Album: The Grid & Robert Fripp - Leviathan

The veteran Balearic dance popsters and the one-man guitar orchestra have a whale of a time

With his band King Crimson laid up, the only chance to check out Robert Fripp's guitar prowess lately has been in the Robert & Toyah's Sunday Lunch videos that husband and wife post on YouTube. Their popular weekly assaults on classic rock hits are a game mix of the heroic and the cringeworthy. Toyah Willcox is someone to whom the label “shy and retiring” has never knowingly been attached.

Album: John Grant - Boy From Michigan

★★★★ JOHN GRANT - BOY FROM MICHIGAN Ruminative fifth album from the prickly singer-songwriter

Ruminative fifth album from the prickly singer-songwriter

While recognisably a John Grant album, Boy From Michigan brings on board something new and unprecedented – an outside producer. Welcome, Cate Le Bon. Among her previous production credits are Deerhoof and Tim Presley, whom she’s collaborated with on an album. As these and her own releases attest, she’s not going to steer anyone towards the mainstream.

Album: Mykki Blanco - Broken Hearts and Beauty Sleep

★★★ MYKKI BLANCO - BROKE HEARTS AND BEAUTY SLEEP Groundbreaking MC showcases increasing variety

Groundbreaking MC showcases increasing variety on their second album

Broken Hearts and Beauty Sleep has been five years coming. It’s only a mini-album but is spiced with a range of guests, and offers an array of musical styles, the whole sound ably built with alt-tronic producer FaltyDL. The press release tells us Blanco has recently come out of a calming three year relationship, but the album is neither morose nor studiedly reflective. It feels more like a sequel to the playful 2016 debut Mykki.

Album: Gary Numan - Intruder

The unsinkable electro-goth loudly tackles global environmental meltdown

Gary Numan says that his new album “looks at climate change from the planet’s point of view… it feels betrayed, hurt and ravaged… it is now fighting back.” Intruder is, then, a bleak, apocalyptic concept album. Given his last album explored similar terrain and that gothic dystopian wordplay has been central to his work for a decade, this isn’t new territory. Then again, his Eighties fans shouldn’t quibble.

Album: Lambchop - Showtunes

★★★ LAMBCHOP - SHOWTUNES The always mordan Kurt Wagner reaches new levels of gloom

The always mordant Kurt Wagner reaches new levels of gloom

Lambchop leader Kurt Wagner has suggested that the title of this album is semi literal: that he wanted to write “something akin” to classic, Great American Songbook show tunes, rather than his usual country-tinged style. If so, it’s for a rather gloomy sort of a show.

theartsdesk on Vinyl 64: Chet Baker, Lava La Rue, Bob Mould, Krust, The Yardbirds, The Fratellis and more

THEARTSDESK ON VINYL 64 Literally the largest fresh set of vinyl reviews on the internet

Literally the largest fresh set of vinyl reviews on the internet

Things got out of hand at theartsdesk on Vinyl this month and these reviews run to 10,000 words. That's around a fifth of The Great Gatsby. It's because there's so much good music that deserves the words, from jazz to metal to pure electronic strangeness.

Points of Departure, Brighton Festival 2021 review - Ray Lee's harbour-based sound art impresses

★★★★ POINTS OF DEPARTURE, BRIGHTON FESTIVAL 2021 Ray Lee's harbour-based sound art impresses at Shoreham's working port

At Shoreham's working port, something strangely wonderful is happening

They stand in a row, nine of them, in a long, strange corridor between rows of stacked, palleted, planked wood and the red brick wall of an endless warehouse. Nine tripods, each two humans high, with a spinning helicopter head, double-ended by conical horns that emanate a gentle angelic howling or lower end drone-hums. Eyes closed – and being music-geeky about it – this carefully calibrated tonal concerto assails the ears somewhere between US mystic Laraaji’s processed gong experiments and the final ethereal works of Spacemen 3.

Album: Ziúr - Antifate

★★★★ ZIUR - ANTIFATE Fantastical industrial cabaret from the cellars of Berlin

Fantastical industrial cabaret from the cellars of Berlin

It’s funny how the most high tech music can sound very traditional. In the case of producer / instrumentalist / occasional singer Ziúr, it’s the tradition of her hometown of Berlin that is expressed in her whirrs, clangs and mutated voices.

Album: Sufjan Stevens - Convocations

★★★★ SUFJAN STEVENS - CONVOCATIONS Rich and complex requiem for a dad

Rich and complex requiem for a dad

Sufjan Stevens is not only prolific, multi-talented and wide-ranging in his experimentation, but he never fails to make interesting work. He’s undoubtedly one of the giants of American contemporary music. His originality and creative risk-taking have led to him being one of the most underrated artists of his time.