Artist: Saint Etienne
Record Label: Universal Music, Heavenly Records
Genre: pop...
Saint Etienne has come back through the front door, with their best album since the distant “Tiger Bay”. Their secret? Loving pop (alongside a wide range of music) as a way of life, having a good time, choosing intelligence, and building an adorable collection of songs that will always keep us company.
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Artist: Sistema
Record Label: Natura Sonoris
In his debut album, experienced Barcelona producer Sistema winds his way through an overview of his musical vision; resulting in one of the most absorbing, inspired works that has come out of electronic music in Spain.
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Artist: Killer Mike
Record Label: Williams Street
Atlanta rapper Killer Mike's new album isn't political, but it is a highly emotional and conceptual social commentary. A record about family and life in the United States, produced by El-P. Solid as a rock.
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Artist: Stay+
Record Label: Ramp Recordings
“Arem” is the first EP with all new material by Stay+, and it's also the one on which they most combine their rave sounds with pop, without renouncing the mystery of their early releases.
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Artist: Beach House
Record Label: Bella Union
Between luxurious psychedelics, half-awake dream-pop, and translucent shoegaze - “Bloom” gains in impact, liveliness and sensitivity with respect to its already-exultant predecessor. If the Baltimore duo’s songs were planets in “Teen Dream”, in “Bloom” they are true galaxies. Without a doubt, a masterpiece.
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Artist: Squarepusher
Record Label: Warp
Genre: IDM, Drum'n'bass, braindance
Squarepusher is back, and he's back good: no jazz, no easy tempos, no annoying bass solos, just hi-octane IDM, complex and schizoid rhythms, toy melodies and absurd speeds. Just what we wanted.
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Artist: CFCF
Record Label: Paper Bag Records
Genre: pop, Modern Classical
CFCF has slowed down his music and sought out a wider space. “Exercises” is his most exciting, personal work so far; based on the use of the piano and a singular approach to pop, new age and Impressionism.
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Artist: KA
Record Label: Iron Works Records
New York is once again a violent, dirty, dangerous city in the raw, realistic rhymes of rapper KA. Furthermore, the beats are slow, harsh, solid rhythms that back up a lyrical trip through hell. Best hip hop album of the year? It looks to be.
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Artist: Traxman
Record Label: Planet Mu
Cornelius Ferguson, a veteran of the Dance Mania era, releases an LP as Traxman on which juke house comes to maturity. Forget the cliché of hammering phrases and runaway beats: there's quite a bit more to it here.
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Artist: My Bloody Valentine
Record Label: Sony Music Entertainment
Genre: shoegaze, indie-rock
While we're waiting for that new album that never seems to come, Kevin Shields is re-mastering and reissuing the key works of My Bloody Valentine, on a particularly stellar volume featuring the EPs from the Creation era, plus a fistful of rarities and unreleased tracks.
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Artist: Shackleton
Record Label: Woe To The Septic Heart
Genre: ambient, post-dubstep
A spectacular exhibition of quality by Shackleton at his peak. This double album consists of a rhythmic part connecting post-dubstep with drum'n'bass and house, and a second part that is both ambient and toxic.
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Artist: Daughn Gibson
Record Label: White Denim
Daughn Gibson’s surprising first album is like a cross between Nick Drake and Burial, in the heartlands of modern America. A loop loving former truck driver who unexpectedly combines the ghosts of ambient and folk.
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Artist: Lone
Record Label: R&S Records
A subtle, but decisive twist in Lone’s old-school language: travelling techno, nostalgia for the best days of the rave explosion, trotting pianos, baroque melodies, happiness, ecstasy. It’s not an album, it’s a future world: remote and improved.
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Artist: Beaumont
Record Label: Hotflush Recordings
Beaumont disembarks on Hotflush with an EP that confirms the greatness suggested by his debut, reinforcing the dialogue between his beloved 80s and certain dynamics of contemporary bass music.
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Artist: Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland
Record Label: Hyperdub
Genre: experimental, dub, psychedelia
Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland make up the duo previously known as Hype Williams, who are now debuting for Hyperdub with a solid album in which one hears echoes of dub, psychedelic and hip hop - giving shape to a very 21st-century vision of urban folk.
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Artist: Sensate Focus
Record Label: Sensate Focus
Genre: house, experimental
Sensate Focus, Editions Mego's new house sub-label, kicks off with a four-track vinyl, seemingly produced by Mark Fell, full of crystal harmonies and abstract rhythms. Art vinyl of the month.
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Artist: LHF
Record Label: Keysound Recordings
Genre: dubstep
“Keepers Of The Light” is a fitting title to LHF’s debut: the collective continues to keep the genre’s original fire burning, refining their craft enough to deliver over two hours of dubstep that quite literally go everywhere and back again without ever losing sight of what it’s supposed to be.
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Artist: Photek
Record Label: Studio !K7
Never underestimate an old Samurai: Photek is back with a vengeance, a triumphant return to the breaks and bass underground, with a mix CD that tastes like night and smells of neon. It’s nostalgic trip to the best (party) nights of our lives.
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Artist: Lotus Plaza
Record Label: Kranky
Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt returns with a second solo album that is more direct and pop than his dispersed debut. Without too many embellishments, with plenty of talent and much subtlety, Lotus Plaza, makes us forget about his main band for 45 minutes.
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Artist: Petar Dundov
Record Label: Music Man
Techno, trance and cosmic music united in sweet harmony on an album that will take you right up there. Croatian Petar Dundov honours his reputation as a top-notch producer and delivers his most complete effort to date.
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Artist: The Burrell Brothers
Record Label: Rush Hour
Genre: house, deep house, garage
Rush Hour honours the legacy of The Burrell Brothers by offering us a compilation of their work for Nu Groove. It testifies to the profound influence that the duo’s sound had on the gestation of deep-house.
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Artist: Chromatics
Record Label: Italians Do It Better
After weeks of speculation and advances with videos, the long-awaited Chromatics album, “Kill For Love”, is finally here. It boasts 17 songs that are destined to become the soundtrack to more than one cold night.
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