Back catalogue: Indie/Alternative

Review: Fontaines D.C.'s fourth album, Romance, marks the band's first collaboration with producer James Ford and represents their most adventurous and inventive work to date. Following the success of their acclaimed 2022 album Skinty Fia, which topped the UK and Irish charts and earned them International Group of the Year at the 2023 Brit Awards, Romance is set to push their sound further. The explosive lead single 'Starburster' was inspired by lead singer Grian Chatten's panic attack so features intense breath patterns and shifting dynamics. Elsewhere the band's evolution is there for all to hear with with influences from grunge, electronica, and hip-hop reflecting their ongoing growth and experimentation.

Review: In the four years since his debut album as King Krule, south Londoner Archy Marshall has been busy as solo artist, collaborator, rapper and producer. He now returns with 'The OOZ', an expansive record that's densely packed with disparate musical influence, dark and personal storytelling, and Marshall's distinctive sneering charisma, all framed in his usual backdrop of seedy urban vaudeville. It's an incredibly layered album that offers the listener a guided tour through this disturbing and decayed landscape of atmospheric smoky jazz, grunge and ambient. Even at nineteen tracks with a runtime of just over an hour, The OOZ is something of an epic that never feels overdrawn, by dint of its richly illustrative, engulfing and transportive nature.

Review: Daffodils & Dirt, the debut album by Samantha Morton and Richard Russell, is a brooding and poetic exploration of Morton's troubled past and raw emotional experiences. With Russell's production prowess, the duo creates an unsettling yet captivating musical landscape that delves into themes of resilience and vulnerability. Morton's haunting vocals, coupled with Russell's sparse yet evocative soundscapes, transport listeners into the depths of her teenage years, where she grappled with homelessness and instability. The album's collaborations with artists like Jack Penate, Laura Groves, and Ali Campbell add unexpected layers of depth and beauty to the already compelling narrative. The album is a mesmerising blend of haunting melodies and raw emotion, inviting listeners to journey alongside Morton as she navigates the complexities of her past.

Review: God bless XL Recordings. The UK label has been at the forefront of boundary pushing music since its inception, and almost 35 years remains a seal of quality. A constant source of inspiring surprises and new sonic experiences. The kind of organisation that will take a punt on British polymath Jai Paul's demo album, which, by all accounts, is pretty hard to describe, let alone define. More so, the type of team that would, eight years earlier, support and release one of the artist's earliest songs, 'BTSTU'. Coming full circle, that tune closes this collection of stuff produced around the same time, all of which was going to form the debut album, Bait Ones. One low-quality CD-R of the work stolen and then leaked online later, and the artist stepped away from music until the end of the last decade, when this "perfectly imperfect" LP was finally allowed to see the light of day. A lo fi, glitchy, trippy, granular, sexy sound that owes as much to hip hop, pop and r&b as experimental noise, ambient dub, and electronic soul.

Review: A quarter century old now, yet these art-rock giants and eternal malcontents seem as restless in their muse and motion as ever - still chronicling an increasingly complicated and strenuous age yet doing it with finesse, grace and innovation. The urgent, invigorating strains of single 'Burn the Witch' were no anomaly, and 'A Moon Shaped Pool' shows them shaking off the more insular tendencies of their last opus 'King Of Limbs' to engage and electrify in a way that they haven't truly managed for years - radiant, celestial ambience shares space here with impressive ire and emotional engagement, with these peerless experimentalists delivering a record that transcends both their own work and the vast majority of the musical landscape they survey.

Review: The latest of Radiohead's reissues is an utter avalanche of material. 'Kid A Mnesia' itself is an 'album mashup' between their two albums Kid A and Amnesia; both projects are remastered and released side-by-side on the same LP. It doesn't stop there: for the fanatics, there's an exclusive third disc, Kid Amnesiae, which contains formerly unheard material both recording sessions, as well as Kid Amnesiette, a cassette of B-sides. This ultra-deluxe edition is, decidedly, one for the ultra-fans. Besides the radical electronic fever dreams making up both projects, this version contains the never-before-heard song 'If You Say The Word' on the bonus CD. Remastered on vinyl and cut at half the speed of the original LP, it's an audiophile's banquet. Also watch out for the exclusive booklet of drawings that come with the special edition of this special edition.

Review: The Smile's new album Cutouts on XL Recordings features several tracks already debuted by the band of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner on their UK tour in March. Produced by Sam Petts-Davies, the ten track album was recorded in Oxford and Abbey Road Studios alongside their previous album, Wall of Eyes and features some lush string arrangements by the London Contemporary Orchestra and cover art by Stanley Donwood and Yorke. Wall of Eyes back in January reached number three on the UK charts and received critical acclaim from Pitchfork, Spin, and others with this new one likely to follow suit.

Review: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner (Sons Of Kemet) finally deliver on their much-hyped The Smile project, blending the anxious and synaptic tones of Radiohead's anthemic indie-electro with the bluer party tones of UK jazz. The new album features a slew of tracks with swelling strings recorded by the full brass section of the London Contemporary Orchestra, as well as a band of jazz players like Theon and Nathaniel Cross and Robert Stillman.

Review: Recorded between Oxford and Abbey Road, The Smile (Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, and Tom Skinner of Sons Of Kemet) is the second full-length LP by the fantasy troupe, following up 2022's A Light For Attracting Attention. On first announcement, speculation abounded that it was tangentially related to Radiohead's 2011 album The King Of Limbs, since the phrase "wall of eyes" appeared in its promo material - though this album is decidedly different in sound and centres in on themes such as the isolation of fame and Kaufman-esque surrealisms.

Review: Ten years on, and Coexist has lost none of its charm. The anticipation around The xx's sophomore effort was high following their widely acclaimed debut, and the band were assured enough to not just play it safe with a repeat performance but instead evolve their sound in new directions. There was space for lighter, pop-informed moments to match the more sombre approach they became best known for, and standout moments like 'Angels', 'Reunion' and 'Swept Away' have since become classics in the band's canon. This commemorative pressing comes on clear vinyl - an understated celebration of an essential album in the indie-pop sphere.