degree view of heartbreak.

Patience, Moonbeam is the first album release by Great Grandpa in 5 years. Whereas Four of Arrows mostly came together in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the studio with the help of an outside producer, Patience, Moonbeam emerged slowly through a generous, generative demoing process, with Dylan at the helm of the production and mixing. With fewer constraints and more control, the band had the opportunity to explore rabbit holes, backtrack, find new ways in. They experimented with different iterations of a single song, throwing things at the wall to see what would stick. The result is Great Grandpa's most ambitious and confident-sounding album yet. From the sparkling pop-grunge of their first record Plastic Cough (2017), to the sprawling indie rock of Four of Arrows, the band has been on a clear trajectory of both refining and re-defining their sonic identity. Patience, Moonbeam delivers on that promise, taking the band's DNA and elevating it. All of Great Grandpa's signature elements are there- Pat's nontraditional song structures and penchant for hooky melodies, Al's soothing yet stirring lead vocals-but with a sophistication and expanded list of songwriters and sounds that mirror their years of personal growth.

Keyboardist, producer and songwriter Joe Armon-Jones shares his most elevated solo project to date, All The Quiet. A galvanising statement of intent, traversing jazz, funk, dub, hip hop, and soul music, entirely written, produced, and mixed by Armon-Jones himself. As a band member, he is best known as part of the Mercury prize winning Ezra Collective, who capped 2024 by being the first jazz band to headline London’s Wembley Arena. All The Quiet (Part I) is the first chapter of a two part album, released on his own label, Aquarii Records. Guest musicians & features include Nubya Garcia, Oscar Jerome, Goya Gumbani, and more. Six years have passed since Armon-Jones’ last solo album, 2019’s Turn To Clear View was released on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings, but don’t mistake that gap for a break. In this time he’s toured the world, built a studio, contributed to albums from the great and good of UK jazz, and recorded collaborative releases with Liam Bailey, Fatima, Hak Baker, Prince Fatty, Ranking Joe, Maxwell Owin, and dubstep legend Mala.

Widely regarded as "one of the best songwriters of her generation" (Rolling Stone), Lucy Dacus returns with Forever Is A Feeling. Following a career-defining run with boygenius that earned her three GRAMMY Awards, her fourth solo studio album explores falling in and out of love, the tumult of desire, and larger than life romance. Across 13 tracks that range from lush arrangements to simple declarations, Dacus makes a serious inquiry into what it looks like to dedicate one's life to true love, and a valiant attempt to capture the elusive, fleeting feeling of forever. Available on clear vinyl.

Mumford & Sons are back with their 5th studio album Rushmere, produced by Dave Cobb (Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson). The 10 track album is a triumphant return to form, with upbeat foot-stompers Rushmere, Truth, & Caroline alongside tender ballads such as Monochrome & Where It Belongs. Available on 12" vinyl, CD & cassette via Glassnote Music. 1. Malibu 2. Where It Belongs 3. Anchor 4. Caroline 5. Rushmere 6. Surrender 7. Blood on the Page 8. Monochrome 9. Carry On 10.Truth

You Are Always On My Mind was, perhaps surprisingly, formed primarily from processed “generic string loops” found in online sample packs - a strange and wilfully jarring reminder that what seems to be is not always what is. Recontextualised, these string loops enshadow the simplicity of their origins and reveal a grace and purposefulness perhaps not even imagined by their authors, subtly drawing out euphoria and tension in equal balance.

'Glory' has a pristine surface and a tender, roiling underside. Mike Hadreas’ seventh album is muscular, filled out by his partner in life and songcraft Alan Wyffels and longtime producer Blake Mills alongside the fiercest band Perfume Genius has ever assembled: guitarists Meg Duffy and Greg Uhlmann, drummers Tim Carr and Jim Keltner, and bassist Pat Kelly. These players marshall their power, and Hadreas his macabre imaginings and gallows humor, to humane ends. Perfume Genius pries open a mildewed den full of alienation, longing and desire and lets it bask in the sunlight. The record’s central conflict, says Hadreas, is the “back and forth between internal and external.” Promoting his string of beloved, increasingly ambitious albums during the past decade and a half—touring the world, dwelling in the public eye—clashed with his innate impulse toward isolation. For 'Glory,' he discovered a new songwriting process because he welcomed the dynamics of a group, leaving room in his compositions for his friends to flesh out the arrangements. As Hadreas says: “I’m more engaged with the band and the audience. I’m still on some wild tear, but there’s more access and it’s more collaborative, in a way that makes it better, but also scary—because it feels more vulnerable.” … - Daniel Felsenthal

