Sunshine drenched balladeering, fist-clenched EMO, experimental Pow Wow and Havana’s dancehalls.

Californian songwriter Chris Cohen returns with his latest solo LP - Paint A Room - this week on Hardly Art and it casts a wonderful spell. It does not sound at all like a new record, it’s full of gentle analogue hues and sunshine warm nostalgia. He is such a subtle writer (and performer across his own releases and the huge set of albums he’s been a part of) and Paint A Room plays out like a set of little vignettes, popping across the stereo before slowly fading away like ideas coming to fruition. It really is a pretty gorgeous set. Record of the Week.
It is wall to wall euphoria this week with the lofty return of 'the UK’s first and only emo band', Los Campesinos! Their highly-anticipated seventh album, which is also the first new music in seven years) is very much a crystalline vision of what has made them so alluring across their discography. Humour and the macabre across some of the most direct and relatable writing they have produced. It’s really dynamic and they sound like the best of themselves. All Hell is self produced, self released and proudly so, it’s a rush.

+ Available on limited and exclusive 'Blood Moon' colour double vinyl.

Unbound is the debut LP from a new collaborative project under the name Bizhiki. The trio are Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings, Joe Rainey and the multi-instrumentalist Sean Carey (S. Carey and Bon Iver collaborator). Rainey’s 2022 Niineta LP won huge plaudits, a stirring and contemporary take on Native American Pow Wow music, and his vibrato-laden vocalisations feel like the centre point of this fascinating and otherworldly album. Really lush atmospherics and absolutely one to give some time to.

+ Available on Sky Blue colour vinyl.

We have always really liked Oneida, but had absolutely no idea that the new Expensive Air was the prolific New Yorker’s seventeenth full LP. Expensive Air is absolutely full of different guitar music drives, from the more straight up punk, to psychedelic noise and even a pop-pound to it. Rattles along, good stuff.

+ Available on limited Glass Green colour vinyl.
Also this week in very limited supply we have the deluxe Splatter vinyl version of Olivia Rodrigo’s massive GUTS (spilled) LP. It is the only pressing featuring the full collection of GUTS songs. Glass Animals release I Love You So F***ing Much on Black & White Splatter vinyl. An exclusive double Pink vinyl pressing of Brie Stoner’s Me Veo. After lots of delay, we also have the iconic Junior Marvin’s Happy Family album, pressed on limited Red/Gold/Green colour vinyl.

Lastly today, our Record of the Month from Orquesta Akokán is in the racks and very much on the stereo. We have all absolutely fallen for its Conga-driven rhythms (read more here and check out some videos) and it just feels like one of those albums that people are going to go wild about when they hear even just a ten second blast. Havana has got it going on!

+ Available on limited Ocean Blue colour vinyl.