Elijah’s Top 5:

Fantasia, Slift (Le Bosquet). French trio Slift here present a very complete statement on the face of rock n’ roll in the current day. (Heck, even their “genre” section on Wikipedia lists about every style of rock music conceived in the last 60 years.) Washes of keyboards, noisy guitars, relentless drum and bass rhythms, and vocals that carry their melody even across the most desperate shouts, what’s not to love?

Je T’ai Dit, v00000 00000000 (self-released). A short and incredible release from the highly prolific (and previously unknown to me) Alice Simard, highbrow brutality here is set right against deeply emotive synthesizer lines that will leave you unsure how to feel by the end of it, but in a good way! An important addition to the growing canons of “one-woman black metal projects” and “unpronounceable band names”.

A Tragic Theophany Befell Me As I Transfigured Into the Angelic Realm, Crystalline Thunderbolts Pierce the Sacred Mountain (Kapmes). I guess we’re in Heavy Keyboard Summer™ (synth summer? -ed.) because this mouthful of an album is almost all synthesizers and electrobeats, but it is lo-fi and I’ll be damned if it isn’t METAL. Happy, tortured, rainbow-scorched METAL!

We’re All Going to Be Fine, Lost in Kyiv (Pelagic). That’s right, more keyboards! More heavy sounds! But now it’s instrumental and highly cinematic! True to the band’s name, it’s almost impossible to hear this and not feel stuck in a war-torn, Eastern European city that is entirely unfamiliar, but has no apparent end.

World of Decay, Suicide Forest (self-released). When Suicide Forest was recommended to me a year or two ago, it was said that any band that plays a show with them had better really have it together. I liked what I heard then, and this album blows all of that way out of the water. The water is now only the deepest, darkest layers. There is no surface, no sunlight, and nowhere else to go but down. (But at least there are still keyboards, we’re five for five over here!)

Adriane’s Top 5:

Cumbión Planetario, Rizomagic (Soundway). Duo Rizomagic recorded Cumbión Planetario during a residency in the Swiss Alps, and the wide open spaces are palpable. This is cumbia at zero gravity, stretched out and synthesized to the literal high heavens. Based in Latin American popular genres and principles of cosmic tuning, Rizomagic calls their music psychotropicolombian futurism. For my money, it’s the sonic equivalent of endlessly zooming into a Mandelbrot set. What could be better?

Massa, Fatoumata Diawara (Nø Førmat!). Singer and guitarist extraordinaire Fatoumata Diawara does some of her funkiest work to date under the direction of producer -M- on new album Massa. Her first work for Nø Førmat!, Massa is lyrically introspective and sonically vibrant, a glorious piece of pop music in the fullest sense of the term that keeps her creative skills at the forefront.

Palagoma, Odd Okoddo and Ogoma Nengo (From Cool Waters). Made up of dodo singer-songwriter Olith Ratego and experimental drummer and producer Sven Kacirek, Nairobi-based duo Odd Okoddo performs electrified Luo rhythms and styles alongside octogenarian singer Ogoma Nengo on their first release since before COVID-19. It’s a hypnotic mix of hazy instrumentation and keen observations with countless interlocking elements. An exceptional take on the nebulous idea of folktronica.

Yaygara, Sosyete ’25 (Tru Thoughts). The cool, disco-tinged psych pop of Yaygara is heavily influenced by 70s Anatolian rock, Mediterranean pop, and cinematic funk. Sosyete ’25 handles it all with ease, style and substance equally present from start to finish. This trio–Kit Sebastian vocalist and songwriter Merve Erdem, producer and DJ Paul Elliott, and multi-instrumentalist and producer Glenn Fallows–has sizzling chemistry, and they keep it tight on Yaygara.

Zero, Alewya (Because London). I first encountered Alewya as a particularly outstanding featured vocalist on Little Simz’ Drop 6. Her debut full-length album Zero shows her to be an artist of incredible range and depth in her own right. She moves easily between sharp, sensuous, and ethereal over 15 irresistible and deeply personal tracks filled with house beats and touches from her Ethiopian-Egyptian heritage. Of all the excellent albums on this month’s list, this has been the one I’ve been anticipating the most, and it beats all my expectations.