(Thrill Jockey) Largely recorded on the road and full of found sounds, this beguiling record from the US ambient artist captures the feeling of self-inflicted solitude Sentiment is Claire Rousay’s self-professed pop album, and compared to the abstracted sound collages of earlier works marks a subtle change of pace for the experimental Canadian-American artist. “Pop” might seem a stretch, but these are field recordings with a solid emotional centre, the soundtrack of someone unspooling in real time. “It’s 4pm on a Monday and I cannot stop sobbing,” intones guest Theodore Cale Schafer on the ope ..read more

Influenced by Korn and moving beyond their native Ireland, the band are ready to be one of the biggest in the world. They explain how panic attacks and parenthood came to bear on a bold new LP Carlos O’Connell isn’t merely excited about the release of Fontaines DC’s new single. He’s “giddy for it. I’m giddy,” he emphasises, reclining in his dressing gown in a sunlit corner of his north London home. His attire is far from rock star loucheness: it’s 9am and the guitarist has already been up for hours with his one-year-old daughter. “There’s no time to get ready!” His effusiveness doesn’t feel li ..read more

With expansive, experimental instrumentation, the Melbourne musician’s fourth album records our contemporary chaos – and finds a glimmer of hope Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Jess Ribeiro has range. Over the last decade, the Melbourne singer-songwriter has flitted from gentle storytelling to something a little weirder and more experimental. There was the folksy world of her debut, 2012’s My Little River; her following two albums added more texture and reverb, and a bit of jangle to boot. Central to it all is Ribeiro’s voice, which conveys worlds of emotion through its unadorned ..read more

It’s been 12 years since the Australian instrumental trio’s last album. Since then, their violinist has become Cave’s right-hand man and set up a home for abused monkeys. Now they’re back with a feverishly beautiful new album You might think that the primary factor needed to make a band work is, you know, actually being able to get together to make music. Not for Dirty Three. It is 12 years since the Australian instrumental trio last released an album, 2012’s Toward the Low Sun, but it isn’t for lack of trying that their reunion has taken so long. Drummer Jim White lives in New York, guitarist ..read more

(Wichita/Pias) Forays into psychedelia and world affairs serve the reformed British shoegaze pioneers well on their seventh album Like reunited noise-poppers Slowdive, Pixies and the Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride’s reformation era has now lasted longer than their original incarnation. Unlike those peers, though, the Oxford four-piece usually delivered far better singles and gigs than albums. On Interplay, they don’t try to replicate the delicate thunder of their live shows, but foreground less familiar elements such as synths, pianos, strings and, crucially, space. There are quick visits to the b ..read more

The enigmatic masked trio from Melbourne hypnotise with a psychedelic fusion of Aussie surf rock and traditional Indian music Creating a sense of mystery is one of the oldest tricks in the music business. Daft Punk, SBTRKT and, more recently, Two Shell – acts known for covering their faces and keeping fans guessing – are all examples of it working successfully. It has certainly helped create buzz around Glass Beams, a psychedelic trio from Melbourne, Australia, who play in ornate gold masks. No one knew who they were until late last year, when founding member Rajan Silva put his name to the pr ..read more

(Anti-) Katie Crutchfield’s latest album swaps the strung-out drama of its acclaimed predecessor for precision and broad relatability “I try to write in a way that’s relatable to anyone with any problem,” Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield says of Tigers Blood. But is that what her fans want from her, or is it all a bit country Coldplay? The American singer-songwriter’s last Waxahatchee album, 2020’s Saint Cloud, was a critical hit and career gamechanger. That sort of acclaim can lead to artists overthinking a follow-up, torn between more of the same and the shock of the new. Crutchfield rides a ..read more

(Domino) Found sounds and touches of jazz enliven the American singer-songwriter’s woozy evocation of being present in changing times Celebrated LA-based composer Julia Holter’s last outing, 2018’s 90-minute Aviary, tried to reproduce the cognitive dissonance of living in recent times, harnessing medieval Occitan, bagpipes and a polyphony of other instruments to capture the restlessness of the mind. Six years on, Something in the Room She Moves is no less ambitious in its intent – to encapsulate presence and transformation – but feels more approachable. Beauty, rather than overstimulation, is ..read more

They were initially dismissed as the acme of upper-class preppiness, but the band’s new album Only God Was Above Us is its grittiest yet. Has their frontman finally exorcised past demons? On its surface, Only God Was Above Us, the fifth album from Vampire Weekend, has a darkly fatalist point of view. Over some of the band’s loudest, grittiest production to date, frontman and songwriter Ezra Koenig sings of curses, missed connections and imagined wars, airing plangent anxieties about how this tumultuous era of history will be remembered. It plays a little like a knottier sequel to the band ..read more

(Anti) Katie Crutchfield’s sixth album refines the breezy country of her 2020 breakthrough Saint Cloud and finds her as compelled by the complexities of life as its eases The evolution of Waxahatchee is one of modern music’s most satisfying journeys. From 2013’s rickety, wispy Cerulean Salt to Saint Cloud, her full-bodied shift to Americana in 2020, Katie Crutchfield has chronicled the ups and downs of existence in intimate but sweeping songs that needle at the point of it all. On Tigers Blood, she returns clear-eyed and spirited with a twisting country album of anthemic earworms that evoke lo ..read more