On Chrystia Cabral's fourth album as SPELLLING, the Bay Area artist transformsher acclaimed avant-pop project into a mirror. Cabral's lyrics for Portrait of MyHeart tackle love, intimacy, anxiety, and alienation, trading the allegorical approachof much of her previous work for something pointed into her human heart. Thealbum's thematic forthrightness is echoed in it's arrangements, making it thesharpest, most direct SPELLLING album to date. From the dark minimalism ofher earliest music to the lavishly orchestrated prog-pop of 2021's The TurningWheel to this newly energetic expression of her creative spirit, Cabral has provedagain and again that SPELLLING can be whatever she needs it to be.The title track, with it's propulsive drum groove and anthemic chorus of "I don'tbelong here," is the most potent embodiment of the album's turn toward emotional directness. Once the main melody emerged, Cabral used the song as a toolto process her anxiety as a performer and opted for a tighter, more rock-orientedcomposition. This transformation mirrors the album's broader shift toward energyand immediacy, driven by the core band of Wyatt Overson (guitar), Patrick Shelley (drums), and Giulio Xavier Cetto (bass), whose collaboration uncovers newcontours of the SPELLLING sound. Cabral still writes and demos in isolation, butpresenting the songs for Portrait of My Heart to her bandmates helped her discovertheir eventual lively, organic forms. So did working with a trio of producers-TheTurning Wheel mixing engineer Drew Vandenberg, SZA collaborator Rob Bisel,and Yves Tumor producer Psymun.Key guest contributions further shape the album. Chaz Bear (Toro y Moi) deliversSPELLLING's first duet on "Mount Analogue," Turnstile guitarist Pat McCroryturns Cabral's original piano demo for "Alibi" into the crunchy, riff-y version thatappears on the record, while Zulu's Braxton Marcellous gives "Drain" it's sludgyheft. These parts aren't just incorporated seamlessly into the album; they feel likean integral part of it's universe.Ultimately, though, Portrait of My Heart is nobody's record but Cabral's. She fearlessly draws the curtain back on parts of herself that she's never includedin SPELLLING before-her feelings of being an outsider, her overly guardednature, the way she can throw herself recklessly into intimate relationshipsand then cool on them just as quickly. "It's very much an open diary of all thosesensations," she says.

The Darkness's upcoming album Dreams On Toast, set for a March 2025 release, marks a bold new chapter for the band. With their signature blend of flamboyant rock anthems and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, this album cements their place at the pinnacle of British rock. Expect soaring guitar riffs, infectious hooks, and a nostalgic yet fresh take on the genre that will resonate with longtime fans and new listeners alike. “You know that thing when God’s breath tickles your soul and tells you to create? Yeah, makes me giggle too. But you can’t resist. God might not be the power she once was, but say what you like about her, she knows damn well that what the world needs now, is rock sweet rock. And who are we, mere mortals of extraordinary ability, to argue with the divine? So we knuckled down and thought really hard about the best of the best, the elite songs, the life-changing music of the ages. Then we popped out a dozen bangers before lunch. And these bangers we present to you here, wallowing in an aromatic aural ragu, served atop the charred remains of our envious contemporaries… ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dreams on Toast. Close your eyes, loosen your cummerbund, and enjoy….” - Justin Hawkins

The band Unknown Mortal Orchestra sometimesenjoys making purely instrumental music. Inaddition to the vocal-based records they're morewell-known for, they've also begun to make aninstrumental series called the IC where they spendtime in a chosen city and improvise and collaborateon non-vocal music. Recently the band spent timein Colombia to make music and initiate their newkeyboard player Christian LI. The resulting sessionshave become IC-02 Bogota, a musical document ofthe time they spent in that exciting city and thepossible background music for some strangeparties and night drives in your future.

Flying solo is a state of independence, a sense of liberation, an intrepid yet intimate act. For singer-songwriter Yukimi Nagano, the celebrated vocalist and co-founder of Grammy-nominated outfit Little Dragon, it is all these things and more. Yukimi’s debut solo album, For You, sees her step away from a band formation while staying with the always innovative Ninja Tune label – and creating some of her most beautiful work to date: both intensely personal, and brilliantly relatable. Yukimi’s voice remains unmistakable on For You; she elegantly entwines musical styles from jazz, soul and electronic pop to hip hop, roots and psychedelia, but her new song themes dig deeper than ever, across love, loss, feminine energy and innate resilience. Her decision to take a solo route also marks a new chapter in her accomplishments, which have included seven acclaimed albums with Little Dragon (most recently, 2023’s Slugs Of Love), and memorable guest spots with acts such as Gorillaz, De La Soul, DJ Shadow, SBTRKT and BADBADNOTGOOD, as well as becoming a mother to two young children. Alongside the arrival of Yukimi's solo debut she'll also embark on an extensive North American solo tour accompanied by a full band just following the album release. Following the solo tour she's slated for a high profile opening slot which will be announced shortly.