My much delayed weekly round up (some exciting fitba/tennis, wotk commitments and shear volume of albums have caused the delay):
Sault: I mentioned it already on the last page. It's good but not great. More akin to 5 or 7 than the two Untitled albums from last year.
Mabe Fratti: she's a Guatemalan cellist. This is beautiful, sort of operating at the interface of classical music and post-rock but with some lovely female vocals.
Matthew Dear: a supposed lost album from 2008. It's more of his LCD Soundsystemish stuff. Good.
Gaspard Auge: You'll already be familiar with Force Majeure, as it's the BBC's Euro2020 theme music. The album as a whole sounds, well much like a Justice album, taking the midground between Jean-Michel Jarre and Daft punk.
dal:um: traditional Korean music. Sort of neo-classical and a bit plinky-plonk.
Rose City Band: Ripley Johnson's space country project return. This is very good, maybe a bit more laid back than their previous albums and a little more twangy.
LoneLady: excellent, as usual. A sort of punk/funk/pop mash up that works exceptionally well.
Vincent Neil Emerson: proper old school country and really rather enjoyable if that's your thing.
Tyler, the Creator: a sprawling album that keeps him marked down as one of the best artists in leftfield hiphop still.
Hiss Golden Messenger: it's very good, although it doesn't break any new ground. Lovely warm vocals, well played, excellent songs.
Faye Webster: countryish singer-songwriter who has started making waves. This is very good, intelligent and witty.
John Grant: as always an excellent album from JG. A lot of long tracks, it clocks in at 75 minutes, but it never seems overly long.
Spellling: I like this a lot. Well made sort of orchestral indie. Reminds me of something Matthew E White might produce,
Lucy Dacus: rocky at times, more stately at others. Some very good songs, themed around returning to her hometown.
Birds of Maya: essentially a psych-rock jam session from Mike Polizze (Purling Hiss) and his mates.
Stars and Rabbit: Indonesian indie-pop. Really enjoyable, a little twee, quite brief.
Daniel Avery: more of the same really. Very good, interesting electronica.
Modest Mouse: their first in a while. I like it a lot. It's fundamentally a Modest Mouse album.
The Grid & Robert Fripp: ambient ambience from two sets of masters. Like bathing in a bath of sonic milk.
Cedric Burnside: a very good fairly trad blues album.
The Mountain Goats: it's okay, not their best album as far as I'm concerned.
Berwyn: his second mixtape/mini-album. This is very good leftfield hiphop/R&B. Some lovely songs.
Katherine Priddy: the big new hope of English folk seemingly. This is pretty good. The last couple of tracks are great.
Squirrel Flower: second album, maybe a bit more rocky than her first. High quality singer-songwriter rock.
Cola Boyy: he may be familiar from appearing on the Avalanches' last album. This is a pretty good pop album, quite Avalanches-esque album (the opener is produced by them).
The Murlocs: a fairly straightforward garagey rock album form the King Gizzard side project. It's solid enough but not outstanding.
Album of the week: I'll say a tie between John Grant and Mabe Fratti. The former has probably produced his best work since Queen of Denmark and the latter came out of the blue to really surprise me, in a good way. Elsewhere, some very strong albums from female singer-songwriters.
