A vivid week of new sounds. We’re covering the gripping and enthralling, heady woozes and all-out party.

New Internationale, our September Record of the Month from Kit Sebastian is released this week and sounding pretty darn dreamy. You can read more about that one here and pick up an exclusive signed copy if you’re quick too.

In another early autumn release week of such wildly high quality, we really went with the heart for Record of the Week. White Roses, My God is a solo album from Alan Sparhawk of Low and it is a rare treat. Having been part of the band for thirty years, they’re impossible not to mention, but this really is quite the sonic departure from Low’s sound, a brave and bold step into the unknown. It is a powerful album of outsider electronic meditations, synthesiser bleeps and hums with Sparhawk’s voice treated throughout with a vocoder. It does take a few listens to get fully adjusted to, but my god, this really is spiritual stuff. Essential listening.

+ Pressed on Loser Edition Clear colour vinyl.
Dance, No One's Watching is the huge return of Ezra Collective and it is really joyous stuff. The album is based around a night out, with four different sections that get hot and cool back down. They’ll always been billed as ‘the jazz band’, especially after winning the Mercury Prize, but this isn’t a jazz record, it isn’t really categorisable as anything too closely. It does have lush jazz tones, but it is also smooth and soulful, full of bass energy and deeply pop sensitive. It’s just a really great record and an effervescent ode to dancing.

+ Available on an exclusive Satin Red vinyl pressing with a signed print.
+ Available on a deluxe double black vinyl pressing, housed in gatefold sleeve and printed inner sleeves.

Reason Enough is the dark, driving and high fidelity return of Crows. It is tight and really focused stuff, less thrashing than before but still full of hard energy and although brooding throughout, it certainly has some euphoria to it. A pleasure to work with the band on a Dinked Edition again.

+ Available on limited Frosted Clear vinyl.

Below a Massive Dark Land is the second solo LP from Naima Bock. Her voice is such a soother, a warm and effortless low with such calm, but the big step-up here is the experimentalism, and when it gets a bit weirder it really goes somewhere. Genuinely exciting, enthralling and showing signs that she could really do something pretty wild.

+ Pressed on Yellow Eco colour vinyl.

Danish alt-pop band Efterklang return on City Slang this week and it really is very very good. Things We Have In Common is a sort of ‘back to where we started’ record, with founding member Rune Mølgaard rejoining the band twenty years after they debuted and offering a new lens for the band to experiment with. Stacked with wondrous guests and beautifully honest and giving songs.

+ Available on Sky Blue colour vinyl.

Virginia-born, LA-based songwriter Kate Bollinger releases Songs From A Thousand Frames Of Mind on Ghostly International and it is really lush. Her voice has such a whisper to it, fragile but still leading the melancholic pop songs along. The production is great too, sort of high pop and bedroom 60’s DIY at the same time. A great air to it all.

+ Available on Blue Moon colour vinyl.
Bloom is the third studio album from the Göttingen-based composer and electronic music producer Ben Böhmer. It is surprisingly diverse, with some slower floats and more propulsive dancefloor primers too.

+ Pressed on double Peach colour vinyl.

Ness is a smart and really lush new LP from Hayden Thorpe out this week, based on best-selling author Robert Macfarlane’s book of the same name and with artwork from Stanley Donwood. The sonics are wonderful, so vivid and full. Thorpe’s voice also sounds great, with a lower timbre in places and effortless winding.

INBETWEEZER is the tenth LP from outsider pop-supremo Jerry Paper. Really great jams with unfussy production, lots of weird turns and an addictive croon to the vocals. Good stuff and 100% bright energy.

Also this week; Hip-hop superstar Common and super-producer Pete Rock team up on the smooth The Auditorium, Vol. 1. Stream Of Life is the energised new LP from Maxïmo Park. TSHA returns to Ninja Tune with Sad Girl, which has quite a lot of bounce to it. We have an exclusive Blue Marble pressing of Pale Waves’ Smitten. We have a physical edition of Canadian producer Kaytranada’s Timeless album that dropped digitally in the summer. Dunya is the tender full debut from Sudanese Canadian artist Mustafa. Hania Rani’s Nostalgia is really special stuff too, just trying to cop a few more of that one.

Ending today we have a bittersweet one with the eponymous and posthumous, SOPHIE. The album was close to completion when she tragically died a few years back, and has now been lovingly finalised by those who hold her closest. Brimming with experimental and euphoric pop, the production is just so inventive. But, you know, it’s still sad.

+ Pressed on limited double Crystal Clear colour vinyl.

It is a really superb week for reissues too, from your Afro Harping to your Amplifier Worship! We’ll be back soon and tell you all about it.