Britain is unpleasant to look at right now, ugly and foolish, so why not lock down with some tuneage. Below is the best plastic that’s hit theartsdesk on Vinyl over the last month, all genres, all the time. Watch out for the forthcoming Christmas Special where we’ll endeavour to find the seasonal good cheer we’re not currently feeling.

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Kimyan Law Yonda (Blu Mar Ten Music)

It’s reckoned that this time next year vinyl sales will have overtaken CDs. It’s still a small market and anyone who thinks vinyl will one day replace streaming is living on Planet Lah-lah. There’s so much coming out even theartsdesk on Vinyl cannot review it all, but what we can do is devote 7500 words to what grabs our attention. We are not limited by genre or by new vs reissue. We eat it all up and want more. So check below for the juice on what’s out there. Dive on.

Rachid Taha, sadly felled by a heart attack just over a year ago, has come back from the dead! He could not sound more lively than on this vibrant posthumous offering, definitely not something cooked up from tasty leftovers, but a well thought-through album, which, in his usual vein, draws together the sounds of the Maghreb and rock’n’roll.

Tinariwen’s music has always been evocative of West African deserts with their mellow blues-like guitars and shuffling groove. Initially recording everything in Mali until it was invaded by religious fanatics who deemed playing music forbidden, Tinariwen have had to lay down their last few discs away from home.

Welcome to the latest edition of theartsdesk on Vinyl, the monthly online musical resource that knows no genre boundaries as it treks through every release on plastic that it can find. This time round we’ve everything from death metal to obscure jazz to electropop, sounds for almost every musical taste. Dive in!

Damon Albarn isn’t just a national treasure but an international one. He seems to spread his reach so widely, with a mix of curiosity and boundless energy, a great deal of discernment and a vision as different as possible from the narrow-minded attitudes that feed the Brexit frenzy.

Madonna is the queen of reinvention and Madame X, her 14th studio album, marks another new brilliant, bonkers chapter in her 37-year career. The 13-track CD (15 on the deluxe version) was inspired by a recent spell living in Lisbon, where she clearly imbibed the Portuguese diaspora's music.

Rokia Traoré’s passage through this year’s Brighton Festival has been central, binding it to her Malian identity in a series of gigs. This hands-on Guest Director’s pulsing Afro-rock Opening Night was followed by the first Dream Mandé show’s recasting of traditional sounds. A Malian Dance Night added FGM protest, Seventies s.f.-soundtracked myth and cheeky wit from young choreographers. But this show is surely Traoré’s cornerstone, supporting all the rest, as she takes on the role of griot to recast Mali as democracy’s secret rock.

Much of Rokia Traoré’s set on Saturday night comprised folk songs about Mali’s warrior kings, connecting with her country’s fabulously wealthy, proudly powerful past. They suit this diplomat’s daughter’s regal stature, which she has put at the service of a nation still enviably rich in musical resources, but battered by civil war, poverty and terrorist attack.

We return, after only a week away, with Part 2 of Volume 49. Starting out with an amazing comeback from Adrian Sherwood’s Pay It All Back compilation series as Vinyl of the Month, this edition takes in everything from Prince to death metal to ambient classical. From reissues to spanking new fare, all life on vinyl is here. Dive in!

VINYL OF THE MONTH